Relationships: Let's start with Hope - Steve Craig

Father, thank you for this morning.

Thank you for being our Father and choosing us to be your children.

Jesus, we thank you for making that happen and being our Savior and being our friend and Holy Spirit.

We just thank you for being our comforter and our teacher, and we ask you to teach us together this morning.

We thank you and trust you with that.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So this week we're we're starting a new time where we're going to look at uh relationships.

What we uh talk about, I think, will apply to to all of our relationships, at work and and uh at school, at uh at home, as parents and as kids and with our friends, but we'll also be talking about the most difficult and most rewarding human relationship of all, and that's our marriages.

Next Sunday we're going to talk about how you define a good marriage.

Some of us aren't sure what kind of marriage we have.

You know, there's aspects of it that are just great.

There's aspects of it that are just horrible.

And so on a whole, you know, we're not really sure.

How would we say our marriage is?

How can we know?

And I think there's a one-sentence definition that uh that we can look at as a gauge to a good marriage.

Umce we define it, we might be surprised how close we really are.

Clearly defining success makes a really big difference.

Um Thomas Dmitrov took over with the Atlanta Falcons a couple years ago, he and Mike Smith came up with a new way to define success for the Falcons, the redefined success really.

The word they used was process.

And the idea was that they weren't gonna just look at wins and losses or yardage gained or how much uh yardage they held their opponents to, those types of things, that they were redefining the organization in the terms of that it was gonna be a process.

So last year they made the playoffs, this year they didn't make the playoffs yet.

No one's freaking out.

No one's upset.

In fact, they're all really excited and upbeat because they understand what success looks like, that it's a building process and that they that they are on track.

With the correct definition of success, they are on track and they're they're doing well.

And so next week we will define what a what a good marriage is.

And once we once we have a good marriage, we'll start building towards great marriages.

And if we're not married, we'll we'll see what good friends are, and we'll start building toward having great friendships.

This morning, I really simply want God to restore our hope.

You know, God takes our lives and our relationships and our hearts, and uh he puts it all back together in an image of Him.

In Luke 137, it says, For nothing is impossible with God.

Now God does all kinds of miracles, and we look sometimes to see miracles.

By far, the greatest miracle he does, and the most often, is in our lives and in our hearts, and especially in our relationships.

He does complete miracles over and over again.

And one of the ways that he gives us hope is by letting us see the miracles he's doing in other people's lives.

And so we're gonna look at a God story.

Um we showed John and Stephanie Newby's story, I think, about a year and a half ago.

But when I'm thinking about marriages and starting this time of talking about marriage, I can't think of a story that better illustrates what God can do in each of our marriages.

If you don't know uh Susan and I well, or you don't know John and Steph, I'll start by, you know, clearing up some confusion.

Um Susan and Stephanie are twin sisters.

John and I are brother-in-laws, but but the real thing is that Susan and Stephanie are twin sisters, and so if you walk by the info desk and you see someone, and then you walk in and the same person's up here, you know, you're not losing your mind.

It's uh two completely different people.

Um they are uh they're just twin sisters.

And so uh with that explanation, here is uh John and Stephanie Newby's God story.

I've heard people say they had a great marriage before, and I always kind of thought, sure, I didn't really believe them.

I'm I'm sort of a skeptic by nature.

And but now honestly, I can say that John and I have the best marriage of anybody that I know.

Maybe the best marriage of anybody I've ever known.

And it's not it's not even bragging because um if you knew where we came from and where we started from, you would know that it was only literally an act of God, almost a miracle.

Totally that um we're where we are now.

John and I were married, we were very young.

We got married because we were totally fallen in love with each other, we thought it would be so wonderful, everything would be great, and that didn't last very long.

And I think one month into our marriage, I was standing in our living room of our trailer and said, um, I've ruined my life.

Something to that effect.

And I think he was in the bedroom of the trailer saying the same thing.

And from from then on it was just been a rocky road for us, and it got so bad and we were so unhealthy and so unhealed that when we've been married for about ten years, I had been depressed for about ten years, and and we literally couldn't stand each other.

I think we know two people probably could have hated each other more.

Hate is is uh the appropriate word.

Yep.

Um it's hard to believe now.

It is um I felt like a failure loser constantly, and I felt like um her situation as as depressed as she was didn't ever help anything.

So um we did this one step forward, two step back thing for years and years until um she finally left me.

Um and in retrospect, I I don't blame her.

I I'm pretty uh pretty amazed that she stuck around for that long because um I I I you know now I know I I never poured into her, I never appreciated her her gifts and talents.

Um and it that just served to shut her down more and more.

And uh I was t I was totally self-absorbed with uh work.

Um you know, I thought work would get me more money that and that would solve everything.

I had been we had been Christians.

And I and looking back now, I say it was Christians from the neck up because um it was just a being a Christian and believing in God and believing the Jesus story, but in my mind, it never got here.

I didn't even understand what that meant meant, asking Jesus into your heart, because it just kind of stayed up here.

