Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Andre Butler, pastor of Faith Experienced Church.
You're listening to the Faith Experience podcast. Thank you for
joining us. We hope that this message helps you engage
your faith and experience the future God has for you.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Heymen, all right, today we're beginning a series called Blue
Table Talk. Y'all like my blue table here. And of course,
you know, one of the things that is really clear
if you understand the Bible is that God really cares
about families. I mean, he really cares about families, and
he really wants your family life to be one of
(00:38):
the best parts of your life. But for so many
of us, that's just not the reality. We have broken
hearts and broken families and broken children. And the reason
is we've been infected by ideas about family that are
(00:59):
not gods. You know, for the last couple of years,
at least until the last year, that was a really
popular show called Red Table Talk. Anybody ever heard of it, right,
And I'm not bringing this up to criticize an individual
or family or anything like that, but Red Table Talk
espoused ideas about family that just weren't godly. It just wasn't,
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you know, consistent with what God thinks about family. But unfortunately,
it's pretty consistent with how we and the world around
us think about family. And the problem with that is
that those ways simply don't work. They lead to broken
families and broken lives. In fact, Proverbs chapter fourteen, verse
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twelve says, there is a way that seems right to
a man. In other words, you think you're doing the
right thing. This is how things should be done, This
is how things will work. What the Bible says its
end is the way of death, where in translation says
in the end it leads to death. And you know,
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we know this. The world's way of dating, the world's
way of marriage, the world's way of parenting simply isn't working.
If you just look around, you can see that that
way of doing things is producing destruction rather than prosperity,
is tearing people up rather than building them up and
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cause them to have the kind of family lives they
want to have. And so what are we to do then,
If we're in this world and everybody's idea about family
is wrong, well, where do we get the ideas about
family that are right? We go back to the original creator,
the one that created family. He can tell us how
this is supposed to work. And the Bible tells us
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the psaulm eighteen and verse thirty. As for God, his
way is perfect. It might say perfect. That word wade
refers to a road. So the role God tells you
to take right, it refers to a course of life.
The way God tells you to live. It refers to
a mode of action. The things God tells you to do.
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God says those things His ways are perfect. They're without blemish,
they're without error. The rest of the scripture says, the
word the Lord is proven. It's proven. In other words,
you can look around and see examples of people who
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have done it God's way and see it working. You
can look in the Bible and see examples of people
who've done things God's way and it works for them.
And one of the reasons this rici of the scripture
shows us that He is a shield to all who
trust in Him. In other words, everybody that does it
God's way invites God into the family life. And God
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is the one that can make things right. God is
the one that can make things work. You know. Proverbs three, five,
and six is are some familiar scriptures. It says, trust
in the Lord with all your heart and lean out
to your own understanding. It says, in all your ways,
acknowledge him, and he will direct your path. And that
word direct not only means to show you which way
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to go, but it also means to make your path prosperous.
So the Bible is the one place that we can go.
It's God's words, God's instructions. That is the one place
we can get those things that will actually help us
understand exactly what to do to have the kind of
family lives we want to have. The Bible holds actual truth,
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not opinions, proven truth. It is our manual for dating,
It is our manual for marriage, It is our manual
for parenting, it is our manual for life. And so
on this series, what we're gonna do is we're gonna
look at what God has to say about these things.
We're gonna talk about God's proven way of dating, of marriage,
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and parenting so we can have our most treasured relationships
be what we always hope they would be and what
God intended for them to be. And our goal is
to do what Romans twelve, verse two says. It says,
don't copy the behavior and customs of this world. But
let God transform you into a new person by changing
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the way you think. Then you will learn to know
God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
So we've heard the red table talk way of doing family,
and whether you saw the television or podcast, whatever it
was or not, you've heard it in the world around you.
But now we're going to talk about the blue table
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talk way. One of my favorite movies was The May
anybody remember The Matrix. I know it's old now, but
when The Matrix came out, you know, Neo was giving
a choice, and one hand was the red pill and
the other hand was a blue pill. I know y'all
can't see it, but believe me that I have a
I actually got an eminem in my hand. No, it's
a skittle. That's even bet. I might eat this when
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I'm done. But and he was giving a choice. He said,
you can either take the red pill or the blue pill. Well,
I want to give you a choice in this series.
You know, the Bible said, I said, before you life
and death, blessing and curse, and choose life. Right. I
want to show you the red table talk way of
doing things. I want to talk to you about that
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because you're going to see it by the time when
we get done teaching about it was not God's way.
And then I'm gonna show you the blue table talk
way of doing things, God's way of doing things. And
my goal is to get you to switch from the
red pill to the blue pill, because if you do,
your family life's going to be everything you wanted to be.
All right, So now let's dive into this. And today
we're going to talk about love. So let's go to
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Genesis chapter two. Let's talk about love. Let me say
something as I teach this serious. You know, sometimes when
preachers get up and preach on things, people assume that
the preacher is perfect. And I'm here to tell you
I am not. Just because God has me preach on
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something doesn't mean I'm mastered it or I'm not growing
in it. My job is to preach the Word. He
might remember that scripture, so I say I'm gonna do
I'm gonna preach the Word even if I'm preaching to
myself sometimes. All right, so don't be like well, pastor no,
I'm just gonna give you the Bible and then we
can together we're on making sure we do it all right, Genesis,
chapter two, verse eighteen. Let's talk about love today. Let's
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look at love God's way. Anybody excited about this series.
We're gonna dive into this for about six weeks or so.
We'll see how long we go. Make go a little longer.
I'm gonna try to be good. I actually was telling
myself earlier that I said, you need a Joel osting this.
And what I meant by that was that that Joel
is really nice. Like Joel could tell you your house is
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on fire and you've lost everything, Praise the Lord, and
he'd be like, praise the Lord. Your wife cheated on
you and you gotta pay alimony. Praise the Lord. I laylujah.
Don't get me wrong, I love Joel. I believe he's
a man of God. He's doing great things for God.
But I was telling myself, you got to do that.
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You can't come up here and be my mama. They
call her the terminator in the pool pit. When she
could a depret she'd be like, oh, you bleeding everywhere.
It's the word. So I'm trying to make sure I
don't do that. So if I start going the wrong direction,
you know, somebody shout out joel Ostina's nose. He don't
do that, but all right. Genesis chapter two, verse eighteen.
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And the Lord God said it is not good that
the man should be alone. Who decided that? God did,
I will make him a help meet for him. And
the Lord God calls a deep sleep to fall upon that,
I mean he slept, and he took one of his
ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof, and the
red which the Lord God had taken from man made
he a woman and brought her to the man. Lots
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happened here. In fact, this opening scripture we'll look at again.
But you notice that God sees this man by himself,
and he, for the first time in creation, says something
is not good, which told you that God wants things
to be good. And what's not a good thing is
that this man is alone. So God says, I'm going
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to make him and help meet for him, and that
helped meet is called woman. Woman was God's gift to man.
The problem was man being alone, and God's solution was
to give the man a woman. So we see the
first surgery in history. God causes the man to go
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under a deep to fall asleep, and he's in a
deep sleep, and God literally opens the man up, pulls
out a rib, closes the man back up, and then
he does something different than he had done until this point.
Up until this point, everything he created in the world
he created from the dust. But when it came time
to create the woman, he created her from the rib
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because the relationship between a man and a woman was
going was supposed to be a unique relationship. And then
once God gets done creating Eve, God brought her to
the man. Now, most of us have been to a wedding.
We have seen that moment where the father walks the
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bride down the aisle. Everybody stands, you know, the music
that she selected comes on. It is one of those
moments that everybody waits for, and here in scripture we
see it for the very first time. God walks Eve
down the aisle to Adam. He is presented with God's
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gift to him, this woman. So then Adam says in
verse twenty three, this is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman
because she was taken out a man. God gave Adam
a revelation of how he created her. He gave a
revelation of the significance of her being created out of him.
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And there's a lot there we'll get back into. But
then verse twenty four really gets to the point. Therefore
notice it. Therefore, anytime you see therefore and about, you
look to see what is Therefore, thank you somebody's awake
here right that God's trying to say something here. Therefore
shall a man a man shall leave his father and
his mother, and shall cleave into his wife, and they
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shall be one flesh. In other words, this story isn't
just about Adam and Eve. God was showing us a
pattern that was to be followed by man from here on.
This was how families were to be created. I think
it's really interesting the first word God actually said about
marriage was cleave, which means to stick together. A big
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part of cleaving is sex. And why to God creates sex.
We wants many women to have pleasure to enjoy each other.
But he also wants them to have godly seed or children,
so he wants families. So what we're seeing here as
far as is that God is showing us this is
how I want families to come into being. This is
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how this world is supposed to be populated. Now, here's
a very interesting point. The Bible starts with the wedding,
and the Bible ends with the wedding. It starts with
the wedding here between Adam and Eve, and it ends
with the wedding between the Church or the bride of
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Christ and Jesus himself. So you can see God created
and God loves families in every form. He loves the
family of a man, his wife and children. He also
loves the family of God. And God has a very
clear picture in his mind of what family life is
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supposed to look like, of how family relationships are supposed
to work. If I go to Song of Solomon chapter two.
Of course, if you're not following along with your Bible
or your or your tablet, you can always see the
scriptors on the screen. In Songo Solomon chapter two, we
can see what God was thinking, what he was hoping
for when he created family. And in Song of Solomon
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we actually read a he love story. I mean, the
best marriage book you ever read is Song of Solomon.
So we read about Solomon and his wife and notice
something that she says in verse chapter two and verse five.
She says, sustain me with cakes of raisins. Refresh me
with apples for I am love sick? Anybody ever been
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loved sick? Okay, thank you for those two amens. Rest
you're lying. You fell in love with that book too,
boy back in middle school? Come on, not tell the truth.
She says, I am love sick. I am weak. When
translation says with love, she's talking about how she feels
about her her husband, her relationship him. In fact, I
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want to read to you an excerpt from a book
called Intimacy Ignited. It was written by two couples that
study the book of Song of Solomon for forty years.
