Pr Henry Wright - Deeper Relationships Pt 1

Adventist Radio London inspiration for the song.

How's your Bible reading doing? Exodus eleven? All right, we're

reading the Bible through chapter by chapter, so having a

great time together.

And how did you do with last week's assignment?

You were to spend this week not saying one negative

thing about anybody. Let us have a moment of confession.

I mean, really, how did it go?

Now?

The devil almost got me after church last Sabbath. My

hang up is drivers and people getting in my way.

But the thing that saved me is that my two

playgranddaughters were in the car with me. We were coming

back from John John's little dedication dinner and we were

almost to the house and the lady cut in front

of me and I opened my mouth and little Nikki,

sitting next to me, said, she said, Pastor, She said, Grandpa,

She said, you told the people. I said, honey, I

was just going to bless them for so really, in

all honesty, Now, how did you go at work at home?

Neighbor coworker?

Okay, your assignment for next week is to do it again,

no negative words about anyone. We're talking about relationships, aren't we.

Last week we learned that God is. God is a relationship, father, son,

holy Spirit. God is a relationship. As a reason why

there are three in one because God is a relationship

and that relationship is held together by by love.

We are made.

According to our key text Genesis one twenty six, for

God said, let us make manner our image after our likeness.

We are made in the image of God. Therefore we

are made to be in relationship.

Relationship.

The next two sermons today and on the thirtieth this

i'll be a camp meeting preaching next week. I'm going

to talk about today God's ideal for relationships Genesis one,

until you're going to turn into the Book of Genesis. Now,

I'll spend just a few moments with you on that.

Then on the thirtieth we'll talk about how the marriage

relationship affects every other relationship on this planet. See, the

first human relationship was a marriage. We had a husband

and wife before we had a father and a mother,

had a husband and wife before we had a sister

and a brother. And I would say to you without apology,

that we can trace, Lisa, every twisted conundrum in relationships

to somewhere. A bad relationship between a man and a

woman doctor Karen Smith, very popular on the Oprah Winfrey Show,

who writes the book Lie so does the Altar on

page twenty three rightly observes that most problems we deal

with in our adult life find their roots in unsolved

issues growing up at home. The power of the marriage

relationship two weeks from now, but today today Genesis one,

verse twenty six is very clear, and God said, let

us make manner image after our likeness.

I mean, I'm gonna say down four or five basic

principles and then let you go. Number one.

If we are made in the image of God, listen

to the pastor If we're made in the image of God,

and we are, we're not the grandsons and granddaughters of

amoebas and monkeys and apes, Praise His Holy name. We

are the fruitage of an intelligent, intentional God, an intelligent

creature who made intelligent creatures. I can understand the weakness

of that, amen, but some of us are intelligent. Be positive, y'all,

be positive, Think positively.

Now.

The text is key, Julie, because the Texas we're made

in his image, and so I'll joiner. If we're made

in his image, listen, then the most important thing we

bring talking about God's ideal, now, the most important thing

we bring to a relationship is our god likeness.

That makes sense.

The closer we are in our relationship to the God

who made us, the more equipped we are to be

in relationship with other human beings also made in God's image.

Did you follow all of that? It's a simple principle.

See two.

Many people are trying to have silver successful human relationships

without the God who made them dominating their life. You

want to tell me, You want me explain in a

simple sentence, why the world's in a mess, Why nations war,

why people can't get along on their job, why neighbors

fight over the fences, why young people do things with

each other. It's because they lack a God connection. So religion,

listen to me. Religion is not just something you do

in church. A relationship, a relationship with God is vital

to your ability to get along with other human beings.

And I will say, without apology, I'll say it again.

I said it last week. Say it again. Show me

a human being who consistently has difficulty relating to other

human beings, and I'll show you a human being whose

God relationship has got a problem. So the first thing

you bring is the God relationship. I say all the

time to you couples that I counsel. If you are

getting ready to marry someone who doesn't have the God relationship,

you're in serious trouble. No one person in a marriage

can be godlike for both. So you've got to bring that.

You've got to bring your own God relationship to the

relationship on the job, to the relationship of a neighbor,

to the relationship of siblings, to the relationship of friends.

