Relationships: God's Intent

I want to pick up where Pastor Jimmy left off and aim in just a little bit different of a direction, but pick off again talking about our enemy this morning, but also talking about our family.

How the enemy wants to work in our family.

But more than that, when I think of family, I think of relationships.

Now, if if you don't know me, if if if you don't have a clue who I am, I am very interested in relationships.

I'm relationally driven.

There's something about relationships.

I mean, when I used to fly all over the country, I would sit in the airport and I just I watched people.

It was the most entertaining thing I did on the road.

Just watch them go by.

Wow, Lord, what are they into?

We had some just great conversations.

I'm just interested in relationships.

Now listen, I've had a string of bad, broken relationships.

I'm going to tell you about some of those today.

So I've had my share of bad relationships, but I've encountered something.

My wife and I are presently living in something that I want to share with you this morning that I want you to live in.

Because I never dreamed it could be this good.

I never as a little boy dreamed marriage could be this good.

But marriage is not the only relationship I'm going to talk to you about today.

See, I have a parenting relationship.

I have four children.

I have three teenage daughters right now.

I have gray hair to prove it.

Most people think, you know, Jeff, you don't have any gray hair.

Most people think I wear gel.

It's really Grecian formula.

But I have this parenting relationship, and I'm interested in winning in this parenting relationship.

I have relationships in the church, in my life group.

I have relationships all around me.

I have relationships in the marketplace.

I'm relationally driven.

So do you.

But I want to talk to you this morning.

How do we win in these relationships?

What did God really intend?

Several years ago, when I was flying around the country, I uh I encountered something that didn't come across my path every day.

I was flying from Detroit back into the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

And while we were loading up the plane, just as usual, we we kind of taxied out and we sat on the tarmat for a while.

Then that dreaded voice came over.

We have mechanical failure.

We have to go back.

I mean, we sat on the tarmat for at least an hour, maybe two.

We go back, and you know what that creates?

Real frustration.

While standing in line.

The guy in front of me, this is what was the whole interesting part.

The guy in front of me gets up to the counter and begins to chew the little girl out from one side down to other, like she has control of everything.

I mean, he's letting her have it.

So I'm sitting back there thinking, my gosh, this poor little girl.

So I step up to the counter and I said, Honey, I've been looking to meet you my whole life.

And she, I'm sure she thought.

She had that look on her face like, I just met the meanest snake in the world.

Now I got a pervert standing before me.

I said, no, no, I don't mean it that way.

I'm married and I'm happily married.

I said, it's obvious that you control all mechanical affairs, you control the weather, and you control all flight schedules.

Because you moved to Dallas, Fort Worth.

I need you to live closer because you can tell me when to fly.

And she got that little grin on her face.

She said, Thanks for understanding.

I said, You're welcome.

She said, if uh if you like that story, you'll probably like this one.

I said, Really?

You got a story?

She said, Oh, it was the best day.

I said, Really?

What happened?

She said, same thing happened to you.

And there was a long line of people all in it.

And this, she said, I couldn't believe I did it, but I was looking forward to it.

But this man came up and pushed in front of the line and cut right in front.

He just walked around all the people and said, Ma'am, I need you to get me a ticket right now.

She said, Sir, you'll have to go to the back of the line and wait, just like everybody else.

She said, Don't you know who I am?

She said, I just couldn't resist.

I probably shouldn't have done it, but I did it.

I picked up that little microphone thing.

I said, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, right here at gate three, gate three.

Would everybody look right over here?

Do you see this gentleman right here in front?

If you recognize him, would you please come tell him who he is?

He slithered away.

Relationships, we all have them.

We have them in short-term relationships where we encounter them on the road.

It's called road rage.

We have long-term relationships.

My wife and I have been married almost 23 years.

We only tried to kill each other twice.

You know, Jesus had some thoughts about relationships.

He talked about them all the time.

If you have your Bibles, I want you to go to two particular chapters.

I want you to look in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

I want you to look in Luke chapter 5.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

I want you to hold both those spots, but we'll go to Genesis first and we'll go to Luke 2nd.

And we'll wind up in Luke.

I want you to show you Jesus talked not only about marriage relationships, he talked about relationship with God, he talked about parenting relationships, he talked about relationships in the church, he talks about friendships.

He had friends himself.

I mean, all kinds of relationships.

In-laws, outlaws.

We have all these relationships.