I mean think they might know a little something about
Song of Solomon after studying for forty years. So notice
what this says, and it gets little steamy because Song
of Solomon is a little steamy. It says she confesses
that the intensity of her love makes her physically weak.
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She has overcome with sexual desire for her husband. She
is swooning with desire. She has that ache in the
pit of her stomach. She has that loss of appetite
which can only be cured by her being spread out
with her lover and by eating and drinking of the
delights of love making. She needs sustenance to alleviate her
love sickness, and asks Solomon to bring her raisin cakes
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and apples, which are symbols of erotic love. Raising cakes
were thought to be an aphrodisiac. In other words, she
asked him to satisfy her sexually. So this woman is saying,
I am so in love with you, I am love sick,
and I need you to help me with this right now.
And this is this is how she felt about him.
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If you ever read the chapter book of Song of Solomon,
you can see men, these two were in love, and
that's not something that only they were supposed to experience.
That's actually something God wants every married couple to experience,
being love sick, and not just on your wedding day,
not just in the first year, but throughout your marriage.
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I think, oh, was that my father's church a couple
of weeks ago on him my mother did a marriage
conference and he said something that you know, I caught
my attention. He said, we are more in love today
than we ever have been. And they've been married for
forty seven years, and that's really what God wants. In fact,
Proverbs chapter five give us another picture. This I won't
take it to it. But it talks there about the
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fact that God wants you to be ravished always with
each other's love. The word ravage there literally means intoxicated.
God wants you drunk in love with your spouse. Ecclesiastes
ninety nine says, live joyfully with the wife whom you
love all the days of your life. He wants you
to live joyfully, you know, in enjoying life together. He
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wants that for you and your marriage. That's what God
wants when he created marriage. This is what he pictured,
a man and a woman sick in love. It's only
kind of sick. He wants you to be so in
love that they can hardly take it, like this woman was.
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And when that happens, you get the result. In Psalm
one twenty eight, verses two through four, God is talking
to the man that lives right before him, loves the
Word of God, and he's telling him what's going to
happen him. And he says, you will enjoy the fruit
of your labor. How joyful somebody say, joyful and prosperous
you will be. Your wife will be like a fruitful
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grapeviund flourishing within your home. That's what you want as
a man. Your children will be like vigorous, young olive
trees as they sit around your table. They're happy, they're healthy,
they're bouncing around. That is the Lord's blessing for those
who fear him. When God sees family, when he thinks
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about what he intended, that's it. Flourishing wife, happy husband, kids,
bouncing around, enjoying life. He wants children to be raised
in an environment where their parents are love, sick, and
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love them. This is God's will for your family. It's
God's will for my family. It's God's will for every family.
Why care somebody saying, pastor, that sounds great, but that
is not what we're living. What's God to Exus Chapter fifteen,
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verse twenty two. Now in Exodus, Israel had just been
delivered from Egypt. Right, they had God open the Red
Sea so they could walk through. Then He crashed the
Red Sea on their enemies. Then they break out dancing
and singing and celebrating. They finally had what they have
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been believing God for for four hundred years. And that's
how some people are on their wedding day. Right, I've
been believing God for this man, believing God for this woman,
I'm finally entering this stage in my life, and that's
a wonderful thing. But unfortunately Israel went from a celebration
to a bitter reality. And a lot of people who
have gotten married have gone to that same transition. You know,
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they had dreamed of this for so long, and now
they're here and they're dealing with unexpected difficulties. They things
were great, but now they are dry. Their victory was sweet,
but now things are bitter. Well, if you read it,
says Moses broad Israel from the Red Sea. And then
they went out into the wilderness of Sure and they
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went three days in the wilderness and found no water.
I mean, that's a problem. You go three days without
any water. This is what happened to them. All this time.
They wanted to get set free, and now they're set free.
But now here they are and they're thirsty. They feel
like they're about to die from thirst. And this is
not what I expect. This is not what I was
looking for. Well, verse twenty three. Now when they came tomorrow,
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they cannot drink the waters tomorrow, for they were bitter.
In other words, it's like drinking from the ocean. How
many know you can't do that. Okay, some of y'all
don't know. You can't do them. Glad I gave you
that revelation today, right, he had to kill you. It'll
make you sick for sit These waters are bitter, but
imagine the feeling that they imagine how devastating has had
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to be to go three days with wild water. And yeah,
everybody is thirsty and everybody's hurting. And then to sea water, celebrate,
hall we found waterley has everybody run into it, Whoo,
God is good. And then they drinking the water. All
we can't treat this. We still don't have any water.
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So from celebration to crushing disappointment verse twenty four. And
then people complained against Moses. I can't say I blame them,
saying what shall we drink? So he cried out to
the Lord. When things aren't good in your family, when
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they're tough at home, cry out to the Lord. Why?
Because God answers prayer. That's what he did here. He
cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him
a tree, and when he cast it into the waters,
the waters were made sweet. So God used something unusual
to fix the problem. He showed him a tree, and
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he told him what to do. And the tree was
actually a type we might call it today a movie
preview of what Jesus was gonna do for all of mankind.
It was a type of Jesus on the cross. His
death took us from bitter to sweet. But you can
see here something about God in general, something about Jesus.
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Jesus makes the bitter sweet. See, this was an outright
miracle to turn water from salt water to fresh water instantly, miracle, unquestionably.
A minute ago, we couldn't drink it because it was
salt water, and now we're enjoying as much as we
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can handle because it's fresh water. And God can work
a miracle in your home. God can work a miracle
with your children, with your marriage, and even in your
single life. He can bring the right person to you.
He can take you from bitter to sweet. In fact,
the Bible reveals to us that God's a god who
turns a curse into a blessing. He turns with satan
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mean for evil to our good. God is great at
changing things, transitioning thing, transforming things, and he can transform
your family life so that it is everything he wants
it to be. But for that to happen, you need
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to do your part, and that begins by understanding a
key bedrock principle of family life. That is really what
I wanted to get to you today. So they help
you get that. Let me take you to Isaiah chapter fourteen,
and let's talk about the devil first. I know you
were not expecting that. Let's talk about the devil. What
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Isaiah fourteen, How are you falling from heaven? Oh, Lucifer,
son of the morning. So we know he's talking to
the devil because his name is Lucifer. Right, that literally
means the morning star or the sun of the morning.
How you are cut down to the ground, you who
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weakened the nations, For you have said in your heart,
I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God. I will also sit on
the mount of the congregation, on the farthest side of
the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.
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I will be like the most high. What's he talking
about here? Well, Jesus said in Luke nineteen, I saw
Satan fall like lightning. There was war in heaven. Roman
Revelation twelve tells us about it, because Satan tried to
overthrow God. In fact, the message translation of the last
phrase is I'll take over as king of the universe.
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He tried to overthrow God. He got a third of
the angels to join up with him, and then he
lost badly, so he was falling from heaven. He was
cast down, you know. And of course he lives in
a place called Hell, which in the middle of this
planet that wasn't created for man. It was created for him.
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How did he get there? I mean, if you study
what the Bible says about Satan, he was created by
God and he was a beautiful creature. There's real reason
to believe that his body was made of musical instruments
and he was the music minister of heaven. You could
definitely read some scripture and come to that conclusion. But
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the Bible says iniquity was found in him. He allowed
himself to begin to think and believe in a way
that was contrary to how God created him. And I
want you to notice again what he said. I'm want
to read it again verse thirteen. For you have said
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in your heart, and this is something to think about.
Beware of what's actually in your heart. We just finished
that series, right, man, in the mirror, Look in the mirror.
I will ascend into heaven. Notice the eyes. I will
is at my throne above the stars of God. I
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will also sit on the amount of the congregation, on
the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the
most high. He said I five times, and said my throne.
Satan is known by many and in the Bible as
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a deceiver, and he is. But there is something else
that Satan is. He is selfish. He is selfish. He
wasn't thinking about anybody else but him, and he got
a third of the angels to buy into his plan
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and destroy their eternal destiny. Destiny, They're gonna suffer for
eternity all to exalt himself. Pastor What does this have
to do with families and blue table talk? The number
one problem in relationships is selfishness. During the even tell
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him don't be selfish, but that in the comments, don't
be selfish. Number one problem in relationships is selfishness. The
reason why some people are still single is because they
are selfish. And you aren't ready to get married. You
need to work on yourself. The reason why some marriages
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are nightmares is because of selfish spouses. The reason why
some children are miserable or misguided is because of selfish parents.
And if you're going to act like the devil in
your relationships, it will destroy them because being selfish is
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nothing but the flesh. And we understand based on the
series we just finished teaching that if you keep following
your flesh, you just do what feels right to you,
just do what you want, when you want, how you want.
You know that will ruin your life. And often when
we talk about that in relationship, we think about, well,
you know, if you have sex with somebody because you
feel like it and that person's not your spouse, well,
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or you know, whether you're single or married, that can
destroy you, and it absolutely can. But honestly, even that
is a result of selfishness. If you allow your flesh
to have its way and make it all about you
all the time, that can destroy your relationships, and that
can destroy your life. And that's what most people deal with,
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most relationships deal with. When you get into the root
of most relationship issues, it's selfishness. So the Red Table
Talk way of doing things is a dude was best
for me what I feel like, to get what I
want the way I want it. Y'all better do what
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I want or I'm gonna be mad at you, punish you,
leave you find somebody that will do what I want.
I mad at you, so I'm gonna sleep with him.
I mad at you, so i'mna sleep with her. Y'all.
You know that's the red table, what way of doing things?
Looking out for number one, It's all about how I
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feel and what I think. The blue table talk is
found in one Crienttions chapter seven, God's way. Actually, let
me take it to John chapter three first. Then we'll
go to first Clinton seven, very familiar scripture to many
of us. Verse sixteen. For God so loved the world
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that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes
in him should not perish but have ever lasting life.