You have to bring your own part of God with

you because that makes sense, and that doesn't just.

Drop on you. You have to seek it. You have

to stop thinking you're all right when you're not.

You have to stop lying yourself that you're okay and

it's the other person's problem when you are the problem.

I knew you wouldn't say amen to that, but I

don't I say it without apology. See, we've already laid

down the principle from last week that that your problem

in relationships is seldom the other person.

It's you.

Most of us don't know ourselves, and we try to

use other people. Listen to me, We try to use

other people to carve and to grab out of them

what we lack. But we serve a God who says,

if you come to me, I will give you all

you need to be the best human being that you

can be. Now, why do we need to bring the

God relationship well? The texts on to say that having

made them, God then gave them dominion, gave them what.

It was God's intention that human beings be able to

work together. I'll bring him in the office after the sermon.

Had a rough week. Now listen to me. Listen to me,

Please don't lie to yourself. Do you work well with

other people? I'm going to stretch the question, do you

work well with anybody? Let them have dominion, let them

be fruitful and multiplies. In the Bible, it's the next

text after Genesis one. Now, having made them in my image,

I give them now because they're in my image, I

give them the ability to work together, to accomplish, to

fruit be fruitful, to multiply. It's God's intention that human

beings be able, Frank to work together. And I'm asking

the question, without apology, how well do you do or

are you the kind of person on your job when

they see you walk in they say, my Lord, give

me the patience, don't smile. The ability to work well

with other people is a sign of Christian conversion.

So we don't like to say that.

We want to take that and move that out someplace

else and separate it from our Christian life. Christians ought

to be able to work with anybody because they don't

have self contained attitudes. They're not self centered. They are

other people o oriented. They work with other people based

on their needs, not their needs.

Be fruitful and multiply and replenish.

Are you the kind of person who in your human

relationships you are productive? Let's get closer. Are people productive

because they work with you?

That was a good response.

Are people productive because they live with you?

Let's bring it on home.

Is your spouse a better person because they live with you?

Be fruitful, multiply, replenish. It's in the Bible. I'm not

making this up. Direct result of being a fruit of

God made in his image then, because God doesn't argue

with God. So if both bring his image, then you

ought to be able to work with folk, be productive

with people, be fruitful with people. Then the Bible says,

in the image of God, may he them male and

female may he them. God is a god of variety.

Thank God, the planet isn't all men. Now we could

expand on that. Let me just keep it simple, and

thank god the world is not all female. Now God

had something in mind. See, be fruitful and multiplied. Of course,

there's the idea of reproduction, man with woman reproducing the race,

man with woman reproducing the race, Man with woman reproducing

the race. Man and man can't reproduce any race. Woman

with woman can't reproduce any race. See that's Size's not

in the note. That's just side stuff, just sticking it

in there. Just but variety. When you read Genesis, wonder

and it says in Genesis one over and over again,

God made the fruit to produce after its kind. If

you read that, and the birds after the kind remember that,

and the cattle after their kind. The word after their

kind comes from the Hebrew word lay mean, which means

in variety. God may eat everything to produce in variety.

So we have more than one kind of squirrel, more

than one kind of elephant, more than one kind of giraffe,

more than one kind of snake in variety, male and

female in variety. We are a variety Thank God, we

are a variety. Everybody's not the same. See people try

to explain and get all anthropological. Where do the racists

come from? God built into the human geno system DNA system,

the ability to produce human beings in variety. So some

of us are brown, and some of us are yellow,

and some of us are red, and some of us

are dark. Thank God, that's why congregation looks so good.

We're in variety. But now that in variety means difference, difference.

So let the pastor pursue this for a few minutes. Difference.

How well do you do with difference? And are you

one of.

These people who decides that the way you are is

the standard? Come on, somebody, the way I am, the

way I think, the way I look, the way I

talk is the standard, and everybody else must be judged

by my standard.

I haven't read that anywhere in the Bible.

