LRH: Order in Our Relationships - Fixing the Vertical First

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Then listen to Logos Rima R with Rev.

Dr.

Joseph Balbin, Head Pastor of Harvest Chapel International Kumasi. He

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God richly bless you.

And you say.

Welcome to Logos Rima R with God's servant, Reverend Dr.

Joseph Baalbin, Head Pastor of Harvest Chapel International Kumasi. And now,

to today's message.

Hallelujah. Let's take our confession, Joshua 1 verse 8. This

Joshua 1:8

book of the Lord shall not depart out of my mouth.

And I shall meditate in a day and night that

I may observe to do according to all that is

written in it. For then I will make my way prosperous,

and then I will have good success.

In Jesus' name, amen. Why don't you take your seats?

And this month, we are looking at how best we

can bring order into our relationships.

Hallelujah. Amen.

I just, there are some topics when you want to

deal with it, you realize that in order for us

to be able to understand it and wrap our minds

around it because it's quite deep. Order in our relationships

is quite deep. Why is it that when we look around,

our relationships are not working for some of us?

It's not working. It's not just for some of us.

All of us. All of us. All of us. All creation. Everywhere.

Everywhere you go. Every community. Every nation. Every home. Every people.

Tribal group. Every age group.

You go to the kiddie haven just now. They will

tell you that this man is not my friend. You

are not my friend. I don't talk to you.

So the disorder in relationships, it.

Cuts across all barriers, age groups, whatever, gender, tribe, nation, people.

And you just wonder what is happening in our world.

Everybody is complaining. Everybody says that my relationships are not working.

So what is happening? How can we fix it? Can

it even be fixed at all? And everybody, like we say,

is hurting. So, I've titled it, What Was Prevailing Before

We Got Into The Chaos? I look at order in

our relationships in the beginning, between God and man, between

man and man, and then, as I've put here, a

fully functional creation. And then, which, I mean, we are

looking at the past, then the present, What is now?

The fall. What went wrong or what has gone wrong?

We look at the characters of the people, the players

in the scenario. God, man, Satan, sin. The consequences of

the fall. Relationship between man and God. We are talking

about a relationship with God, a relationship with Satan, a

relationship with sin.

It was all about the conversation that Adam and Eve.

And it was a very nice and friendly conversation.

As Satan enticed her first parents to think about. Looked

very inocuous, very innocent. But nothing ever was the same again.

Hallelujah. And then the dysfunctional. Then what will be all

the remedies that God has put in place?

Starting from the promise of the Messiah, the temporary fix,

the blood sacrifice, the Old Testament law, and the covenant,

and then the permanent fix, the grace, the sacrifice of Jesus,

the New Testament covenant and His commandment, the new commandment

of love, the coming, oh my God, and the supernatural

help of the Holy Ghost, of the construction of the

new man, And then we can look at how far

we have got. This is all for the cast in

your mind.

So that we will look at it.

And it's not just like go and talk to somebody

and then.

No.

Superficial remedies have not helped us. Because sometimes we find

it painful. And that is the problem with humankind. We

find it painful to get to the root. of the

cause of all the dysfunction, distorted relationships that we see

over the nations, over families, over kingdoms, over tribal groupings,

age groups, gender, and all that, all the confusion in

our world. So it's a big topic that we are

trying to look, because if you look at the story

of the Bible, you realize that the whole world functions

on orderly relations between creator.

And creature, and amongst creatures, and even in The creation.

And his creator.

And if you like the beneficiary.

That's man. Hallelujah. Amen. An orderly. Functional relationship. Is very

very key. Between all these players. My Lord Satan. Hallelujah. Amen.

Amen.

So look at it all. So our text for the month.

Let me read it.

It says that make allowance. or eat others' faults, and

forgive anyone who offends you. Remember the Lord forgave you,

so you must forgive others. I like the Living Bible,

the TLD says, Be gentle and ready to forgive.

Never hold grudges.

Remember the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

And then the message picks it up from Colossians 3.

We are looking at Colossians 3. Let's look at the

message because it lumps it up. The message Bible is,

if you like, a paraphrased Bible. The author just put

it in everyday language that we can. So it's not

a verbatim translation, but in ordinary language, day-to-day English or

street language, how are you going to be able to

understand it? So, as I read the message, you understand.

It says, so chosen by God for this new life

of love. Dressed in the wardrobe God picked out for you.

And he's telling us, he says, compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.

Then he says, the even temper, contentness, With second place,

quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely

as the master forgave you. And regardless of what else

you put on, wear love. It is your.