God so loved I know Ministrys. Listen to growing up
evangelist Kase Strambler. She just say, you ain't been loved
till you've been so loved. And God so loved the world.
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God so loved you that he gave. How do we
know that he's so loved in his heart by him
giving in his life. I know what's in you by
what you do. True love gives right. True love gives
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for the benefit of the beloved. That's what true lust is.
Selfish lust takes. Love is selfless. Love gives, and God himself,
as a scripture is telling us, is selfless. He so
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loves that he gives. In fact, there are a scripture
after scripture that shows us that when we were sinners,
when we were God's enemies, God loved us, and he
gave of himself to us. He gave first, hoping we
would respond to his gift of love. He didn't say, well,
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when y'all make a move to get right with me,
then I'm gonna take care of you. How many we
would have been in trouble if he did that. God says,
I so love you that, no matter how I feel,
whether or not you deserve it or not, I'm going
to give to you, and the many wedding ceremonies. And
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one of the lines that I really like from the
book that I use is that real love doesn't say
I love you if you do this for me. Real
love simply says, I love you. So. True love gives first,
not after it's been given. To to truly love like
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God in your relationships is to be a giver. And
it's when you act like God in your relationships that
they become all you hope them to be. So how
do we apply that practically? First Grindion, chapter seven, y'all
with me, case said this way, it's not about me,
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it's about we. Somebody putting that in the comments and attorney,
they've been telling me that. To tell them, it's not
about me, it's about we. Find somebody behind you. Tell
them is not about me, it's about we, because that's
what true love says. We talked about love today, right,
Can we talk about it? Can we talk about it love?
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Real love, not the world's definition. Real love says it's
not about me, It's about we. And the problem a
lot of ladership they're not built on real love. They're
built on lust. They're not built on self listeners, they're
built on selfishness. And that's why the red table talk
version of relationships just won't work. That's why at least
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a death God's way is found in the First Criston
chapter seven, verse thirty two. Now on one Corinthians, Paul's
making a point. He talking about single life and married life.
And and he's making the point, really that it is
better to be single. He was single, he says, man,
it's even better to be single. But he's not saying
anything wrong with being married. Most people are called to
be married. If everybody doesn't get married, we don't have
babies and we all just die out. So but he's
(33:15):
making his point, and so he says in verse thirty two,
but I want you to be without care. He who
was unmarried care for the things of the Lord, how
he may please the Lord. When you're single, all you
got to focus on is pleasing God. And when you
are a single Christian, you really have more time on
your hands. You should be serving in your church, and
you should be leading groups, and you should be sharing none. Listen,
(33:39):
I got one, ain't man. The first statement, no, amen,
is the next statement. I'm speaking the truth. You really
should you have more time to do those things. Not
to say that you're marriage you shouldn't do it. But
if you're single, man, this church should be full of
singles who are serving. Right, But he who is married
(34:01):
cares about the things of the world. Get this how
or in what ways? What that means he may please?
What he may please, Actually a who his wife. There's
a difference between a wife and a version. Young married
woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she
may be holy both in body and in spirit. But
(34:23):
she who is married cares about the things of the
world how she may please her husband. I want you
to notice how this reads how he may please. The
(34:43):
word pleased there it has come from a word with
the idea of exciting emotion to be agreeable to. So
how he may please his wife, not how his wife
is pleasing him. Okay, let me come to this side.
(35:08):
Maybe it was the example I use how she may
please her husband, not how her husband is pleasing her.
See come on, can you see the difference between the
red table talk way of doing things and the blue
table talk way of doing things? Because the world's way is, well,
(35:29):
you gotta make me happy, and if you don't make
me happy, I'm gonna find somebody that will. God's way
says it's my job to make you happy, whether you're
making me happy or not. The world says you do.
And maybe you know, it doesn't say given. It says take,
(35:50):
and maybe give. God says give and to be given
to you good measure pressed down, shaking together and running
over the world says look out for number one. God's
Way says, you look out for them, and I'll look
out for you. In fact, the way God's word work,
says way works, is if you actually look out for them,
(36:11):
you'll find that often they'll look out for you. So
you can see the pattern that we have in the
world today. You've got marriages where I only do what
what I was right by you, if you do what's
right by me and says you ain't doing what I want,
I ain't gonna do what you want and says I
ain't doing what you want, you ain't gonna do what
I want and crash or I'm gonna take care of
(36:35):
you whether you take care of me, and but while
I'm taking care of you, you're so happy you take
care of me, And then I take care of you
and you take care of me. And this is why
marriage can be hell or heaven. And it's based on
this principle. You know, I'm on social media like anybody else,
and so you know, every once in a while I
want TikTok, and I notice the pattern. Every once in
(36:58):
a while I come across the TikTok ab woman talking
about taking care of her husband, and she'd be talking
about sexually, you know, how you know you need to
do this for your husband and how he feels about it,
and how is this that and the other, and we'll
talk about some of the things about that, and then
I will always drop into comments. And the comments showed
me everything we're talking about, because it was woman after
woman after woman. Will know when he do this, then
(37:21):
I'll do that. If he does this, this, this, and this,
then I'll do that. If he wasn't this, then I
do that. And I didn't put it. I wanted to
put in comments. This's why y'all all so messed up,
like you got this completely backwards. That's not how this works.
How he may please his wife, his focus has to
(37:45):
be on meeting her needs. His focus can't even be
on how he feels, because the idea is to excite emotion.
It's got to be on how she feels, making sure
doing everything he can to help her to feel fulfilled
and versa. Her focus can be on me and how
I feel and my needs. It's got to be on
(38:05):
meeting his needs and making sure he's fulfilled. That. That's
how this is supposed to work. When I do pre
mardal counseling, I always teach on this. And one of
the things I encourage couples to do is read a
book called His Needs, Her Needs. We might go through
some of that in this series, and his Niece Her
Needs walk through the five major needs of men in
marriage and the five major needs of women in marriage.
(38:26):
And I always tell couples, when you read that book together,
because I haven't read it together. I say, don't read
the book focused on your needs, read the book focused
on their needs. Because often even in preaching this that
while I've been preaching this, you've been thinking, uh huh, see,
he's supposed to take care of my knees. You're the problem, dummy.
(38:48):
Oh wait, Joelo stan Jolo stan Jolo's tack. You're the problem.
You're not getting this right. One Crineen is thirteen, verse four.
Love endures long, and it's patient and kind. Love never
is envious nor boils over with jealousy. It's not both.
(39:08):
For a vainglorious does not display itself haughtily. It is
not conceited, arrogant and inflated with pride. It is not rude,
unmatterly and does not act unbecomingly. Can you put your
name in this scripture? Everywherehere it says love, because that's
what you should be able to do. Notice this love,
God's love.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
In us does not insist on its own rights or
its own way, for it is not self seeking.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Love is not self It doesn't insist on its own rights,
its own way. That's what true love does. Well, if
it's not focused on itself, then what is it focused on? Well? First,
crinteen is ten twenty four is number of scriptures that
says something like this. It says in one cent is
(40:03):
ten twenty four. Let no one seek his own be
each one the other's well being. So love is not
once again looking at themselves, is looking at helping somebody else.
This isn't really just a marriage principle. This is supposed
to be a life principle. This is how Christians are
supposed to live, focused on pleasing others, pleasing God and
(40:26):
pleasing others and being a blessing to others, not just
making sure we're pleased. What are you saying, pastor selfishness
or selflessness? Excuse me? Is the key to a successful marriage.
Selflessness is the key to a successful family. The first
(40:49):
rule of marriage is to see to be a blessing
to your spouse, not fixate on if your needs are
being met. I'm gonna say that again because it's good.
The first rule of marriage is to seek to be
a blessing to your spouse, not fixate on if your
(41:11):
needs are being met. It's to meet their needs, not
to make sure they're meeting your needs, because seeking to
please your spouse is how your needs get met. We'll
get into some exceptions later, but this principle is it.
If you enter into a marriage or a family situation
(41:32):
focused on what you're going to get out of it,
you have the wrong perspective and the wrong expectations. And
that's all most people get married. That's how most people out.
They're thinking about what I'm gonna get, how great it's
gonna be for me, and you're not realizing it's not
about me, it's about we. You have to go on
to family life thinking about what you're going to give,
(41:54):
not what you're going to get. See, if it's all
about you, you become a nightmare to live with for you,
your spouse, if everybody, because it's all about you, and
and and and and usually when you're When you're like that,
it's kind of hard. You ever noticed that it's actually
hard for you to even make yourself happy? So how
(42:16):
hard is it for others to do it? A biblical
view of marriage is to not demand your own way,
to not be self seeking, to seek to please others
versus demand to be pleased by others. A biblical view
of marriage is to meet the need of your spouse
(42:37):
or even of your children, rather than yourself. It's recognized
it's not about me, it's about we ask yourself, if
you are married, or if you're a parent, what's it
like to be married to me? What's it like for
(42:59):
me to be mama, for me to be their daddy?
Am I meeting their needs? Let's take a moment and
take you off the table. If God were to call
you to heaven right now, and you are to stand
(43:21):
before the judge of the universe, and he were to
hold you or he would grade you on how well
you're doing and meeting the needs of your spouse or
your children. What grade would you get? Because I'm here
to tell you that's what he's looking at when he
(43:43):
looks at you. He knows that certain things aren't happening
for you, but he can't do much about it if
you're in the way. And you're in the way when
you're choosing to act like the devil and be selfish,
rather than talking in love, acting like God, being self less,
and then letting him deal with the heart of the
(44:05):
person that's doing you wrong. Because you know, you can't
change anybody, anybody ever. Figure that out. The older you get,
when you're younger, especially young in love, you think, well,
I can change this about him, and I can change
this about her. You ain't changing nothing. Oh I'm getting
I'm getting ghetto again. It didn't work. Rather, people have
(44:25):
to change themselves, right, So so you can't be focused
on that. March chapter eight. I like something I heard
the other day. We had a wonderful marriage conference here
(44:46):
the last couple of days. I mean, it was phenomenon.