What I want you to see this morning is not a new truth, but it's still a truth.

It's the now truth.

What is God's intent in these relationships?

What was God?

What did God originally intend?

So let's pick up.

I'm going to go to Matthew chapter 19 first.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

I just want to read you a couple of scriptures and show you some questions the Pharisees were asking about relationship.

Matthew 19, verse 3.

Matthew 19:3

The Pharisees also came to him, testing him and saying to him, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?

She wears the wrong dress, got her hair wrong, does things we don't like.

Can we just divorce her?

And Jesus said back to them, Have you not read?

He who made them at the beginning, made them male and female.

In verse 5, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

So then, they are no longer two, but one flesh.

Therefore, what God joins together, do not let man separate.

How many of you have ever had one of your teenagers ask you a question, you give them the answer, and they didn't like it, so they asked the second question.

You have teenagers too, huh?

They always used to say this to us.

But mom, but dad.

It got so bad we had to say to them, you know, my name doesn't start with but.

I'm dad, but I'm not but dad.

Okay?

So drop the butt.

I got a feeling.

That's what they said right here.

But Jesus! He goes, No, it's just Jesus.

So they said to him, verse 7, why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?

Verse 8.

He said to them, Now watch this.

Moses, you want to know why Moses said this?

Because of the hardness of your hearts.

That's the reason he permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so.

Now, in both answers, I want you to see something.

He said, but from the beginning it was not so.

In the beginning, it was not so.

He said it twice.

Now listen, Jesus is normally not repetitive unless he's trying to make a point.

And when he tries to make a point, when he repeats something, he really wants you to grasp it.

So when I read that for the first time, in the beginning, jumped off the page to me.

And people, I tell people the time, I hear the Lord, and the Lord talks to me.

Listen, it came in an impression.

And just all of a sudden, those words, in the beginning, from the beginning, just kind of illuminated.

I thought, you're trying to say something here.

He said, exactly.

He said, What happened in the beginning that I was trying to get them to recognize?

I said, I don't know.

He said, Why don't you look it up?

I said, Alright, I think we'll do it.

Go over to Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

You understand in this Matthew 19 verse that I just read you, Jesus quoted out of Genesis 1 and 2, where he quoted, Man shall believe his father and mother and be joined to his wife.

He quoted that right out of Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

He quoted out of Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Those are exact quotes.

He took them back 4,000 years earlier because they were missing something.

I'm going to tell you today, still today, we're missing something here, and he wants us to be reminded of it so that we'll get back on track.

Because our deceiver, our enemy, is a deceiver.

And he wants us just to get a little off track so later down the road you'll be far off track.

In Genesis chapter 1 and 2, God explains the creation, how he worked six days, all the things that he put in it.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

But this is what I want you to understand.

Everything in Genesis 1 and 2, I don't know how long, but everything there evolved around God.

Adam got his wife from God.

All the animals came from God.

Everything evolved around him.

He was the center of attention.

Adam and Eve did not have a care in the world.

Everything they needed had been provided for.

Because God was on the throne.

So what I asked the Lord, I said, What happened?

He said, What do you think happened?

I said, Well, they disobeyed you.

He said, Partly right.

He said, Look further.

He said, look at their responses when I called them after the fall.

Look at their response.

This is what I want you to see, Jeff, because this is where you're living today.

I said, okay.

So I looked at Adam's response, and that was pretty easy.

He just blamed his wife.

He said, look at Eve's response.

Genesis chapter 3, verse 13.

Genesis 3:13

And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you've done?

And the woman responded and said, The serpent deceived me.

I said, There's a deception.

He said, What do you think the deception was?

I said, Well, I think I have an idea.

He what he normally does is he twists the word and he gets you to believe the twist of the word, and then you fall, right?

He goes, Nope.

I said, I better go back and read it, huh?

He said, Yep.

So, Genesis chapter 3, verse 1, look at what he says.

Genesis 3:1

This is where the deception came in, and I was surprised that I didn't know what the deception was.

But this is he showed me.

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said?

Now watch what he quotes.

Because this is where I thought the deception was.

This is not where the deception is.

This is what he quoted.

You shall not eat of every tree of the garden.

Did God say that?

No.

God did not say that.

God did not say you cannot eat of any tree of the garden, every tree of the garden.

Eve corrects him.

Watch.

The woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.

But the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat, nor shall you touch it lest you die.