It was a logical thing, and at about that 10-year mark of marriage, I said, this isn't working, this whole God thing.

I'm not gonna do it that Christian way anymore.

My life could not get any worse.

That was not true, but um, I'm gonna do it, whatever I feel like doing, that's how I'm gonna live.

That's what I'm gonna do.

So that's how I went about living my life.

So I ended up I ended up cheating on John, trying to get my needs met in the wrong way, and kind of looking for love in all the wrong places type of thing.

Um that didn't go over very well.

Um ended up leaving John, bringing the kids to a different state to Georgia.

So I have three kids.

Now I'm single mom, but I keep thinking, if I just do what I feel like doing, you know, for once I'll do just what I feel like, and then then I'll feel better.

I'll and I won't be depressed anymore.

Well, I just continue to get more and more and more depressed, and um and eventually ended up pregnant.

So then I thought, wow, it really did get worse, and by this time he had a girlfriend.

We were we we'd been separated for six months or something like that.

And this whole period of time, I I wasn't living right.

Um my head was definitely in the wrong place.

Um you know, I was out partying, sleeping around.

Um just just really out of touch with God, um, out of focus with uh what I was supposed to be as a husband, uh, obviously, and uh definitely as a parent to to my children.

So um I just felt like there was no hope that I was at the bottom, and I wasn't sure I was ever gonna come up at all.

And then uh I went home to visit my parents with my kids, and my grandmother's like so uh when this child comes, what's what's gonna happen?

And I said, Well, what do you mean?

She goes, Well, you know, this kid's gonna be around your kids, and so uh she goes, I don't I don't understand how you're gonna do it.

She understood a little more than I did.

So I got back to Georgia and I started thinking, wow, what am I gonna do?

And something about in that time I started praying again, and I asked God, what am I supposed to do about this child?

I have no idea.

And um after a couple of weeks of a lot of prayer, it was obvious to me that that I was supposed to be your dad.

Then Emma was born, it was pretty much an emergency situation, everything kind of went wrong, and she was born with a skull fracture.

I was I was sort of just in shock from the whole thing, from my life, and then from Emma being born that way, and just I I was numb.

But Susie's very proactive, as you may know.

And she she insisted I go get the elders at her church where she went at that time to pray for Emma.

Well, I s I just said, Oh, uh, I don't know what I think about that.

I don't really believe that, but I was desperate, and nothing else seemed to be able to help except for surgery, so I let her take drag me to the church and the elders prayed for her.

Well, they did it, but you know, she's a little forceful at times, and she pretty much forced those elders to pray and lay hands on Emma, and I think she might have brought the oil, but and they just went along with it, and this is a community church, is why it was a little unusual for them, I think.

But they did it, they all prayed for her, and I just sat there and sobbed the entire time they were praying for her, but I couldn't figure out why I was crying so hard.

And um, and then probably within a few days, Emma's head, which had been swollen, um, just severely swollen, um, just I mean, just went totally down within a couple of days of them praying for her.

And and we even called the neurosurgeon and to explained to them her head, the swelling's gone down.

And he said, Oh, they just kind of went, okay, yeah, okay.

We show up for the surgery, and the neurosurgeon came in and looked at her and just said, What happened to her head?

I said, Well, we called you and told you that they prayed for her and her head, well, you know, it's not swollen anymore.

And he he just couldn't get over it.

He just kept looking at her saying, I don't understand.

I don't understand.

But even in my mind then, I knew that okay, I could I couldn't understand.

I couldn't resolve how she had been healed.

Can that be true?

Can does God really care about us?

Does that work that way?

It it was hard for me to comprehend.

I kept trying to justify why that wasn't a miracle.

Well, then one day I was sitting there, I was nursing Emma, and just in a very terrible frame of mind because I literally had no job, no money, I just had a baby, okay, I was fat.

Um, and then I had a I now I have four children, no husband.

I mean, I just felt literally destitute, empty, totally depressed.

I mean, I would have I wanted to kill myself at that point, except that I had four children.

And I'm praying and I'm saying, okay, God, if you're there, and I don't really think that you are, but if you're there, maybe you are there, could you please take my life and fix it?

Because I've ruined it and I I there I have no options left.

So if you're there, would you please just fix my life?

And I had never felt the Holy Spirit before, and I didn't even know what that term would have meant exactly, but I felt this would just pour over me.

And I'm sitting in the recliner going, whoa, what was that?

Did anybody else see that?

You know, and but but nobody else was there except Emma.

And I so I'm sitting there looking at Emma, and what what poured out over me was love.

But it was um God's God does have a sense of humor.

Because what he poured out over me was love for him, for John.

But I sat there and I knew that something had happened, I knew that God had done something.

And I even knew that he cared about me.

This was a foreign concept to me before this time.

That God actually cared about me.

He cared about my child that was born that needed healed, he cared about my relationships.

I mean, it was just a new concept.

Then the next time he came over to see the kids, when he left, I said, I love you.

And I said, You need professional professional help.