Nough wow. And somebody says, you will never have the
spouse you want until you truly love the spouse you have.
And I added to that, God's way, it's not about me,
(45:09):
it's about we. March eight, verse thirty four. And when
he had called the people to himself or this disciples, also,
he said to them whoever desires to come after me.
This is Jesus talking talking about really salvation. This is
a salvation scripture. Let him notice these two words, deny
(45:33):
himself and take up his cross and follow me. This
is not a popular scripture. Jesus is talking about salvation.
This was actually a prerequisite to being a follower of Jesus.
(45:54):
Is that you have to make a decision that I'm
giving up my life give it to you like you
gave me Jesus. I'm disowning myself. That's what the word
denied their means. It means I'm gonna leave my care
in the hands of someone else, and that someone else's God.
(46:16):
The New Living Translation says, turn from your selfish ways.
So if you're gonna follow me, you'd recognize it's not
about thee cant. I do a King James version version
of the way of it saying it. That's what salvation is.
Christians deny themselves. They put God and others ahead of themselves.
(46:40):
That's why the scripture I gave you in First King
Corinthians ten was a Christian scripture. Don't think of your own,
think of another's. Taking up your cross is referring to
choosing suffering, Oh boy, when we're not talking about choosing
sickness or disease or destruction. We're talking about christ Christian suffering,
(47:01):
which is the denying of yourself, is resisting the temptation
to sin. And the number one way I believe Christians
suffer today is called long suffering. When you are suffering
because of a relationship with another individual. And so what
you have to do is learn how to walk in
(47:23):
love while they hate. Is not say something bad, is
not knock them out, it's not talk about them, is
not give up on them. That's the kind of suffer
where you know you want to but you just keep
it together because you love God and you're trying to
be like Jesus, and you know, doing it the red
table talk way ain't gonna make this right. So I'm
(47:43):
a love God and I'm gonna go pray. That's what
God expects us to do. Marriage and parenthood requires concents,
consistently dying to yourself. I did to say, as a church,
(48:07):
what is my job as a pastor's to get people
from come and see Let's get you to come to
church and see the truth about Jesus and grow them
up until they get to the place where they come
and die. I know you're a mature Christian when you're
ready to die to yourself when it's about Him, when
(48:27):
it's about the mission, when it's about others, before it's
about you. If it's still about you, I still got
work to do, because my job is taking every one
of you from come and see, to come and die.
Because Jesus came and saw, and then he came in
died while we were yet sinners. He died for us
(48:47):
when we were hanging on a cross. He said, Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do. He recognized,
it's not about me, it's about we. You have to
die to yourself, and you had to recognize whether or
not somebody is able to do that raid or to
do that when you're dating them. I'm gonna get into
(49:08):
that next week. One more scripture proverbse thirty one. Somebody says,
not about me, it's about we. We live in a
culture that left my phone? Where is my phone? I
left it under it? Well, I had a phone. I
(49:29):
was gonna use an example. You'all know that feeling when
you realize you don't know what your phone is. I
just had it in front of all of y'all that
where on my phone, my phone sitting on my desk.
We live in a selfie culture. You know. Obviously, up
until we had smartphones, you couldn't walk around take a selfie.
But now you can go anywhere and people live taking
(49:50):
this out. And what is a selfie? It's a picture
of yourself, right, you can look at yourself and see
how you look, and and there's nothing wrong with taking
a selfie ended up itself. I'm not trying to create
some doctrine. I don't want you to leave church to
day and you about to take your self and say, oh,
pastor say it, don't take a selfie. That's not what
I'm saying. But when it comes to family life, we
(50:11):
got to stop taking so many selfies. Let's start taking
pictures of the people in our life and see how
they're doing. And then if their hair is out of place,
let's help them. And they got a frown, let's help
them smile. Let's let's forget about us for a moment
and let's focus on them. Love gives, and it gives first.
(50:37):
You know, most of us have probably had that experience
where you know, you you and somebody else need to
get something done, and you're like, well you first, there,
no you first, No you first? No, no, you first,
and eventually nothing happens. And that's what happens in a
lot of marriages. But when you do it, then I'll
(50:58):
do it you first. And they're like, well, no, you first,
you know you now you first? Why do you do that?
Could you're thinking about you instead of about them because
you're not willing to even step out and even take
up your cross. Sometimes you got to eat gravel. If
(51:20):
you can't eat gravel, ever, come on, Jesus, he ate nails.
Sometimes you gotta lay down your pride and say, well,
you know that's what loved es you recognize. I can
take it because it's not about me, it's about we.
(51:46):
Proverbs thirty one twelve. This is talk about the proverb
thirty one woman, but it applies to men too. I
think we send enough scripture all ready to prove this.
I'm just gonna use this because it's so clean. It
says she does him good and not evil all the
days of her life. What a testimony. This is the
(52:11):
testimony you want that you do your spouse and your
children good. That word has translated kindness and pleasure and
sweet and all those things and not evil that means adversity, affliction, vexing, trouble.
You do them good all the days of your life.
(52:32):
You recognize God has trusted you with that spouse and
with those children. You're a steward over them. You once
again you'll stand before God for how you treated them,
and you want to be able to say I did
them good. In fact, you want God to say you
did them good and not evil. One of the things
(52:54):
I've been thinking about is my goal is for one day,
my God, my wife, my kids, my family to be
thrilled because I've been such a blessing to them, because
I recognize, at the end of the day, where you
want and need to be famous is in your home.
(53:18):
You want to be famous in your home. Success is
when those who know you best respect you, and that
happens when you recognize it's not about me, it's about we.
I'm gonna read warm rescripted to you since it's here.
Romans fifteen, verse five says, May God, who gives the
patience and encouragement, who gives this patience and encouragement, help
(53:42):
you live in complete harmony with each other as it's
fitting for followers of Christ Jesus, and that is God's
vision for your family life, that you live in complete
harmony with each other. But to have it, you've got
to understand what we talked about today. Love gives first.
(54:05):
You've got to live this mantra, mantra. It's not about me,
It's about we. From on lift your hands toward having
for a momlicious Thank God for the word of God.
Thank you, Father for your word. Thank you for making
things clear to us. And I thank you that right
now you're dealing with our hearts, showing us different ways
(54:27):
we can make adjustments. We repent for those times that
we we did things the wrong way, for being selfish,
for not taking care of the needs of those that
you've entrusted to us. We ask for your forgiveness for that.
(54:47):
We thank you that because we do so, we are
forgiven and we're cleansed, and we're right before you, and
we commit ourselves to being selfless, to walking in true love,
to being a great blessing to those in our families.
(55:12):
And we pray Father that you help us to do that,
and we thank you that as we do so, you'll
make sure we're well taken care of in Jesus' name.
If you agree with that, just telling God, yeah, that's me.
Thank you, Father, giving praise and glory forward. Thank your Father.
Thank you for the families that have been restored and
(55:34):
changed today because of this. Thank you Lord. And now
every head bout, everybody closed in prayer, even if you're
home somewhere watching this, take a moment about your head.
God so loved you that he gave his only begotten
(55:55):
son that if you would just believe in him, you
would not perish but have everlasting life. God gave you
the gift of Jesus. He came, he lived here, he
became the most famous person in the history of the world.
(56:18):
He was beaten, he was whipped, he was stabbed on
the cross, he was hung up, he died, he went
into hell. He did all of that to get you
to this moment. He gave first hoping you would give back.
He gave his life hoping you would give him yours.
(56:44):
And if you've never done that, if you've never chose
to believe in Jesus, you're not sure if you would
have died to day, you would go to heaven. I
want to encourage you right now to make the greatest
decision you will ever make. And if you're ready to
do that, you're ready to give them your life. You're
ready to follow Jesus. I want you to just lift
(57:05):
your hand so I can pray with you. Given if
you're on line somewhere, lift your hands so God can
see it. You're ready to follow God. You're ready to
say yes to him. Lift your hand. Or you might
be someone that says, you know what, I made that
decision once upon a time, but I'm far from God
again for whatever reason. You know you're not right with God.
(57:28):
And the Bible says in one John one to nine,
thank God that if we confess our sins as believers,
God is faithful and just to forgive us of our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The world
says you got to clean yourself up, and then you
come to God. God says, come to me, I'll clean
you up. If you've gotten away from God, you're ready
to get right with him. Lift your hand is what
(57:49):
we love to help you with that as well. Where
to go? Well, I've given two simple invitations to first,
to choose to follow you Jesus to give him your life.
The second to get right with him or come home
to him. If either one of those apply to you today,
I want you to pray a prayer with me from
(58:09):
your heart. In fact, I'm going to ask everybody to
do it with you, and then watch what God does
in your life. Repeat after me, Heavenly Father, in the
name of Jesus, I come to you today to give
you my life. I believe that Jesus Christ is the
son of God. I confess with my mouth Jesus as Lord,
(58:32):
and believe in my heart that God has raised him
from the dead. I repent of sin. I'm sorry, Lord,
I turn away from it, and I receive you Lord.
Thank you Lord for hearing my prayer, for ranswering my prayer,
and for saving me. Now, my Father, we think of
(58:54):
that your word reveals to us that when we pray
this prayer from our heart, you hear us and we
become a part of your family. Thank you for those
that have made this decision today that they are a
part of your family, and we ask that your power
working them in their lives, helping them to have victory
in whatever situations they're facing. Pray that you help them
to know you to find freedom, to discover their purpose
and to make a mark in this world. And we
(59:15):
give you a praising glory fort all in Jesus' name
a man, come on, give aroun applause. Those that made
that decision today.
Speaker 1 (59:24):
Thank you for tuning in to another Faith Experience podcast.
Remember God as a future for you.
Hey, this is Andre Butler, pastor of Faith Experienced Church.