Did she have it right?

Yeah.

She quoted word for word what God said.

She, she, A plus, check, you win.

But she didn't win.

Why?

Because there was a deception that he was about to introduce.

Listen, he doesn't play fair.

He does not play fair.

And when I saw this, there was an explosion in my spirit.

Because I realized something.

There are areas in my life I'm deceived.

This is what Jesus, what he's, what I'm about to show you is exactly what he told the Pharisees that day.

Watch it.

Satan makes a response.

He didn't say, Well done, thou good daughter.

You quoted God's word exactly right.

I'll leave you alone.

Never said that.

Then the serpent at verse 4 said to the woman, You will not surely die.

For God knows that in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Do you see the deception?

I'm going to go back and read it again.

If you have a pen there, I want you to underline it in your Bible.

Look for every time you see the word you or your.

It's in there four times.

Watch this.

Then in verse 4, then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.

What's the deception?

It's simple.

They had a God-centered world, and all he wanted them to do is replace the center of their lives with themselves versus it being God.

Do you realize God had created such a harmonious relationship with Adam and Eve?

They needed nothing.

And the moment that she says, you know, it could be about me.

The moment she began to look at that tree and said, you know, the fruit's desirable.

The moment she said, it would make me like God, she just removed the center of her universe, the center of her world.

She just dethroned God and put herself right there.

You know, this is not the first time this deception ever came.

It came in heaven years before, when Satan himself said, You know what?

I'm like you.

I'm equal to you.

I want you to honor me like you.

And God said, You are not like me.

I created you.

You're not the creator, you're the created.

And immediately he got kicked out of heaven with one-third of the angels.

Do you know why he wants this deception among us?

Because we lose that harmonious relationship with God, and he does not want you to have it.

He wants you to dethrone God.

Do you understand he has no retaliation?

He has no ability at all to retaliate against God.

He can't go punch God in the mouth and say, move over, and I don't like you, the fact that you kicked me out of heaven, move over.

The only way Satan, and watch this, catch it.

If you don't catch anything else I say, catch this.

The only way Satan can get back at God is to come at you, his creation, to get you to move God off center of your life.

The moment he does that, he knows you're going to lose the harmonious relationship God designed for you to have.

Did they need anything?

Nothing.

This surfaced eight years into my marriage.

If I'd have had this truth earlier, it would have saved me a lot of grief, but I didn't.

Eight years into my marriage with my lovely wife, I quit.

I totally shut down.

I was done.

I didn't love her.

I didn't want to be around her.

I was mad at God.

I didn't want God in my life.

I wanted to live for me and me alone.

So one night, after I very kindly let her know all this.

I wasn't ugly about it at all.

But she didn't, she didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out.

I wasn't really checked in.

With three small children at the time.

So one night she begins packing her bags.

She's throwing all of her stuff in, and I'm kind of hoping, you know, I'm sensing she's doing it, and I'm feeling servanthood come on me.

Maybe, maybe if you hurry up, I'll carry your bags through the car for you, babe.

I'm a real jerk at this point.

And she's packing back there, and I know it.

And she's leaving me.

And in a moment's time, the Lord came to her and said, What are you doing?

She said, I'm leaving.

She said, Where are you going?

I said, I don't know, but I'm I'm leaving.

She said, Why are you leaving?

She said, Well, he's a jerk.

I thought she was a little harsh.

Actually, she was really kind.

The Lord said something to my wife that day to change her life for the rest of her life.

He said to her, Jenny, Jeff is not your problem.

I said, Yes, Lord, he didn't love me.

He didn't support me.

He didn't help me with the kids.

He's only into himself.

He's a jerk! And the Lord said to her, Jenny, Jeff's been in the center of your universe for way too long.

If you'll move him off the throne of your heart, I'll do for you what I did for Adam and Eve.

I'll bring you into a harmonious relationship.

But I can't do it because you won't let me.

I'll make a deal with you.

If you'll dethrone him and put me on the throne of your life and do what I say, I'll take care of him.

She said, are there any stipulations to this?

Any strings attached?

He said two.

Well, I want to know those up front before I make my decision.

Number one, okay, I'm ready?

Shut up.

What do you mean?

Shut up.

I don't want you to say one word to him anymore about what he does wrong, how he's not providing, what he's not doing, how he's not loving you.

I want you to tell me, but I don't want you to tell him another thing.

