Is The Devil Messing Up My Relationships

The reason is so hard for you to stay happy

is because it's so easy for you to get offended.

If you want to make it easier to stay happy,

make it harder for you to get offended. So I'm

working on this becoming Unoffendable project, and I want to

invite you in on it, because Jesus says that this offense,

however it started with your brother and sister, if you

entertain it, it creates a living hell. It spirals out

of control. Things can say, Things can spin out of

control so quick you don't even know what's happening. And

the enemy's agenda in your life is destruction.

Thief comes to kill, still and destroy.

That's John chapter ten, verse ten, Note takers, and his

agenda is destruction. Every good and perfect gift comes from above.

God's giver or Emmy's taker wants to destroy every good

thing that God puts in your life. Okay, that's his agenda.

His strategy is division. Jesus shared with us in Matthew

twelve twenty five that a house divided against itself can't stand.

Abraham Lincoln didn't say that, Jesus said it. Jesus said

that if the enemy wants to destroy your house. The

first thing he must do to destroy your house is

to divide your house. Are there any newly married couples

in church today? Newly married? Why are you clapping for them?

They haven't proven anything yet?

Is that pity?

Applause? Newly married couples? Just one more time? I see

I'm saying like.

Maybe like you're newly married? How new are you? That counts?

Would you come on the stage? Do you mind? I

don't want to embarrass you in any way. Is your

wife here? She's not here. You gotta sit down. You

would have been great too.

Anybody here with your wife that's newly married? You guys

actually made it to church together today.

I'm just kidding. I'm sure she's serving any kids? Would

you years? Two years? Yeah?

Come on, if you don't mind, come on, let's get

my hand.

Come on, guys, give them my hand. This is brave, man.

I have no idea what they're getting into.

I'm not just gonna preach about marriage coach day, but

I figure if I use a marriage illustration applight every

relet keep talking while they come.

Come on, guys can talk. Ai your name, Stephanie and Dan.

Good to have you guys. Yeah, yeah, come on all

the way off, that'd be great.

Let me show you what the devil wants to do

in your relationship. Because God said that the two shall

become one. This is exactly what the enemy wants. So

every battle you're gonna fight, every argument about the dishes,

really it's a it's the enemies. The enemy's agenda is destruction,

and so his strategy is the vision.

And the enemy.

I don't know if I believe in the devil or not,

but the enemy, Stephanie's not gonna be happy until he

sees you like this.

And what I just showed you.

The Bible says that marriage is even a picture of

Christ and the Church. So what he wants to do

to them, he wants to do this whole church, and

what he wants to do to them, he wants to

do to you and your teenage or what he wants

to does them. And so his agenda is destruction. He

comes to kill, still destroy. His strategy is division. And

here's his tactic. And this is the part I want

to preach about. And I appreciate you helping me because

you guys can help me apreciate a sermon today.

His tactic is offense.

Satan has an offensive strategy because if he walked up.

To you, I don't know how I forgot your name. Already,

tell me one more time, Dan, Dan, Dan the man?

Come on? Is Dan the man? Everybody?

And if the Devil were not subtle, Dan wouldn't stand

for his schemes.

But the enemy is very strategic, and Jesus.

Is giving us, really in Matthew chapter five, kind of

a playbook of how the enemy wants to work in

your relationship. And I know Dan's not going to let him,

but he's going to try. Now. He won't make an announcement, Hey,

I'm coming to kill and steal and destroy, you know,

because right now you just spend all those money on

the flowers and the dresses and all the groomsmen and

all that stuff. And I know it's been a couple

of years, and that's good because what you see in

those first couple of years is you see that the

enemy will usually start in a small way because if

he announced I've come to divide, Damn, the man wouldn't

stand for that.

If the devil came into divide, come on, stick your

chest out, Dan, Dan ain't having it. Dan ain't having it.

But if the enemy can just what he'll do, he'll

just use the littlest offense.

And what Jesus is doing in Matthew.

Chapter five, he's showing us how to deal with the

offense so we can keep the devil on defense. How

many want to keep the devil on defense in your

life and in your family? Come on church, so you guys,

if you sit back down, I'll bring back in a minute.

But I don't want you to have to sta up

here the whole time.

But just stay ready, Okay, all right, we're gonna come

back to here.