You're listening to the Faith Experience podcast. Thank you for
joining us. We hope that this message helps you engage
your faith and experience the future God has for you.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Heymen, all right, today we're beginning a series called Blue
Table Talk. Y'all like my blue table here. And of course,
you know, one of the things that is really clear
if you understand the Bible is that God really cares
about families. I mean, he really cares about families, and
he really wants your family life to be one of
(00:38):
the best parts of your life. But for so many
of us, that's just not the reality. We have broken
hearts and broken families and broken children. And the reason
is we've been infected by ideas about family that are
(00:59):
not gods. You know, for the last couple of years,
at least until the last year, that was a really
popular show called Red Table Talk. Anybody ever heard of it, right,
And I'm not bringing this up to criticize an individual
or family or anything like that, but Red Table Talk
espoused ideas about family that just weren't godly. It just wasn't,
(01:27):
you know, consistent with what God thinks about family. But unfortunately,
it's pretty consistent with how we and the world around
us think about family. And the problem with that is
that those ways simply don't work. They lead to broken
families and broken lives. In fact, Proverbs chapter fourteen, verse
(01:48):
twelve says, there is a way that seems right to
a man. In other words, you think you're doing the
right thing. This is how things should be done, This
is how things will work. What the Bible says its
end is the way of death, where in translation says
in the end it leads to death. And you know,
(02:11):
we know this. The world's way of dating, the world's
way of marriage, the world's way of parenting simply isn't working.
If you just look around, you can see that that
way of doing things is producing destruction rather than prosperity,
is tearing people up rather than building them up and
(02:33):
cause them to have the kind of family lives they
want to have. And so what are we to do then,
If we're in this world and everybody's idea about family
is wrong, well, where do we get the ideas about
family that are right? We go back to the original creator,
the one that created family. He can tell us how
this is supposed to work. And the Bible tells us
(02:55):
the psaulm eighteen and verse thirty. As for God, his
way is perfect. It might say perfect. That word wade
refers to a road. So the role God tells you
to take right, it refers to a course of life.
The way God tells you to live. It refers to
a mode of action. The things God tells you to do.
(03:17):
God says those things His ways are perfect. They're without blemish,
they're without error. The rest of the scripture says, the
word the Lord is proven. It's proven. In other words,
you can look around and see examples of people who
(03:37):
have done it God's way and see it working. You
can look in the Bible and see examples of people
who've done things God's way and it works for them.
And one of the reasons this rici of the scripture
shows us that He is a shield to all who
trust in Him. In other words, everybody that does it
God's way invites God into the family life. And God
(04:02):
is the one that can make things right. God is
the one that can make things work. You know. Proverbs three, five,
and six is are some familiar scriptures. It says, trust
in the Lord with all your heart and lean out
to your own understanding. It says, in all your ways,
acknowledge him, and he will direct your path. And that
word direct not only means to show you which way
(04:24):
to go, but it also means to make your path prosperous.
So the Bible is the one place that we can go.
It's God's words, God's instructions. That is the one place
we can get those things that will actually help us
understand exactly what to do to have the kind of
family lives we want to have. The Bible holds actual truth,
(04:47):
not opinions, proven truth. It is our manual for dating,
It is our manual for marriage, It is our manual
for parenting, it is our manual for life. And so
on this series, what we're gonna do is we're gonna
look at what God has to say about these things.
We're gonna talk about God's proven way of dating, of marriage,
(05:11):
and parenting so we can have our most treasured relationships
be what we always hope they would be and what
God intended for them to be. And our goal is
to do what Romans twelve, verse two says. It says,
don't copy the behavior and customs of this world. But
let God transform you into a new person by changing
(05:35):
the way you think. Then you will learn to know
God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
So we've heard the red table talk way of doing family,
and whether you saw the television or podcast, whatever it
was or not, you've heard it in the world around you.
But now we're going to talk about the blue table
(05:57):
talk way. One of my favorite movies was The May
anybody remember The Matrix. I know it's old now, but
when The Matrix came out, you know, Neo was giving
a choice, and one hand was the red pill and
the other hand was a blue pill. I know y'all
can't see it, but believe me that I have a
I actually got an eminem in my hand. No, it's
a skittle. That's even bet. I might eat this when
(06:17):
I'm done. But and he was giving a choice. He said,
you can either take the red pill or the blue pill. Well,
I want to give you a choice in this series.
You know, the Bible said, I said, before you life
and death, blessing and curse, and choose life. Right. I
want to show you the red table talk way of
doing things. I want to talk to you about that
(06:38):
because you're going to see it by the time when
we get done teaching about it was not God's way.
And then I'm gonna show you the blue table talk
way of doing things, God's way of doing things. And
my goal is to get you to switch from the
red pill to the blue pill, because if you do,
your family life's going to be everything you wanted to be.
All right, So now let's dive into this. And today
we're going to talk about love. So let's go to
(07:00):
Genesis chapter two. Let's talk about love. Let me say
something as I teach this serious. You know, sometimes when
preachers get up and preach on things, people assume that
the preacher is perfect. And I'm here to tell you
I am not. Just because God has me preach on
(07:20):
something doesn't mean I'm mastered it or I'm not growing
in it. My job is to preach the Word. He
might remember that scripture, so I say I'm gonna do
I'm gonna preach the Word even if I'm preaching to
myself sometimes. All right, so don't be like well, pastor no,
I'm just gonna give you the Bible and then we
can together we're on making sure we do it all right, Genesis,
chapter two, verse eighteen. Let's talk about love today. Let's
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look at love God's way. Anybody excited about this series.
We're gonna dive into this for about six weeks or so.
We'll see how long we go. Make go a little longer.
I'm gonna try to be good. I actually was telling
myself earlier that I said, you need a Joel osting this.
And what I meant by that was that that Joel
is really nice. Like Joel could tell you your house is
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on fire and you've lost everything, Praise the Lord, and
he'd be like, praise the Lord. Your wife cheated on
you and you gotta pay alimony. Praise the Lord. I laylujah.
Don't get me wrong, I love Joel. I believe he's
a man of God. He's doing great things for God.
But I was telling myself, you got to do that.
(08:26):
You can't come up here and be my mama. They
call her the terminator in the pool pit. When she
could a depret she'd be like, oh, you bleeding everywhere.
It's the word. So I'm trying to make sure I
don't do that. So if I start going the wrong direction,
you know, somebody shout out joel Ostina's nose. He don't
do that, but all right. Genesis chapter two, verse eighteen.
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And the Lord God said it is not good that
the man should be alone. Who decided that? God did,
I will make him a help meet for him. And
the Lord God calls a deep sleep to fall upon that,
I mean he slept, and he took one of his
ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof, and the
red which the Lord God had taken from man made
he a woman and brought her to the man. Lots
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happened here. In fact, this opening scripture we'll look at again.
But you notice that God sees this man by himself,
and he, for the first time in creation, says something
is not good, which told you that God wants things
to be good. And what's not a good thing is
that this man is alone. So God says, I'm going
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to make him and help meet for him, and that
helped meet is called woman. Woman was God's gift to man.
The problem was man being alone, and God's solution was
to give the man a woman. So we see the
first surgery in history. God causes the man to go
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under a deep to fall asleep, and he's in a
deep sleep, and God literally opens the man up, pulls
out a rib, closes the man back up, and then
he does something different than he had done until this point.
Up until this point, everything he created in the world
he created from the dust. But when it came time
to create the woman, he created her from the rib
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because the relationship between a man and a woman was
going was supposed to be a unique relationship. And then
once God gets done creating Eve, God brought her to
the man. Now, most of us have been to a wedding.
We have seen that moment where the father walks the
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bride down the aisle. Everybody stands, you know, the music
that she selected comes on. It is one of those
moments that everybody waits for, and here in scripture we
see it for the very first time. God walks Eve
down the aisle to Adam. He is presented with God's
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gift to him, this woman. So then Adam says in
verse twenty three, this is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman
because she was taken out a man. God gave Adam
a revelation of how he created her. He gave a
revelation of the significance of her being created out of him.
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And there's a lot there we'll get back into. But
then verse twenty four really gets to the point. Therefore
notice it. Therefore, anytime you see therefore and about, you
look to see what is Therefore, thank you somebody's awake
here right that God's trying to say something here. Therefore
shall a man a man shall leave his father and
his mother, and shall cleave into his wife, and they
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shall be one flesh. In other words, this story isn't
just about Adam and Eve. God was showing us a
pattern that was to be followed by man from here on.
This was how families were to be created. I think
it's really interesting the first word God actually said about
marriage was cleave, which means to stick together. A big
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part of cleaving is sex. And why to God creates sex.
We wants many women to have pleasure to enjoy each other.
But he also wants them to have godly seed or children,
so he wants families. So what we're seeing here as
far as is that God is showing us this is
how I want families to come into being. This is
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how this world is supposed to be populated. Now, here's
a very interesting point. The Bible starts with the wedding,
and the Bible ends with the wedding. It starts with
the wedding here between Adam and Eve, and it ends
with the wedding between the Church or the bride of
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Christ and Jesus himself. So you can see God created
and God loves families in every form. He loves the
family of a man, his wife and children. He also
loves the family of God. And God has a very
clear picture in his mind of what family life is
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supposed to look like, of how family relationships are supposed
to work. If I go to Song of Solomon chapter two.
Of course, if you're not following along with your Bible
or your or your tablet, you can always see the
scriptors on the screen. In Songo Solomon chapter two, we
can see what God was thinking, what he was hoping
for when he created family. And in Song of Solomon
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we actually read a he love story. I mean, the
best marriage book you ever read is Song of Solomon.
So we read about Solomon and his wife and notice
something that she says in verse chapter two and verse five.
She says, sustain me with cakes of raisins. Refresh me
with apples for I am love sick? Anybody ever been
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loved sick? Okay, thank you for those two amens. Rest
you're lying. You fell in love with that book too,
boy back in middle school? Come on, not tell the truth.