Basic all-purpose garment. Never be without it. Hallelujah. Amen. Very

interesting translation for us.

Be so chosen by God for this new life of love.

Dressed in the wardrobe God picked out for you.

And this wardrobe that God has picked out for us

includes compassion, to wear kindness, to wear humility, to have

quiet strength within, to be disciplined, even tempered, content with

second place, quick to forgive an offense And he says,

forgive as quickly and completely as the master forgave you.

And regardless of what else you put on, wear love.

It's your basic all-purpose garment. And never be without it.

Amen. So we are trusting God in the cross of

the mountain.

There's a brief outline that some way someone will be

able to bring all that.

Into our relationship.

I've made this point. I want to make it up again.

Life is all about relationships.

Good. Healthy.

So it's not just relationships. I'm in a relationship. I

want to enter into a relationship. And then you get

close to the relationship. And we are not organizing our relationships.

With wisdom and understanding.

Even in the house of God. And you know.

The wardrobe that Message puts up, you know, is a

very interesting wardrobe. And sometimes it's like, oh, we know

it all. So why don't we put it on? Why

can't we put on the vows of mercy? Why can't

we be kind? Why do we choose to be rude?

Why do we choose to gossip? The other day we

were going.

Over this, I think we were having one of the

meetings here.

And we say, look, if the one on your left

and your right, sitting here, as a true believer, if

you really believed, like the Bible says, this is not

me I'm saying, it's God that is suggesting that everyone

in church, sincere, genuine, born-again believer, is your brother and

your sister.

Why?

Because they have been given birth by Him, God, the

new birth. And all of us, we have the seal

of the Holy Spirit, which identifies us as children of God.

It says that if we saw each other as brothers

and sisters, like we say.

How many of us, me and you, how many of

us here want.

To go out there and go and then be talking

about our mom? Like they say, showing your dirty linen

in public. Or your brother, your sister. When you go somewhere,

they are talking about your mother. When you get there,

what do you think the first reaction will be?

They will shut up.

Immediately, they will just stop each other. That's the childhood.

And they will change the topic. But when believers are

talking about believers in the church, when they start and

people are coming, then they amplify it. Because you must

know him. And when you ask, they will say, oh,

it's a snake under grass. The Bible says, reveal it.

And so, because else the things that the Bible talks about,

the carnality, like envy, jealousy, gossip, backbiting, slander, they shouldn't

be in church.

We know it. We know that they are wrong. So

what is wrong with us?

Why can't we just put on, like the Bible is saying,

the author of the Message Bible is called Reverend Eugene Peterson.

So everybody calls him, they call him, why, why, why?

Like Eugene Peterson is saying, why can't we just put

on compassion and bowels of mercy? Just go into the

rope and then say no. God said forgive, so I forgive,

that's all. God says non-gossip, I don't gossip. God says laugh, laugh.

God says be kind, I'll be kind. Why are we

not doing it?

Hallelujah. By all life, it's all about relationship.

And I'm saying good, healthy, orderly relationship between number one.

God, our creator, and ourselves. And then amongst ourselves as

the creatures of God. Amen.

Relationship, now get this, they work best when they are

fully functional in its two dimensions. Number one, having God,

like we always say, vertically. If your relationship with God

is not healthy, there is no way you will always

be able to have a lateral or ethereal relationship with

your fellow man.

And that's the problem with the church.

Our relationship with God, it is non-existent for many of us.

When we wake up in the morning, no saluting of God.

But he says, ask the child of God. Come and

salute him. Because he knows the world that we are

going into. Look, brother, sister, every morning you need God

to pronounce a blessing upon your life. And that is

why we do the quiet time. That is why we

have the one-on-one engagement with God.

You need to be blessed.

So we'll be able to go out there and be

able to function the way God has designed us to function.

You need the blessing of our maker.

So the more you neglect the quiet time and the

more you neglect that, if you like devotional life with God,

no conversation with God, no confession, because all.

These are the basics, the ABCs of the, you know,

so we are in church, we'll just.

We do it our own way. You can't fight the devil.

You can't. I want us to do a reading. We'll

do it very soon. But this is just an introduction. Hallelujah.

So that we'll read it. I just said I'm coming

to read you. You and I, we are going to

read the scriptures to get to the root cause of it.

Hallelujah.

But then as we are saying, relationships that we are

talking about to bring order in our relationship is two-dimensional.

And it is hinged on number one, the one between

we and ourselves and God, or we or ourselves and God.