I read about variety and difference, and a sign of

Christian maturity is the ability to accept and reflect and

appreciate and value difference. Will therefore be unto the spouse who,

having married, then wants to mold their spouse into what

they want them to be, rather than accepting the fact

that you married somebody because they're different. The amens are

getting weaker and weaker, my brother, But the past is

going to stand this round anyhow, because because because watching Gerald,

watching Gerald, because God put in you certain characteristics, your

subconscious brain looks for another brain to complete you. It's

called whole brain theory. So the melancholic upper left person

looks to marry someone who's an upper right sanguine melancholic

is lower left by the way, sanguine upper right, or

an upper upper left choleric looks for a lower right phlegmatic.

Because a melancholic married to a melancholic.

Is hell.

Two balls see moody people in the same house demands

a nine to one one call. So God, is that

all right, Frank? So God gives us variety. God gives

us variety. You're listening to the pastor he's teaching now.

God gives us variety to grow us into Christian maturity.

So you need to be able.

To relate to other people and to appreciate their differences

and not decide that their difference makes them worse or

that the way you are is better. Stop measuring people

based on you. Measure people based on God's love. Are

waiting together so far? Just working away through Genesis the

first chapter. So first we bring God's image, second we

bring the variety got us put in us. And third

we must bring the ability joan to work together. How

are we doing so far? But the root is godliness?

Root is godliness? Then you jumped the Genesis two, verse eighteen.

God saw that it was not good for man to

be alone, but the Bible says, and he made him.

A help meet. Right.

Well, the Hebrew says, to help complete. I helped complete. Well,

let me go at this for a minute. You remember

the scene. God has finished creation. Everything is great. Bible says,

makes Adam grah head big fellow. Some anthropologists scientists have

done some kind of calculation on the computer. They said

Adam was about fourteen feet tall, maybe wait a full ton.

He was a hunk.

And the Bible says in chapter two that the Lord

had all the animals pass.

By, remember that hank branch.

To see to see what he would call them.

It's awesome passage.

And you get this picture if you read it in

the Hebrew that what happened God was actually putting Adam's

cerebral cortext to the test to see if it was functioning.

And so as the elephants went by, he didn't ask,

He didn't say to Adam, please call this an elephant.

He said, Adam, what is this? Adam said, elephant. God said, okay,

everything's plugged in. He did this all day long. It

appears from the passage you get the feeding from reading

the commentaries that he was created in.

The evening and all day long. What does Adam notice.

About the animals going by? Two by two, two by two,

One of me, two giraffes, me two rabbits, one of me,

two snakes, one of me, two eagles. And by the

time the day is over, Adam's got the message you're unfinished.

Puts him to sleep, grabs a rib right from beneath

the arm, protection, beside the heart, love, above their feet,

not to be tread upon, below the head, not to

be a competition, and brings her to Adam. Adam is

blown away. Whoa man, we say, woman, But Adam said,

whoa man?

Are you with me? So far? Now? Now?

No, no, no, I'm moving fast. It's gonna keep you along.

It's I'm setting up for the next sermon. So so

so here they are now now now, now, now this

is very important, uh, Samuel Ramesha, Uh for for for

for for you and for you know, the intended one,

because you need to get this.

Yeah, I'm going back. They got this. I'm gonna go

back over, go back over it for you. Here they are,

these two, they're going to live together. No human being.

You've you were co workers, and you've learned as you've

worked together, that different ones, if you have different strengths.

Isn't that right?

You know, everybody is not as good at everything. And

as you build a team, you've got to make sure

you build a team where they compliment one another.

Makes sense.

We do it in every area of endeavor in the army,

on our jobs and our homes. Everybody has strengths. Everybody

has weaknesses. Everybody has strengths. Everybody has weaknesses. Not I

have strengths and you have weaknesses. It don't work like that, Daryl. Yeah, yeah,

everybody has strengths, everybody's weaknesses. Now follow the pastor with

that in mind, and acquires a good example. Thank god

everybody doesn't sing tenor isn't that right?

Yes?

And and and a good songwriter writes a song, so

that sometimes the strength of the sopranos comes through right,

and then the bass can shine and the altos can shine,

and it's the corporate sound that makes a choir. This

was God's thinking when he put together the church. Put

together what put together what the church?