She says, I am love sick. I am weak. When
translation says with love, she's talking about how she feels
about her her husband, her relationship him. In fact, I
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want to read to you an excerpt from a book
called Intimacy Ignited. It was written by two couples that
study the book of Song of Solomon for forty years.
I mean think they might know a little something about
Song of Solomon after studying for forty years. So notice
what this says, and it gets little steamy because Song
of Solomon is a little steamy. It says she confesses
that the intensity of her love makes her physically weak.
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She has overcome with sexual desire for her husband. She
is swooning with desire. She has that ache in the
pit of her stomach. She has that loss of appetite
which can only be cured by her being spread out
with her lover and by eating and drinking of the
delights of love making. She needs sustenance to alleviate her
love sickness, and asks Solomon to bring her raisin cakes
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and apples, which are symbols of erotic love. Raising cakes
were thought to be an aphrodisiac. In other words, she
asked him to satisfy her sexually. So this woman is saying,
I am so in love with you, I am love sick,
and I need you to help me with this right now.
And this is this is how she felt about him.
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If you ever read the chapter book of Song of Solomon,
you can see men, these two were in love, and
that's not something that only they were supposed to experience.
That's actually something God wants every married couple to experience,
being love sick, and not just on your wedding day,
not just in the first year, but throughout your marriage.
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I think, oh, was that my father's church a couple
of weeks ago on him my mother did a marriage
conference and he said something that you know, I caught
my attention. He said, we are more in love today
than we ever have been. And they've been married for
forty seven years, and that's really what God wants. In fact,
Proverbs chapter five give us another picture. This I won't
take it to it. But it talks there about the
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fact that God wants you to be ravished always with
each other's love. The word ravage there literally means intoxicated.
God wants you drunk in love with your spouse. Ecclesiastes
ninety nine says, live joyfully with the wife whom you
love all the days of your life. He wants you
to live joyfully, you know, in enjoying life together. He
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wants that for you and your marriage. That's what God
wants when he created marriage. This is what he pictured,
a man and a woman sick in love. It's only
kind of sick. He wants you to be so in
love that they can hardly take it, like this woman was.
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And when that happens, you get the result. In Psalm
one twenty eight, verses two through four, God is talking
to the man that lives right before him, loves the
Word of God, and he's telling him what's going to
happen him. And he says, you will enjoy the fruit
of your labor. How joyful somebody say, joyful and prosperous
you will be. Your wife will be like a fruitful
(17:13):
grapeviund flourishing within your home. That's what you want as
a man. Your children will be like vigorous, young olive
trees as they sit around your table. They're happy, they're healthy,
they're bouncing around. That is the Lord's blessing for those
who fear him. When God sees family, when he thinks
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about what he intended, that's it. Flourishing wife, happy husband, kids,
bouncing around, enjoying life. He wants children to be raised
in an environment where their parents are love, sick, and
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love them. This is God's will for your family. It's
God's will for my family. It's God's will for every family.
Why care somebody saying, pastor, that sounds great, but that
is not what we're living. What's God to Exus Chapter fifteen,
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verse twenty two. Now in Exodus, Israel had just been
delivered from Egypt. Right, they had God open the Red
Sea so they could walk through. Then He crashed the
Red Sea on their enemies. Then they break out dancing
and singing and celebrating. They finally had what they have
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been believing God for for four hundred years. And that's
how some people are on their wedding day. Right, I've
been believing God for this man, believing God for this woman,
I'm finally entering this stage in my life, and that's
a wonderful thing. But unfortunately Israel went from a celebration
to a bitter reality. And a lot of people who
have gotten married have gone to that same transition. You know,
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they had dreamed of this for so long, and now
they're here and they're dealing with unexpected difficulties. They things
were great, but now they are dry. Their victory was sweet,
but now things are bitter. Well, if you read it,
says Moses broad Israel from the Red Sea. And then
they went out into the wilderness of Sure and they
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went three days in the wilderness and found no water.
I mean, that's a problem. You go three days without
any water. This is what happened to them. All this time.
They wanted to get set free, and now they're set free.
But now here they are and they're thirsty. They feel
like they're about to die from thirst. And this is
not what I expect. This is not what I was
looking for. Well, verse twenty three. Now when they came tomorrow,
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they cannot drink the waters tomorrow, for they were bitter.
In other words, it's like drinking from the ocean. How
many know you can't do that. Okay, some of y'all
don't know. You can't do them. Glad I gave you
that revelation today, right, he had to kill you. It'll
make you sick for sit These waters are bitter, but
imagine the feeling that they imagine how devastating has had
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to be to go three days with wild water. And yeah,
everybody is thirsty and everybody's hurting. And then to sea water, celebrate,
hall we found waterley has everybody run into it, Whoo,
God is good. And then they drinking the water. All
we can't treat this. We still don't have any water.
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So from celebration to crushing disappointment verse twenty four. And
then people complained against Moses. I can't say I blame them,
saying what shall we drink? So he cried out to
the Lord. When things aren't good in your family, when
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they're tough at home, cry out to the Lord. Why?
Because God answers prayer. That's what he did here. He
cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him
a tree, and when he cast it into the waters,
the waters were made sweet. So God used something unusual
to fix the problem. He showed him a tree, and
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he told him what to do. And the tree was
actually a type we might call it today a movie
preview of what Jesus was gonna do for all of mankind.
It was a type of Jesus on the cross. His
death took us from bitter to sweet. But you can
see here something about God in general, something about Jesus.
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Jesus makes the bitter sweet. See, this was an outright
miracle to turn water from salt water to fresh water instantly, miracle, unquestionably.
A minute ago, we couldn't drink it because it was
salt water, and now we're enjoying as much as we
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can handle because it's fresh water. And God can work
a miracle in your home. God can work a miracle
with your children, with your marriage, and even in your
single life. He can bring the right person to you.
He can take you from bitter to sweet. In fact,
the Bible reveals to us that God's a god who
turns a curse into a blessing. He turns with satan
(22:19):
mean for evil to our good. God is great at
changing things, transitioning thing, transforming things, and he can transform
your family life so that it is everything he wants
it to be. But for that to happen, you need
(22:40):
to do your part, and that begins by understanding a
key bedrock principle of family life. That is really what
I wanted to get to you today. So they help
you get that. Let me take you to Isaiah chapter fourteen,
and let's talk about the devil first. I know you
were not expecting that. Let's talk about the devil. What
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Isaiah fourteen, How are you falling from heaven? Oh, Lucifer,
son of the morning. So we know he's talking to
the devil because his name is Lucifer. Right, that literally
means the morning star or the sun of the morning.
How you are cut down to the ground, you who
(23:32):
weakened the nations, For you have said in your heart,
I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God. I will also sit on
the mount of the congregation, on the farthest side of
the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.
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I will be like the most high. What's he talking
about here? Well, Jesus said in Luke nineteen, I saw
Satan fall like lightning. There was war in heaven. Roman
Revelation twelve tells us about it, because Satan tried to
overthrow God. In fact, the message translation of the last
phrase is I'll take over as king of the universe.
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He tried to overthrow God. He got a third of
the angels to join up with him, and then he
lost badly, so he was falling from heaven. He was
cast down, you know. And of course he lives in
a place called Hell, which in the middle of this
planet that wasn't created for man. It was created for him.
(24:38):
How did he get there? I mean, if you study
what the Bible says about Satan, he was created by
God and he was a beautiful creature. There's real reason
to believe that his body was made of musical instruments
and he was the music minister of heaven. You could
definitely read some scripture and come to that conclusion. But
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the Bible says iniquity was found in him. He allowed
himself to begin to think and believe in a way
that was contrary to how God created him. And I
want you to notice again what he said. I'm want
to read it again verse thirteen. For you have said
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in your heart, and this is something to think about.
Beware of what's actually in your heart. We just finished
that series, right, man, in the mirror, Look in the mirror.
I will ascend into heaven. Notice the eyes. I will
is at my throne above the stars of God. I
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will also sit on the amount of the congregation, on
the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the
most high. He said I five times, and said my throne.
Satan is known by many and in the Bible as
(26:08):
a deceiver, and he is. But there is something else
that Satan is. He is selfish. He is selfish. He
wasn't thinking about anybody else but him, and he got
a third of the angels to buy into his plan
(26:31):
and destroy their eternal destiny. Destiny, They're gonna suffer for
eternity all to exalt himself. Pastor What does this have
to do with families and blue table talk? The number
one problem in relationships is selfishness. During the even tell
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him don't be selfish, but that in the comments, don't
be selfish. Number one problem in relationships is selfishness. The
reason why some people are still single is because they
are selfish. And you aren't ready to get married. You
need to work on yourself. The reason why some marriages
(27:16):
are nightmares is because of selfish spouses. The reason why
some children are miserable or misguided is because of selfish parents.
And if you're going to act like the devil in
your relationships, it will destroy them because being selfish is
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nothing but the flesh. And we understand based on the
series we just finished teaching that if you keep following
your flesh, you just do what feels right to you,
just do what you want, when you want, how you want.
You know that will ruin your life. And often when
we talk about that in relationship, we think about, well,
you know, if you have sex with somebody because you
feel like it and that person's not your spouse, well,
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or you know, whether you're single or married, that can
destroy you, and it absolutely can. But honestly, even that
is a result of selfishness. If you allow your flesh
to have its way and make it all about you
all the time, that can destroy your relationships, and that
can destroy your life. And that's what most people deal with,
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most relationships deal with. When you get into the root
of most relationship issues, it's selfishness. So the Red Table
Talk way of doing things is a dude was best
for me what I feel like, to get what I
want the way I want it. Y'all better do what
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I want or I'm gonna be mad at you, punish you,
leave you find somebody that will do what I want.
I mad at you, so I'm gonna sleep with him.
I mad at you, so i'mna sleep with her. Y'all.
You know that's the red table, what way of doing things?