If that one doesn't work, look, forget it.

Hallelujah. Amen.

Most often, And it's not because it's not with us.

For God is true to himself. We now, we are

the problem. Because that's what the instructions God will give us.

He has done everything. He has died on the cross

for us. He has sealed us in the Holy Spirit.

He has left us with the living word. And he's

given us and said, do it.

Go, go, go and do it. Just do it. Wait.

Put it on. Put it on. Just put it on. Love, kindness, compassion, mercy.

Put it on. And it will work.

If I put it on, they will say I'm some way.

They will cheat me. If I love the person, they

will say you are loving too much. So we give

all kinds of protestation. And then finally we end up

not doing it.

Hallelujah. Amen. So God designed it so. God created the world.

Now listen, that could only operate in full functional capacity

when the loving, I'm choosing my words, caring, functional relationship

between the creator and the rest of creation.

Were working in perfect order. Can I take that away?

God designed our world in such a way that the

world could only operate in full functional capacity when the loving, caring,

functional relationship between the creator and the rest of his

creation were working in perfect order.

Hallelujah.

Any form of distortion in the creator-creature relationship has the

tendency of introducing disorder and dysfunction.

That's what I've said already. I'm just capturing it in

words for us.

Any form of distortion in the creator-creature relationship has the

tendency of introducing disorder in this country. And today, like

I said earlier on, everywhere you turn your eyes in

our world, there's disorder in relationship. Globally, nation against nation,

tribe against tribe, families, homes, offices, church, among all genders,

age group, none, none has been spared the canker of

dysfunctional relationship. So it tells us that the problem that

we are talking about this month is deeper than we

want to admit.

It's deeper. Do we want it fixed? Do you want,

you know, the disorder in your relationship to reign?

No. And the interesting thing is that God has given

us the resources, the grace, the goodwill, And everything that

we need to put it right and to get it

right and to have peace, to have harmony, to have

love working in all our relationships, whether at home, in

the office space, in the community, wherever.

Hallelujah.

Instead, we do all kinds of superficial, I call this.

Superficial, cosmetic, artificial remedies.

And they have no help. We organize conferences. And then

we'll say, we bring in eminent persons. We bring educated people,

uneducated people, gurus, sages, mystics, clergymen, all of us. All

of them have tried. Let's go and bring professor and

reverend father, this one.

Maybe they will respect the title.

And then when you finish, they will say, we'll organize

the conference and then we'll say... When we finish, we'll

go and eat and talk. Immediately, the reverend father leaves. Then,

we'll go back. Then, they'll say, oh, there's this chief somewhere.

Big chief.

How many times has he tried solving the problem? Even sometimes,

just at the tail end, they say they are going

to announce before you hear somebody has gone to shoot

somebody and say, yay.

Relationship.

So sometimes they say, you go through, if you put

your ears down, most of the relations, the distorted, the

community fighting, they are age-long.

Age-long. So what is the problem? None has helped. But

this month, I pray that, turn to someone and say,

we are going back to our creator to help us out. Hallelujah. Amen.

Even in some places, Situation, they will say, if persuasion fails,

so in order to obtain the peace, there.

Must be what? War. The wars, did they help?

Some of the wars, the justification, the moral justification, the

leaders are giving that we have done everything, so persuasion

is failing, so we are going, and then they will

send UN peacekeepers.

They will be there, then boom, one day.

They go to sleep, then boom. And everybody is asking,

what is happening to our world? Everyone is hurting in

our world. And the interesting thing is that God has

the remedies.

Hallelujah.

He says that you have to fix the relationship first.

between creator and creator. And then the whole dysfunctional mode

of our current world will be brought back into functional

mode and order. All the other remedies, they are not working.

And when you prescribe the Jesus method, they say no.

Amen.

And you and I, who are also ambassadors and carriers

of this, we too, we don't want to apply it.

So when they look at us, they say, have you, brother, sister,

can you remove the log that is in your eyes first?

So you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hallelujah. So they say, no,

the gospel won't work.

Every time you bring the gospel, they say, look, then

they'll take you back to church history. The reformation, the

medieval times and all the things, the ugly things that

has happened in the name of religion. So that's why

I'm saying that the problem is deep. But God is

very clear. Fix the man. And by the man, he's

not talking about... He's talking about one individual man. Individual man.

Every man must be willing to be fixed.

Hallelujah. Amen.

So let me read, as I said, let me read

Genesis 3. I just want to highlight the problem today.