Yeah, that's exactly what he said.

You need professional help.

He said that many, many times.

So did I, but just didn't really realize it.

Anyway, so we decided to take the kids to church.

And we were not exactly reconciled at this point.

We were unappealing.

We were not appealing.

We were just like, you don't want to you don't want to know us.

We told them the situation up front that we were separated but wanted to go to church, and and they said, We don't care, we love you anyway.

And so just keep coming.

So that was that was really it.

That was healing in and of itself.

And we got teaching and we got counseling, and God put us on like the what I call a fast track.

God's fast track because we were so hungry and so eager for who he really was.

Because once we decided, okay, God, it's about relationship with you, and that's all that matters, um, that's when our marriage got healed.

We were both listening to God.

I think God's really shown us that too, because we uh you know she's definitely the love of my life.

Um I know, we're supposed to be together.

Without a doubt, we are.

We're totally supposed to be together.

God put us together for a reason.

And um it wasn't an easy road to get here, but um I I would do it all again to have this.

I really would.

Me too.

It's that good.

I mean it really is.

It really is.

Yeah, yeah, that God's amazing though.

He is.

You know, now there's even more to John and Steph's uh story.

Last month they adopted uh two almost grown children um from Latvia, Valeria and uh and David.

And um I didn't tell me I was gonna do this, but we had a little family Christmas party, and here's a pack uh picture of their uh whole new family.

So God really is amazing, isn't he?

So now they have six children.

Um Ephesians 3 and verse 20 says, God can do anything, you know, far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams.

He does it not by pushing us around, but by working within us.

His spirit deeply and gently within us.

You know, John and Stephanie would have never thought or imagined what God was gonna do in their marriage.

And the thing is, is that God is no respecter of persons.

And what he did for them, he'll do for you.

Nothing is impossible with God.

Nothing.

Nothing is impossible with God.

So I've got some homework for all of us this week.

Um believe in the impossible.

That is where we need to start.

That's the best place to start.

You know, it might it might seem like we should start with uh scheduling date nights or uh writing down five things we like about the other person.

But no, we need to start right here, admitting that we need God's help in everything, but especially in our relationships, especially in our marriages, but then believing that he can do it.

Believing that he will do it.

Jesus said that if we have faith the size of a little mustard seed, that he can move mountains.

You know, that's not much faith.

But he's a big God.

You know, and he and he cares about us, and he cares about you, and he and he loves you.

And James 5 and 16 says the prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.

Elijah, for instance, human, just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn't rain and it didn't.

Not a drop for three and a half years.

Then he prayed that it would rain and it did.

The showers came and everything started growing again.

And so the homework is to believe and to pray.

You know, asking for God's help is where everything big starts anyway.

And so we'll pray together in a minute, but the actual homework is that every time we think of our spouse this week, whether it's a good thought or a bad thought, say a quick prayer.

It's ask God for help.

Ask God to make us in love again.

Ask God to make our marriage more than we could possibly think or dream or imagine.

Every time we think of our spouse this week, let's just say a quick prayer.

That's where we'll start.

In the prayer team, we've got a uh, you know, when we we designed this building, you know, I think God was really in it.

And right at the center of the building, there's uh our prayer room.

And it's the center of really uh um everything.

And you know, when you leave today, if you have any kind of crisis, I mean, do like like you just heard John and Steph just describing that they started to pray.

And so don't leave today without going in there and asking someone to just grab hold of you and believe with you and turn it over to God.

Matthew 12, 21, talking about Jesus, it says, and his name will be the hope of all the world.

You know, we might have problems in any area of our lives, but the answer for all of them is the same.

And his name is Jesus.

His name is the hope for all the world, the hope for our situation, the hope for our problem.

And in the we just have to get connected with him.

It is so easy to do.

It is not some big religious ceremony.

You know, it's turning to Jesus and saying, I need you, I want to follow you.

I'm gonna try and trust you.

It's what John and Steph did when they called out to Jesus.

It's what I did once sitting on a fallen tree in the middle of a of a lot, just broken.

God, can you help me?

And he did, and he will, and he will help you.

We just have to turn to him just to um call out to him.

And and then he takes us right there, and then he steps in and he strengthens us and he fills us and he gets us on track, and he cleans up our lives and rebuilds our relationships.

But the first relationship we need to rebuild is our relationship with him, turning to him, connecting with him.

And so let's make sure and do that this morning.

Asking him.

All right, let's pray.

Father, we just love you and we praise you.

We thank you for adopting us as your own children.

We thank you for having a relationship with us.

And we ask now, God, that you would give each of us, every single one of us here this morning exactly what we need.

And we especially ask you to help us in a relationship.

So we're asking for your divine intervention, your supernatural love, that you would give us supernatural love for each other.

You'd give us a desire for each other and a desire for you.

And we're asking over this next period of time that that you will transform our relationships with each other and draw us close to you.

And we love you and we thank you and we trust you.

We're looking forward to what you are gonna do.

In Jesus, it's in your name we pray.

Amen.