Looking out for number one, It's all about how I
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feel and what I think. The blue table talk is
found in one Crienttions chapter seven, God's way. Actually, let
me take it to John chapter three first. Then we'll
go to first Clinton seven, very familiar scripture to many
of us. Verse sixteen. For God so loved the world
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that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes
in him should not perish but have ever lasting life.
God so loved I know Ministrys. Listen to growing up
evangelist Kase Strambler. She just say, you ain't been loved
till you've been so loved. And God so loved the world.
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God so loved you that he gave. How do we
know that he's so loved in his heart by him
giving in his life. I know what's in you by
what you do. True love gives right. True love gives
(30:14):
for the benefit of the beloved. That's what true lust is.
Selfish lust takes. Love is selfless. Love gives, and God himself,
as a scripture is telling us, is selfless. He so
(30:38):
loves that he gives. In fact, there are a scripture
after scripture that shows us that when we were sinners,
when we were God's enemies, God loved us, and he
gave of himself to us. He gave first, hoping we
would respond to his gift of love. He didn't say, well,
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when y'all make a move to get right with me,
then I'm gonna take care of you. How many we
would have been in trouble if he did that. God says,
I so love you that, no matter how I feel,
whether or not you deserve it or not, I'm going
to give to you, and the many wedding ceremonies. And
(31:24):
one of the lines that I really like from the
book that I use is that real love doesn't say
I love you if you do this for me. Real
love simply says, I love you. So. True love gives first,
not after it's been given. To to truly love like
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God in your relationships is to be a giver. And
it's when you act like God in your relationships that
they become all you hope them to be. So how
do we apply that practically? First Grindion, chapter seven, y'all
with me, case said this way, it's not about me,
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it's about we. Somebody putting that in the comments and attorney,
they've been telling me that. To tell them, it's not
about me, it's about we. Find somebody behind you. Tell
them is not about me, it's about we, because that's
what true love says. We talked about love today, right,
Can we talk about it? Can we talk about it love?
(32:29):
Real love, not the world's definition. Real love says it's
not about me, It's about we. And the problem a
lot of ladership they're not built on real love. They're
built on lust. They're not built on self listeners, they're
built on selfishness. And that's why the red table talk
version of relationships just won't work. That's why at least
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a death God's way is found in the First Criston
chapter seven, verse thirty two. Now on one Corinthians, Paul's
making a point. He talking about single life and married life.
And and he's making the point, really that it is
better to be single. He was single, he says, man,
it's even better to be single. But he's not saying
anything wrong with being married. Most people are called to
be married. If everybody doesn't get married, we don't have
babies and we all just die out. So but he's
(33:15):
making his point, and so he says in verse thirty two,
but I want you to be without care. He who
was unmarried care for the things of the Lord, how
he may please the Lord. When you're single, all you
got to focus on is pleasing God. And when you
are a single Christian, you really have more time on
your hands. You should be serving in your church, and
you should be leading groups, and you should be sharing none. Listen,
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I got one, ain't man. The first statement, no, amen,
is the next statement. I'm speaking the truth. You really
should you have more time to do those things. Not
to say that you're marriage you shouldn't do it. But
if you're single, man, this church should be full of
singles who are serving. Right, But he who is married
(34:01):
cares about the things of the world. Get this how
or in what ways? What that means he may please?
What he may please, Actually a who his wife. There's
a difference between a wife and a version. Young married
woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she
may be holy both in body and in spirit. But
(34:23):
she who is married cares about the things of the
world how she may please her husband. I want you
to notice how this reads how he may please. The
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word pleased there it has come from a word with
the idea of exciting emotion to be agreeable to. So
how he may please his wife, not how his wife
is pleasing him. Okay, let me come to this side.
(35:08):
Maybe it was the example I use how she may
please her husband, not how her husband is pleasing her.
See come on, can you see the difference between the
red table talk way of doing things and the blue
table talk way of doing things? Because the world's way is, well,
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you gotta make me happy, and if you don't make
me happy, I'm gonna find somebody that will. God's way
says it's my job to make you happy, whether you're
making me happy or not. The world says you do.
And maybe you know, it doesn't say given. It says take,
(35:50):
and maybe give. God says give and to be given
to you good measure pressed down, shaking together and running
over the world says look out for number one. God's
Way says, you look out for them, and I'll look
out for you. In fact, the way God's word work,
says way works, is if you actually look out for them,
(36:11):
you'll find that often they'll look out for you. So
you can see the pattern that we have in the
world today. You've got marriages where I only do what
what I was right by you, if you do what's
right by me and says you ain't doing what I want,
I ain't gonna do what you want and says I
ain't doing what you want, you ain't gonna do what
I want and crash or I'm gonna take care of
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you whether you take care of me, and but while
I'm taking care of you, you're so happy you take
care of me, And then I take care of you
and you take care of me. And this is why
marriage can be hell or heaven. And it's based on
this principle. You know, I'm on social media like anybody else,
and so you know, every once in a while I
want TikTok, and I notice the pattern. Every once in
(36:58):
a while I come across the TikTok ab woman talking
about taking care of her husband, and she'd be talking
about sexually, you know, how you know you need to
do this for your husband and how he feels about it,
and how is this that and the other, and we'll
talk about some of the things about that, and then
I will always drop into comments. And the comments showed
me everything we're talking about, because it was woman after
woman after woman. Will know when he do this, then
(37:21):
I'll do that. If he does this, this, this, and this,
then I'll do that. If he wasn't this, then I
do that. And I didn't put it. I wanted to
put in comments. This's why y'all all so messed up,
like you got this completely backwards. That's not how this works.
How he may please his wife, his focus has to
(37:45):
be on meeting her needs. His focus can't even be
on how he feels, because the idea is to excite emotion.
It's got to be on how she feels, making sure
doing everything he can to help her to feel fulfilled
and versa. Her focus can be on me and how
I feel and my needs. It's got to be on
(38:05):
meeting his needs and making sure he's fulfilled. That. That's
how this is supposed to work. When I do pre
mardal counseling, I always teach on this. And one of
the things I encourage couples to do is read a
book called His Needs, Her Needs. We might go through
some of that in this series, and his Niece Her
Needs walk through the five major needs of men in
marriage and the five major needs of women in marriage.
(38:26):
And I always tell couples, when you read that book together,
because I haven't read it together. I say, don't read
the book focused on your needs, read the book focused
on their needs. Because often even in preaching this that
while I've been preaching this, you've been thinking, uh huh, see,
he's supposed to take care of my knees. You're the problem, dummy.
(38:48):
Oh wait, Joelo stan Jolo stan Jolo's tack. You're the problem.
You're not getting this right. One Crineen is thirteen, verse four.
Love endures long, and it's patient and kind. Love never
is envious nor boils over with jealousy. It's not both.
(39:08):
For a vainglorious does not display itself haughtily. It is
not conceited, arrogant and inflated with pride. It is not rude,
unmatterly and does not act unbecomingly. Can you put your
name in this scripture? Everywherehere it says love, because that's
what you should be able to do. Notice this love,
God's love.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
In us does not insist on its own rights or
its own way, for it is not self seeking.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Love is not self It doesn't insist on its own rights,
its own way. That's what true love does. Well, if
it's not focused on itself, then what is it focused on? Well? First,
crinteen is ten twenty four is number of scriptures that
says something like this. It says in one cent is
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ten twenty four. Let no one seek his own be
each one the other's well being. So love is not
once again looking at themselves, is looking at helping somebody else.
This isn't really just a marriage principle. This is supposed
to be a life principle. This is how Christians are
supposed to live, focused on pleasing others, pleasing God and
(40:26):
pleasing others and being a blessing to others, not just
making sure we're pleased. What are you saying, pastor selfishness
or selflessness? Excuse me? Is the key to a successful marriage.
Selflessness is the key to a successful family. The first
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rule of marriage is to see to be a blessing
to your spouse, not fixate on if your needs are
being met. I'm gonna say that again because it's good.
The first rule of marriage is to seek to be
a blessing to your spouse, not fixate on if your
(41:11):
needs are being met. It's to meet their needs, not
to make sure they're meeting your needs, because seeking to
please your spouse is how your needs get met. We'll
get into some exceptions later, but this principle is it.
If you enter into a marriage or a family situation
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focused on what you're going to get out of it,
you have the wrong perspective and the wrong expectations. And
that's all most people get married. That's how most people out.
They're thinking about what I'm gonna get, how great it's
gonna be for me, and you're not realizing it's not
about me, it's about we. You have to go on
to family life thinking about what you're going to give,
(41:54):
not what you're going to get. See, if it's all
about you, you become a nightmare to live with for you,
your spouse, if everybody, because it's all about you, and
and and and and usually when you're When you're like that,
it's kind of hard. You ever noticed that it's actually
hard for you to even make yourself happy? So how
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hard is it for others to do it? A biblical
view of marriage is to not demand your own way,
to not be self seeking, to seek to please others
versus demand to be pleased by others. A biblical view
of marriage is to meet the need of your spouse
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or even of your children, rather than yourself. It's recognized
it's not about me, it's about we ask yourself, if
you are married, or if you're a parent, what's it
like to be married to me? What's it like for
(42:59):
me to be mama, for me to be their daddy?
Am I meeting their needs? Let's take a moment and
take you off the table. If God were to call
you to heaven right now, and you are to stand
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before the judge of the universe, and he were to
hold you or he would grade you on how well
you're doing and meeting the needs of your spouse or
your children. What grade would you get? Because I'm here
to tell you that's what he's looking at when he
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looks at you. He knows that certain things aren't happening
for you, but he can't do much about it if
you're in the way. And you're in the way when
you're choosing to act like the devil and be selfish,
rather than talking in love, acting like God, being self less,
and then letting him deal with the heart of the
(44:05):
person that's doing you wrong. Because you know, you can't
change anybody, anybody ever. Figure that out. The older you get,
when you're younger, especially young in love, you think, well,
I can change this about him, and I can change
this about her. You ain't changing nothing. Oh I'm getting
I'm getting ghetto again. It didn't work. Rather, people have
(44:25):
to change themselves, right, So so you can't be focused
on that. March chapter eight. I like something I heard
the other day. We had a wonderful marriage conference here
(44:46):
the last couple of days. I mean, it was phenomenon.