Last week when I was preaching.

I don't know if you remembered how many of you

were here last week?

Makes them now.

If the person next to you isn't making noise, touch

them and say you really.

Missed it, you really missed it.

I ended remember talking about you got this plank in

your eye, and you're so concerned about the little speck

in my eye while you're walking around your big old

plank just whacking them on the head, just causing distraction,

division and all this stuff. And it's the contrast between

the small things and the big things.

And there are times that a big offense.

I mean, there's not a week that goes by, Hollywood,

you agreed that somebody doesn't call me for counsel that's

going through a marriage situation, like a divorce of separation.

Buck, is this true? It's not a week that goes by.

It'd be another pastor, maybe a situation in the church,

and I get to talking to them about what happened.

And if you can go back far enough, you find

that every plank is made up of a lot of specs.

And to me, that's the heart of Jesus teaching.

I really didn't read you.

The whole passage because I want to break it down

and show you how it happens. He said, it could

be something as small as a word. Now write this down.

The closer the relationship, the greater the opportunity.

And that goes both ways.

The closer the relationship, the greater the opportunity for intimacy. However,

the closer the relationship, the greater the opportunity for offense.

That's why nobody can make you really mad, like somebody

that you really love. Really nobody can hurt you like

somebody that you've given your heart to. Nobody, And I've

asked the question a lot of times of people, and

really in my own mind, I've seen people that were

so loyal to each other, and if you had asked

me ten years ago.

Who is most likely to ever.

Have kind of an enemy relationship or who's most likely

it could be a divorce, or who's most likely to not.

Be speaking to each other? And some of those very

same people.

Just in the last year of my life, even I've

watched some things happen that surprised me and you kind

of every time.

You see it, you ask the question, how did we

get here?

You see how Big Dan was smiling over Stephanie.

Now they're going to.

Have a great marriage and all of that, and it's

going to be awesome. But yes, the question, how could

somebody who had that same hope, that same smile barely

stand to be in the room with somebody two kids later?

And it happens, And there's all kinds of ways that

it happens. I know there's compatibility, and I know that

it's not always something that you you can fix because

it takes one to forgive, but it takes two to

be reconciled. And I guess I want you to know

that my gold today isn't to so much do an

autopsy of anybody's mistakes, but just to show you something

that happens. It always happens, one offense at a time.

Yes there are betrayals, and yes there's adultree and yes

there's abuse. I'm not really talking about those big things

so much today.

As I am what Jesus was talking about.

He said, if you get something in your heart against

your brother and sister, and then you nurse it and

rehearse it long enough, it will literally create a smoldering

garbage dump of fire in the very relationship that was

once a garden of potential and love.

How does this happen? It happens one offense at a time.

How did we get here where we're smiling like.

Everything is okay?

But deep down in my heart, you know, if we

come to church, man, nobody sees this. When we come

to church, watch this, jes says. In verse twenty three,

he says, if you are offering your gift at the altar,

and there remember that your brother or sister has something

against you.

Leave your gift there in.

Front of the altar and get it right with the

person that is not right with before you sing a

song or pray, a prayer to try to cover up

the fact that your.

Relationships are under attack.

We were singing today in church, this song, this beautiful

worship song. Man, you should have seen the people singing,

and people had their hands lifted mercy full and that's

what was coming out of some people's mouths.

But if you can see what's.

Going on in their heart, Jesus, possible for you to

be doing something on an outward level and at an

inward level you're full of anger and resentment.

Mercy is.

Except on my husband, he aer on fasis.

If you could hear what was happening in the hearts

of people, How do we get here?

Jesus says.

It starts small, but one offense at a time. The

devil wants to tear dense heart from Stephanie's heart.

You know, God takes the two and makes the one.

The enemy takes the one and makes them two.

How does he do it? One offense at a time?

And God knows I need this message, man, because I'm

not a perfect husband. I give ninety seven percent of

the credit for the happiness that exists in my marriage

to my wife.

Three percent is me.

I'm pretty proud of that three. But if you put

me in the wrong situation, I can get offended so quick.

Just like on Twitter.

There was one woman that went off on me and

I still remember.

What she said three years later. You know, thousands of people.

Have said nice things to me, but I'm quick to

find the offense. We can train ourselves to find the

offense and then just overreact. Man, it starts off as raka,

you fool.