Only thing I want you to do, second stipulation, is serve him and speak kindly to him.

She said, no, those are two tough stipulations there, bud.

She said, I don't know the one thing that he does right.

He says, Well, does he tie his shoes well?

Yep.

Okay, tell him, he ties his shoes well.

Honey, man, you the best tie-and-shoe dude I've ever seen.

She had to stress to find something to say positive to me.

But you know what happened?

When she did, there began to be a harmony in her life that wasn't there.

Because what she realized, this deception had infiltrated her heart, and it became about her instead of about God.

And I'm telling you today, folks, ladies, you don't know how many people I talked to, this is the same situation over and over and over.

You want your husbands to provide for you.

You want them to meet your every need, and I'm telling you, God is jealous because he wants to.

Husbands, you can put in that place work, you can put in hobbies, you can put in lots of things.

I did the same thing.

God wants to be the center of our universe.

Now, I would like to tell you that overnight God whacked me in the head and I turned around.

But I did it.

Two and a half to three years later, he got my attention and spoke the same thing to me.

But it did not matter to her.

Because she had found something that she would never trade for again.

I want you to hear me.

Hear me.

She doesn't care if I stay or go.

She loves me.

But her life no longer consists of me.

Now, we're married for life.

But if I flip out tomorrow, it's not going to rock her world.

When I woke up three years later and God got my attention, I said, Whatever she has, I want.

Because I watched her closely for three years.

And she stopped nagging me, she stopped talking ugly to me, and she stopped doing all the things that were irritating her.

And she took them to the Lord.

And I saw him bring harmony.

And I'm telling you today, that's what you're looking for.

You're looking for that harmony.

And the enemies brought a deception in among us to show us everything in the world that will replace God.

Because he has no other way to have a recourse or retaliation against God except deceive you.

This is what Jesus was saying to the men when he said to the Pharisees, listen to me.

This is what he was saying.

Can we just divorce our wives for any reason at all?

It's all about you.

Guys, you'll never get it.

Go back to the beginning.

You'll never get it until you see the fact that it's got to be all about God.

Yes, I know you're religious.

Yes, I know you go to church.

Yes, I know you memorize scripture.

Yes, I know you pray, but you've missed it.

There's a deception in your heart.

And so that deception, you know what it's done?

It's created a hard heart in you.

That you can't even receive from the Son of God.

It's created such a hard heart in you that you can't even see.

When I'm trying to help you, you can't even see it.

What was his original intent?

He wanted to be on the throne.

He wanted to be on the throne of every heart.

You know what his original intent now?

The here and now, six thousand years later?

He still wants to be on the throne of hearts of men and women.

That's just still his plea.

That's his cry to you.

You're still faced with the same decision Adam and Eve were faced with in the garden.

You wake up every morning, you're not faced with, do I serve God or do I serve the devil today?

No.

You wake up in the morning, you're faced with the same thing that I'm faced with.

Do I serve God or do I serve myself?

And I'm telling you, this deception is so much in the church today we don't even recognize it.

We've gotten so used to it, we've rubbed up shoulders with it, we've bumped into it, and we said, it kind of feels good.

We've got a mixture in our hearts.

Yeah, I want to serve God in certain areas, but I like what I do for myself.

And I'm telling you, God wants to rid this out of the church.

How does he want to do it?

Glad you asked.

Go to Luke chapter 5.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 5 is one of those chapters that I read for two years.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

I don't know if you ever just read a verse and got stumped on one and couldn't get over it.

This is one of those that I read for two years that I couldn't get over.

And I kept asking questions about it.

In Luke chapter 5, this is the story of the man let down through the roof.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

The four guys couldn't get into the house because it was so packed.

That Jesus, the miracles that he was doing, was drawing crowds everywhere, and they couldn't get in the house and they had to take the roof off.

I'm sure the homeowner loved this.

This was probably his greatest day.

He probably called his insurance company afterwards and said, I know it was.

Would you just pay for it?

And he said, No, it's not done.

It's one of those acts of God.

We're not doing it.

Verse 17, Luke 5.

Now it happened on a certain day as he was teaching that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem.

And this is the part of the verse that I've read for two years because I don't understand it.

Well, I didn't understand it.

Until he just opened my eyes.

And the power of the Lord was present to heal them.

Now, if you know me in any way at all, if you've been around me, you know one thing.