And then later on we'll go. So this is what

has happened. And then as in our reading, I believe that...

We also get a little understanding, yes, let's do the

NLT so that the children can also, I'm mindful of

the kids that all that I've been talking about is introducing.

Now we're going to read the scriptures and allow the

Holy Spirit himself to speak to us. I know he's

going to be able to reach each and every one and.

Speak to us.

So let's look at that. We are looking at the

problem in disorders. What brought about disorder?

In our relationship.

Next time we'll go back to what God created at

the beginning. What was in the beginning. But now we

are looking at our current state.

And what has happened.

Among or between creator and the creator. Amongst our creator.

And even the creation itself. That God created a world

that was full of floods. Each one of us saw

the flood situation in Accra.

Hallelujah. It was a day or so.

It was that week that we went for the pastor's conference.

And I was hoping that they would postpone it and say,

we'll just do virtual. I said, oh, the rains, wouldn't

the rains come? Interestingly, where we were, there were no

more rainscapes.

Hallelujah. Amen. Why floods?

And some of us, we saw some of the videos

and then all the things that were staring up. People

were even fighting because somebody's wall has blockaded the water

that's in your home. So people will just go and

let them break it. You think that the man that

went to break his wall, he'll be happy? After the

water has gone down, he said, now come and let's fight.

Hallelujah. Amen. Everywhere, there's chaos. But let's look at how.

It all began, how we find ourselves here. And I'm

going to read past one or two comments as we

go on. So this is the dawn of creation. God

has created Adam and Eve. God has his blueprint for life.

As we said, the whole creation is all about relationship.

The whole it like world or heaven and earth project,

God designed in such a way that it will be

in optimal functional mode when the relationships are working between

God and the man, between the man and the man.

And even between it you like the man and the

rest of the creation. As we will see in Genesis

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3. The Bible says here that the serpent was

the shieldest of all the wild animals the Lord God

had made. And one day he asked the woman, did

God really say.

You must not eat the fruit from any tree? of

the trees in the garden. Hallelujah. Amen.

So there was a talking serpent, hallelujah, in the garden.

And later on, the Bible explains itself. So sometimes when

you read it on the surface, you begin to wonder

what does the Bible mean?

Don't you worry.

As you continue to read God's story, later on, the

serpent will be unmasked. And so later on in scriptures,

the Bible makes it clear that The serpent, yes, was

the serpent or the snake. But then Satan was able to,

if you like, speak, hallelujah, through the serpent. How he

did it, I don't know. Don't ask me because the

Bible doesn't explain it, hallelujah. All that the Bible tries

to explain is that even God says, the Bible says

that God can use, can speak through animals, isn't it?

can cause animals to speak. So in this particular situation,

the picture that confronts us in the beginning of the

opening chapter or verses of the Bible is the fact

that no, the serpent was not necessarily a talking serpent.

But we know that animals can be trained to speak,

isn't it? The pirates speak. Dogs, they understand language. So

it's not something that, if you like, it is way, way, way,

way out of the way. It's possible But the understanding

later on in other paragraphs or passages of scripture is

that the devil was able to commandeer the serpent and

begin to speak through him. So now he comes to

the woman, that is Eve, and then asks him about

the creator.

Hallelujah. Amen. God loves. was known to Adam and Eve

as their creator and their baker.

In chapter 2, the Bible makes clear that God gave

Adam and Eve very strict instructions as to how they

were going to live in his world and be functional

and have a very cordial and harmonious relationship between him

and themselves. The Bible tells us that when he planted

the Garden of Eden for them, he took them to

that garden. And then he instructed them that they could

have access to every fruit that God had planted in

the garden, except for one particular tree. And the Bible

calls that tree the tree of knowledge.

Of good and evil. Good and evil. Good and evil.

There's a saying that any entity that does not exist

doesn't have a name. So when you hear God telling

that this tree represents good and evil, The suggestion is

that God was warning Adam and Eve that there is

evil in this garden.

I hope you understand it. Yes, hallelujah. Amen.

So that is how, you know, for the sake of

all the people present this morning, let's get it that way.

Hallelujah. So that was the instruction.

And God told him, or told them, instructed them, that

the day you disobey, so the whole thing borders down

to disobedience to the commandments of God. When God speaks,

he expects us to simply obey.

Amen.

Sometimes they say obedience will precede understanding. In the kingdom

of God, that is the rule. Obedience precedes understanding. Obey

the person. As you obey, the understanding will just pop

up and unfold.

Hallelujah.

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Dr.

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