Next thing you know, I'm in living hell and what's

I bad?

Agus Jesus said, it can get so bad if you

don't deal with it, if you don't learn how to

deal with this Dan.

If you don't deal with the little things, little foxes,

he says, if you don't.

Settle matters quickly verse twenty five, with your adversary who is.

Taking you to?

According to that confused me because in verse twenty one,

we're talking about your brother or sister, right, we're talking

about somebody you're close to. In verse twenty five, we're

talking about your adversary. I always assume these are two

different people.

What if it's not.

What if the same person who you called brother and

sister in twenty one is the same person who will

be your enemy in twenty five.

If you don't learn how to deal with offense, it happens.

You ever thought about that?

That the person who he says, theo who doesn't deal

with the offense. And it's interesting how he says it.

If you don't settle matters quickly, that's so powerful. Saddle

matters quickly with your adversary who's taking you to court,

do what you can while you are still together on

the way, or your adversary may hand you over to

the judge, and the judge may hand you over to

the officer, and you.

May be thrown into prison. And truly, I tell you'll

knock it out until.

You paid the last penny, the prison of offense.

And it all started with Raca. It all started with Raca,

the small offense. It all started in the parking lot.

I was backing out and this guy honking his horn

at me and his pickup truck. Just a couple of

months ago, I took the boys to see that football.

Movie, the Christian football movie.

Okay, Wood Wood Woodlock Woodlawn. We went and saw Woodlawn

made a deep impressing on him. We're leaving the movie

and and this this guy he's hollering at me because

his wife wants my parking spot. The problem with his

wife wanting my parking spot is she is pulled up

so close on my parking spot. I can't get out

to give it to her. And now that's somehow my

fault to this guy in the pickup truck. So he

says to me, or offers a course of action.

To me, Hey, get out of her way. She's waiting

on your spot.

And I'm like, and then I figure out that this

is his wife because I'm putting it all together, and

I rolled down my window and I said something back

to him. No, it wasn't any profanity or anything like that,

but it was a rocket type thing that I said,

something about his wife's driving skills or something, you know,

something like that, just something insinuate.

But then he wants to get out of his truck.

And he's not bigger than me.

So now I gotta get out of my maximum because

I got.

To because my boys are watching this. And I even

be a good.

Example that if a man gets out of his pickup

truck and challenges you, it doesn't matter whether you have

an elevation sticker on your car.

You gotta handle it. Why are you clapping for me?

I'm some bewildered.

And I got out and I said, what are we

gonna do?

A question? Just a question. There's just a question. And

I don't know what happened next.

I think to this day, I still don't know, because

his tone changed dramatically.

I don't think he was intimidated by me. I think

he realized who I was. I think so because it

was right here in town.

And so I think he because I think he put

the sticker and the all the thing together, because all

of a sudden he turned real spiritual.

He was like, well, God, bless you man.

We're just all trying to get where we're trying to go.

And I was like, yeah, we are. Around this time,

Graham comes out the car. He's eight, you know. He

comes over and stands by me, and.

He said, you got your boys and I got my wife.

I said, as cool, and we've got over here, and

got back in the car and I said when Graham

got in the car, I.

Said, Graham, I said, what were you gonna do?

And Graham said I was gonna kick him in the

shin if I had to.

And Elijah, my older son.

He speaks up and says, Daddy, A better question is

what were you going to do? I said, whatever needed

to be done, Son, I hadn't thought that far about it.

And he said, well, think about it. I mean, let's

say you'll get in a fight in the parking lot

of the movie theater. Not only are the news people

going to put you on the news, but they might

not even we might not even ever see you again.

We're in the back of the car, and maybe they leave.

Us, and then maybe you end up in prison and

maybe we don't have a dad. Did you think about that?

And I said, that's right, son, I'm giving you an example.

How not to handle a situation. We went and ate

some Mexican food.

And here's why I told you that story. When you

are in these moments I'm talking about, not with somebody

in parking lot, somebody you love. You're not thinking through

the fact that this is going to end up with

me and you and an attorney sitting down talking about

dividing our assets.

That's not how division happens.

Because the enemy's agenda is destruction. His strategy is division,

but his tactic is those little offenses.

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