The church.

Is to be the community's composite of the strengths and

weaknesses of humanity. So the church is so vital to

the community because in the church, Melvin Hardy, we're able

to bring people together who've become honest. Oh, thank God

for honesty about their strengths and weaknesses. The nature of

Christianity is that it does not allow you to lie

to yourself about yourself. I'll say amen for you amen.

Christianity produces a mind that says, this is what I

can do, this is what I cannot do. These are

my strengths, these are my weaknesses. And Christianity, Oh it

gets good now clause. Christianity gives you permission to accept

your weaknesses without being in a state of low self esteem.

In the church, we don't have to pretend because we

have accepted that Christ is our strength. Let me get

to the point of gentis to eighteen help complete therefore, Greta,

here we are.

Here's the question. Here's the question.

That text is talking about the teamship, the what of

the human race?

Are you a good team member? Do you haul the

whole show?

Does it always have to be your way?

So your PhD means nothing in the crisis, and that's

the crisis is in the area of your PhD. That

was simple math, wasn't it.

So don't come.

Don't say don't don't come, don't come bragging about what

you have, what you do. I don't want to hear that.

Living this life as a team ship. I mean, this

is the reason why we have traffic laws.

Oh I wish somebody would just read those traffic laws.

God help them.

That's why the sign says I'm gonna vent for a minute.

That's why the sign says slower traffic move over. Oh oh.

Oh, oh.

Thee I just I had to have that moment. I mean,

just and you know, and you want to shout out,

didn't you read the sign slower traffic over here? But

now I'm making a point share of the what I'm

making is is that in every listen to me, see

help complete in every area of life in this society.

That's why we have these marvelously trained people. They bring

something I don't bring. You fall and stumble, you're bleeding,

don't call me after they've sowed you up.

Call me. I'll pray that the stitches heel.

Call these people here, because every person, thank God for

his wisdom, makes his contribution to the whole. Let the

church say amen. Paul made an excellent point in first one.

Within twelve he said. Look, he said, the eye can't

talk about the ear. The ear cannot slam the hand.

What would one be without the other? Why therefore, listen

to the pastor why therefore do we wrestle against people

who are different when the whole purpose of life is

to complete one another. Well, I pray that you're listening

to me to complete one another. Adam, go to sleep.

You're not finished yet, And so even have to send

the Lord allow this planet Caaren to be populated with

people who are black, and people who are white, and

people who are yellow and red, with different cultures and

skills and interests and abilities. And it is the whole.

It is the whole that makes the human family beautiful.

Can you say, man, it's the whole again?

It's like this choir.

I mean, when you all were singing that last song,

the beautiful harmonies. I can't say that the planels are

more important than the altos or the tenrors, more important

to the base. It was the whole thing together, and

you wanted to just shout and praise God.

I want to appreciate this even more. Those of you

have children.

Your children are different, aren't they?

Yes they are. They are.

What works for one does that work for the other.

And it's too children that God is teaching you the

blessing of completeness being completed by another person. Now, now

one more point on this, we've gotta move on. The

reason why the Lord listened to me made Adam incomplete,

was to teach all human beings that you will always

need another human being to get it done. Steinway was right,

No man is an island and to himself. Then in

just this one twenty four to twenty five, we finished

the picture God's ideal. Verse twenty four, very interesting. Go there,

Genesis one, verse twenty four, very interesting.

Verse. Then shall the man remember that.

Leave his father and mother cleveland to his wife, They

shall be one flesh, leave cleave one say that leave

cleave one leave. The Hebrew there suggests change priorities. Change priorities.

Now, listen to me. Listen to me.

One of the most important reasons why the Lord puts

other people around you is to change your priority. What

do he means, pastor, to move you from yourself being

a priority?

You get it.

Any psychologists will tell you that a human baby is

extremely self centered. They are so self centered they don't

even know they have hands. That's why you see him

looking at him, see them standing at their toes. Where

did that come from? We are self contained, listen to

the pastor. I'm moving home now, I'm coming home now.

We're self contained. And so the function of other human

beings is to teach Darria the importance of another human being.