Nough wow. And somebody says, you will never have the
spouse you want until you truly love the spouse you have.
And I added to that, God's way, it's not about me,
(45:09):
it's about we. March eight, verse thirty four. And when
he had called the people to himself or this disciples, also,
he said to them whoever desires to come after me.
This is Jesus talking talking about really salvation. This is
a salvation scripture. Let him notice these two words, deny
(45:33):
himself and take up his cross and follow me. This
is not a popular scripture. Jesus is talking about salvation.
This was actually a prerequisite to being a follower of Jesus.
(45:54):
Is that you have to make a decision that I'm
giving up my life give it to you like you
gave me Jesus. I'm disowning myself. That's what the word
denied their means. It means I'm gonna leave my care
in the hands of someone else, and that someone else's God.
(46:16):
The New Living Translation says, turn from your selfish ways.
So if you're gonna follow me, you'd recognize it's not
about thee cant. I do a King James version version
of the way of it saying it. That's what salvation is.
Christians deny themselves. They put God and others ahead of themselves.
(46:40):
That's why the scripture I gave you in First King
Corinthians ten was a Christian scripture. Don't think of your own,
think of another's. Taking up your cross is referring to
choosing suffering, Oh boy, when we're not talking about choosing
sickness or disease or destruction. We're talking about christ Christian suffering,
(47:01):
which is the denying of yourself, is resisting the temptation
to sin. And the number one way I believe Christians
suffer today is called long suffering. When you are suffering
because of a relationship with another individual. And so what
you have to do is learn how to walk in
(47:23):
love while they hate. Is not say something bad, is
not knock them out, it's not talk about them, is
not give up on them. That's the kind of suffer
where you know you want to but you just keep
it together because you love God and you're trying to
be like Jesus, and you know, doing it the red
table talk way ain't gonna make this right. So I'm
(47:43):
a love God and I'm gonna go pray. That's what
God expects us to do. Marriage and parenthood requires concents,
consistently dying to yourself. I did to say, as a church,
(48:07):
what is my job as a pastor's to get people
from come and see Let's get you to come to
church and see the truth about Jesus and grow them
up until they get to the place where they come
and die. I know you're a mature Christian when you're
ready to die to yourself when it's about Him, when
(48:27):
it's about the mission, when it's about others, before it's
about you. If it's still about you, I still got
work to do, because my job is taking every one
of you from come and see, to come and die.
Because Jesus came and saw, and then he came in
died while we were yet sinners. He died for us
(48:47):
when we were hanging on a cross. He said, Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do. He recognized,
it's not about me, it's about we. You have to
die to yourself, and you had to recognize whether or
not somebody is able to do that raid or to
do that when you're dating them. I'm gonna get into
(49:08):
that next week. One more scripture proverbse thirty one. Somebody says,
not about me, it's about we. We live in a
culture that left my phone? Where is my phone? I
left it under it? Well, I had a phone. I
(49:29):
was gonna use an example. You'all know that feeling when
you realize you don't know what your phone is. I
just had it in front of all of y'all that
where on my phone, my phone sitting on my desk.
We live in a selfie culture. You know. Obviously, up
until we had smartphones, you couldn't walk around take a selfie.
But now you can go anywhere and people live taking
(49:50):
this out. And what is a selfie? It's a picture
of yourself, right, you can look at yourself and see
how you look, and and there's nothing wrong with taking
a selfie ended up itself. I'm not trying to create
some doctrine. I don't want you to leave church to
day and you about to take your self and say, oh,
pastor say it, don't take a selfie. That's not what
I'm saying. But when it comes to family life, we
(50:11):
got to stop taking so many selfies. Let's start taking
pictures of the people in our life and see how
they're doing. And then if their hair is out of place,
let's help them. And they got a frown, let's help
them smile. Let's let's forget about us for a moment
and let's focus on them. Love gives, and it gives first.
(50:37):
You know, most of us have probably had that experience
where you know, you you and somebody else need to
get something done, and you're like, well you first, there,
no you first, No you first? No, no, you first,
and eventually nothing happens. And that's what happens in a
lot of marriages. But when you do it, then I'll
(50:58):
do it you first. And they're like, well, no, you first,
you know you now you first? Why do you do that?
Could you're thinking about you instead of about them because
you're not willing to even step out and even take
up your cross. Sometimes you got to eat gravel. If
(51:20):
you can't eat gravel, ever, come on, Jesus, he ate nails.
Sometimes you gotta lay down your pride and say, well,
you know that's what loved es you recognize. I can
take it because it's not about me, it's about we.
(51:46):
Proverbs thirty one twelve. This is talk about the proverb
thirty one woman, but it applies to men too. I
think we send enough scripture all ready to prove this.
I'm just gonna use this because it's so clean. It
says she does him good and not evil all the
days of her life. What a testimony. This is the
(52:11):
testimony you want that you do your spouse and your
children good. That word has translated kindness and pleasure and
sweet and all those things and not evil that means adversity, affliction, vexing, trouble.
You do them good all the days of your life.
(52:32):
You recognize God has trusted you with that spouse and
with those children. You're a steward over them. You once
again you'll stand before God for how you treated them,
and you want to be able to say I did
them good. In fact, you want God to say you
did them good and not evil. One of the things
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I've been thinking about is my goal is for one day,
my God, my wife, my kids, my family to be
thrilled because I've been such a blessing to them, because
I recognize, at the end of the day, where you
want and need to be famous is in your home.
(53:18):
You want to be famous in your home. Success is
when those who know you best respect you, and that
happens when you recognize it's not about me, it's about we.
I'm gonna read warm rescripted to you since it's here.
Romans fifteen, verse five says, May God, who gives the
patience and encouragement, who gives this patience and encouragement, help
(53:42):
you live in complete harmony with each other as it's
fitting for followers of Christ Jesus, and that is God's
vision for your family life, that you live in complete
harmony with each other. But to have it, you've got
to understand what we talked about today. Love gives first.
(54:05):
You've got to live this mantra, mantra. It's not about me,
It's about we. From on lift your hands toward having
for a momlicious Thank God for the word of God.
Thank you, Father for your word. Thank you for making
things clear to us. And I thank you that right
now you're dealing with our hearts, showing us different ways
(54:27):
we can make adjustments. We repent for those times that
we we did things the wrong way, for being selfish,
for not taking care of the needs of those that
you've entrusted to us. We ask for your forgiveness for that.
(54:47):
We thank you that because we do so, we are
forgiven and we're cleansed, and we're right before you, and
we commit ourselves to being selfless, to walking in true love,
to being a great blessing to those in our families.
(55:12):
And we pray Father that you help us to do that,
and we thank you that as we do so, you'll
make sure we're well taken care of in Jesus' name.
If you agree with that, just telling God, yeah, that's me.
Thank you, Father, giving praise and glory forward. Thank your Father.
Thank you for the families that have been restored and
(55:34):
changed today because of this. Thank you Lord. And now
every head bout, everybody closed in prayer, even if you're
home somewhere watching this, take a moment about your head.
God so loved you that he gave his only begotten
(55:55):
son that if you would just believe in him, you
would not perish but have everlasting life. God gave you
the gift of Jesus. He came, he lived here, he
became the most famous person in the history of the world.
(56:18):
He was beaten, he was whipped, he was stabbed on
the cross, he was hung up, he died, he went
into hell. He did all of that to get you
to this moment. He gave first hoping you would give back.
He gave his life hoping you would give him yours.
(56:44):
And if you've never done that, if you've never chose
to believe in Jesus, you're not sure if you would
have died to day, you would go to heaven. I
want to encourage you right now to make the greatest
decision you will ever make. And if you're ready to
do that, you're ready to give them your life. You're
ready to follow Jesus. I want you to just lift
(57:05):
your hand so I can pray with you. Given if
you're on line somewhere, lift your hands so God can
see it. You're ready to follow God. You're ready to
say yes to him. Lift your hand. Or you might
be someone that says, you know what, I made that
decision once upon a time, but I'm far from God
again for whatever reason. You know you're not right with God.
(57:28):
And the Bible says in one John one to nine,
thank God that if we confess our sins as believers,
God is faithful and just to forgive us of our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The world
says you got to clean yourself up, and then you
come to God. God says, come to me, I'll clean
you up. If you've gotten away from God, you're ready
to get right with him. Lift your hand is what
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we love to help you with that as well. Where
to go? Well, I've given two simple invitations to first,
to choose to follow you Jesus to give him your life.
The second to get right with him or come home
to him. If either one of those apply to you today,
I want you to pray a prayer with me from
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your heart. In fact, I'm going to ask everybody to
do it with you, and then watch what God does
in your life. Repeat after me, Heavenly Father, in the
name of Jesus, I come to you today to give
you my life. I believe that Jesus Christ is the
son of God. I confess with my mouth Jesus as Lord,
(58:32):
and believe in my heart that God has raised him
from the dead. I repent of sin. I'm sorry, Lord,
I turn away from it, and I receive you Lord.
Thank you Lord for hearing my prayer, for ranswering my prayer,
and for saving me. Now, my Father, we think of
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that your word reveals to us that when we pray
this prayer from our heart, you hear us and we
become a part of your family. Thank you for those
that have made this decision today that they are a
part of your family, and we ask that your power
working them in their lives, helping them to have victory
in whatever situations they're facing. Pray that you help them
to know you to find freedom, to discover their purpose
and to make a mark in this world. And we
(59:15):
give you a praising glory fort all in Jesus' name
a man, come on, give aroun applause. Those that made
that decision today.
Speaker 1 (59:24):
Thank you for tuning in to another Faith Experience podcast.
Remember God as a future for you.
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