I'm very interested in the power.

I'm tired of the church not having the power.

In Jesus' day, they had the power.

God was very visible.

You could see and hear what he said.

In the days of the apostles, there was the power.

In the days of the early church, the power was present.

People were being touched.

God was visible.

I'm very interested in the power coming back.

I want to see the power.

I don't want to live the next 40 years, what I have left, in the same way that I lived the first 43.

I want to see the hand of God.

We had a man in our office a couple weeks ago.

He came in and he had cancer.

He had cancer in his colon.

I said, listen, we can agree to something.

You can see the power.

And we laid hands on him.

We prayed for him.

Guess what?

He called me back the next two days later after he had an MRI and everything.

He said, the doctors are baffled.

I said, Good, I want to see some baffled people.

It's time that we see some baffled people.

He said, it's not there.

I said, what did you expect?

We serve a God who does stuff like this.

I just want to see more, not less.

I'm interested in the power, but when I read this verse, I got hung up on the power of the Lord was present.

I like what sometimes you're not, is the power of the Lord not present?

I mean, I never saw you with it and without it.

Why did you say this?

This is the only time in Scripture you use this word.

The power of the Lord was present.

He said, You're missing it, Jeff.

Read it again.

I said, I've read it.

He said, What was it for?

He said, It was to heal them.

He said, Who's them?

I said, Oh.

You mean for the people that were there?

He said, right?

Who was there?

He said, You just read it.

The Pharisees were there.

The teachers of the law were there.

And he named all the regions they came out of.

He said, Jeff, do you realize who I came for?

I came for the Israelites.

And my power was present to heal them and set them free from deceptions.

But they would not receive it.

Why?

He said, This is a compassionate statement.

This is a statement out of my heart.

I came to heal you.

I have the power to set you free.

I have the power to heal your body.

I have the power of body, soul, and spirit to help you.

This is a compassionate statement.

He said they wouldn't receive it.

Why?

He said, the same reason you won't receive it.

Look at it.

So I pick up in verse 18.

Then it tells a story.

Then, behold, four men brought a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before him.

Verse 19.

When they could not find him, find how to they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and led him down through the roof.

Watch this verse 20.

Jesus saw the four men's faith.

He said, Faith's present.

That'll move the kingdom.

Then he said to the man, watch this statement.

Man, your sins are forgiven you.

Why didn't Jesus say, Man, be healed and walk?

Because he had a crowd that he was trying to teach.

He had a crowd he was trying to reach.

And he used words to do what?

He used words of a relationship.

Catch this.

Watch this closely.

He used words of a relationship.

If you want to know what God's intent in some of the relationships that you're in today, he's using words in those relationships.

When he spoke those words, man, your sins are forgiven you.

What did they say?

They had an immediate reaction in their heart.

Who said they didn't forgive sins?

That's blasphemy.

You see the reaction?

Bless me! No man can forgive sins except God.

See the reaction?

You know what God's trying to do?

You know what his intent in relationships are today?

He's trying to reveal a deception among us.

And that deception is it's not about you, it's about him.

And he said to these men, he said those specific words because he wanted them to see you don't have to have a reaction in your heart.

Let me give you a clear illustration of this.

Three weeks ago, my wife decides on a Sunday, uh, she came on Saturday night, she decided on a Sunday to cook a big meal for the family.

She normally doesn't do this because we normally go out to eat.

She called me after church and she said, honey, uh, call the kids and tell them that we are going to uh have a big family gathering and a meal.

They may have had plans, and if they can get out of those plans, it really would be important to me, and we could have a family time together.

I said, That sounds great.

So I called all my children, and I called my two middle daughters, and my son, he has no say-so.

You know, you're 11, you just don't have a say-so.

You're an only boy, one male dog, it's just the way it is.

He's outnumbered.

He knows it, he just accepts it.

He's really kind about it.

But I called my oldest daughter.

Have any of you ever read the birth order book?

The oldest is normally a headset like flint.

Mm-hmm.

I've got one of those.

I called her and I said, Jess, hey, babe, uh, mom's kind of done something unusual.

We want to have a family day.

Would you come and I know you may have had plans, but maybe you could get out of them.

And, you know, we just really want to spend some family time.

We just love you.

I'm sweet.

I'm being nice.

Could you just maybe, you know, cancel your plans, come to the house, hang out with us, you know.