The reason why some of you sitting here have never

had a successful relationship in your life is because you're

too self important, and you keep going at relationships based

on what you need and what you want and what

you require. But the Bible says leave, leave, focus on yourself,

and then cleave. What's the next word comes from a

Hebrew word that means the same word we would use

for for concrete. What is concrete is a coda of sand, water.

And cement.

Concrete is a combination of sand, water and cement. Sand water, semen,

not one of those is more important than the other.

Write amount of sand, write amount of cement, rite amount

of water. I find it interesting when I study this

text that water in the Bible represents the Holy Spirit.

See this text, Brian takes us right back to the beginning.

You can't have a success You can't have a successful

mix with Richard, Wendy, and I can't have a successful

mix with Carol without the Holy Spirit. Come on now, now,

I'm not gonna say which is the sement or the

or the or the sand in the Gordon home.

I let them work that out.

I'm love them so I can tease him a points uply,

is that in a relationship? And it's not that it's

not that sement's more important than sand. Too much cement

hardens too fast. Too much sand it gets it crumbles. See,

too much of you in a relationship messes up the relationship.

Leave and cleave.

Now you notice, once you have mixed up the concrete,

it has to settle.

Oh with somebody, but just stay away for a little

bit more time.

Good relationships have to settle you bring a new member

on your team, you have to get that let them

settle in. You know, some of y'all have to go

on the corner and pray, say, oh Lord, help this one.

We don't know we can get them to do. But

they're on the team. Gonna let them settle in.

A new member comes in the church, we gotta let

them settle in. Come on, somebody. A new child is

born in the home. They got to settle in and

find their spot, isn't that right? A new person comes

in the church, we gotta let him settle in. A

new marriage, both people have to settle in. But if

you let the relationship settle in, it takes a sledgehammer

to break up that concrete. And then the Bible says,

and they both were naked. Pastor was almost done, he said, boy,

and they both were naked. We're talking about God's ideal.

God's ideal, Loretta, And they both were what And they

were not ashamed? Hebrew says, And they were both very vulnerable.

They were not ashamed. Elaine, let me talk with you

as I close, Let me just talk with you. I'm

gonna spend it's my second sermon for more weeks talking

about relationships.

Listen to me, Listen to me.

Verse twenty five is the most important verse in the scenario.

Why is it, Sister Crosby, that people can't get along?

We're afraid of each other. Adam and Eve experienced total vulnerability.

Nothing Kim was hid from the other. Now you think

about it, whether you're co workers, whether you're co members,

whether your neighbors, whether you folk at the same house

where your husband and wife Deborah Sandford. Unfortunately, because of

our past and the way we've come along, we always

have something we're hiding.

We would die if people found out. So and so

and so and so.

And so posture and pretend and sometimes get defensive and offensive.

We do anything to keep people from finding out how

afraid I am.

Some people even lie on their vivus and pretend they've

got more education. They are fraid for somebody to know

they never finish college.

And so they hide.

They have never achieved the key to true relationships vulnerability.

So you see, Christ covers you. The Christian doesn't have

to hide.

It's all forgiven, it's all plans, it's all wiped away.

Why are you trying to hide?

The Bible says you're a sinner, so just act as

one forgiven.

With this posturing and pretending, and it's unnecessary. In the church.

When you join the church, you announced that you had problems.

That's why people joined the church. See, I don't know

why we joined the church.

And then pasture, when you walk down thewn join the church,

you say, I can't make it.

That's why I'm here.

So we're a bunch of folk who've agreed we can't

make it. Somebody's saying amen, So all of us can't

make it. Folk, all of us messed up. Folk don't

need to come to the pews and act like where

somebody were not.

They weren't naked, they were vulnerable. Adam and Yes saw

each other in all that they were.

Our community, our jobs, our homes, our neighborhoods. Would be

so much better if people would just stop hiding. Be

who they are, broken or fixed, but always reaching out

to the other person and in that very process being fixed.

Are you listening to me? Are you listening to me?

Me?

Myself and them?

Genesis one and two describe how God wanted it to

work because we are loved. Adventist Radio London inspiration for

the song