I know we're not kind of old and foggy, we have bad ideas, but we'll be smart in your eyes one day again.

My last statement to her.

But you make the decision, no pressure, whatever you want to do.

We won't be upset if you don't come.

I lied.

We we just want you to make your own decision.

She said, okay, Dad, thanks.

She didn't choose what I wanted her to choose.

You know what happened?

I got mad.

I called her back after lunch.

Thanks for coming home.

Sure enjoyed your presence.

Had a fun family time, just me, Geordie, and the dog.

This was great.

Well, she picked up on my tone of voice.

She decided, you know, dad's a little upset.

I'm going to stay out all day.

I'm not going home to that.

So I got to stew on it all day.

And the more I stewed on it, the more angrier I got.

And when she came home, I'm waiting for her.

And I let her have it with both barrels.

Up one side and down the other.

And after a while of this kind of conversation, she said, Dad, I'm really kind of tired.

Can I go to bed?

I said, Yes, you can, but I want you to think about everything I said, and maybe you won't sleep all night.

So she goes to bed.

Well, I don't sleep all night.

And in the middle of the night, the Lord says, You kind of blew that, didn't you?

I said, Mmm.

Kind of did, didn't I?

He said, This is what I've been revealing to you out of relationships all around you.

This is what I've been revealing to you with one of your personal friendships with Brady.

This has surface two months in a row.

It's a surface with Pastor Tom at work.

You know, it's kind of like anybody have a cat that gets a hairball?

I had a couple hairballs.

Brady's real kind and gracious with me.

Pastor Tom's been real kind and gracious with me, but I had to get these hairballs out.

But what came in revelation to me was this.

Jeff, you know what I'm trying to remove from your heart?

I said, no, Lord, what are you trying to get out?

He said, you've got a spirit of rejection.

You've got a root of rejection in your heart.

Anytime you get rejected, you get two things.

You get anger and you get manipulation.

And I want to remove both of those.

Do you know what the root of that is?

It's all about me.

That deception had been in my heart.

Folks, I want you to hear something today.

And I'm going to close with this.

Will you let God use the relationships around you to reveal this deception?

Are you in a God-centered world right now?

Or something else on the throne of your heart?

Do you understand he just wants to remove some things?

His compassionate statement, my power is still present now to heal you.

My power is still present to release you.

Do you know why?

He wants to move you back?

Because he wants to bring you in a harmonious relationship that no matter what happens around you, no matter what you encounter, it doesn't change your atmosphere.

I'm going to show you one last scripture.

And I want you to see what I've seen.

Our Matthew chapter 11, verse 12.

Matthew 11:12

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence.

And the violent take it by force.

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence.

What in the world does that have to do with relationship?

Everything.

I want you to see a clear picture.

This is a clear picture.

God is trying to take some things out, and he's trying to put something in.

He's trying to remove the deception from our hardened hearts, and he's trying to replace it with his spirit.

Stephen was so full of the Holy Spirit that when they were even killing him, he said the same thing Jesus said.

Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

Paul said it when he and Silas were in the jail after they had been beaten with rods 39 times.

Hey, bro, oh, hey, hey, hey, hey.

You want to sing?

Yeah, let's talk to God.

Let's do.

And then the whole place was shaken because it wasn't about them.

What's this?

From the days of John the Baptist until now.

Why not from the days of Abraham, our father in faith?

Why not from the days of Moses or David?

But from the days of John the Baptist until now.

This is what the Lord told me.

You know why it's from John the Baptist?

Because he was the first man filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb.

And Satan saw that God had now made a way for every person on the earth to have this harmonious relationship because he's depositing his spirit in their heart.

He turned up the heat against the kingdom.

And ever since that day, the heat's been turned up, and this deception is getting deeper and deeper and deeper in the hearts of people.

And God says, I've sent my spirit to fill you up, to expose this deception, to get it out so that you can experience this harmonious relationship.

That's what he's after.

Will you letting?

What's on the throne of your heart this morning?

Wives, is your husband on your throne?

Husbands, is your job on the throne?

Who's on the throne of your heart?

You can have that harmonious relationship he created in the garden.

It's yours to be, it's yours for the taking.

Father, I just lift your word before you this morning and ask that it would accomplish what you desired for it.

Lord, I just say to you from my own heart, I desire this harmonious relationship.

And I want you to dethrone every deception in my heart.

And I ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.