Custom Made | Pastor Stephen Chandler

[Music] genesis chapter 2 verse 18 and it says this and the lord god said it is not good that man should be alone and the church said amen i will make him somebody say make him a helper comparable to him out of the ground the lord god formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to adam to see what he would call them and whatever adam called each living creature that was its name pause just to have a little bit of fun so this is before man sinned before the fallen man somebody say amen so everything before man's sin was god's intention i'm gonna get myself in trouble but that's okay god put adam to work before sin entered the world which means that work is not bad come on now y'all think i'm gonna tell men to get a job that's not where i'm going calm down work is not bad if we're in a position like i hate work i don't want to go to work on monday can't wait for friday here's the thing you haven't found your destiny you haven't found what god created you to do because what you find what god created you to do it's more than just a paycheck it brings fulfillment in your life you say y'all i'm not going to be shady yet i haven't even jumped into it yet so adam gave names to all the cattle to the birds of the air and every beast of the field but for adam there was not found a helper comparable to him and the lord god caused a deep sleep to fall on adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place then the rib which the lord god had taken from man he made into a woman and he brought her to the man let's pray father god we're grateful we're thankful god that you are the god of miracles if you had just died on the cross for our sins and that's all that you did god that would have been enough but you said in your word if you freely gave us your son how much more will you not freely give us all things so god i pray that there would be miracles that break out over every single person's life under the sound of my voice god that you would move in a way that we can't take credit for it but we know and it is only you and you alone will be ever so careful to give you all the glory all the honor and all the praise in the mighty name of jesus we pray amen and amen and amen hey can you look at two people tell them let's go to the jungle come on tell somebody tell somebody tell somebody let's let's go to the jungle we're starting this series today called back to the jungle anybody was here last year for the jungle experience for those of you that this is your first time experiencing this series it's a series that we're going to be talking about love romance sex marriage all that other good stuff to be honest with you those are just topics and things that you don't typically hear talked about in church but here's the deal all three of those things are in the first three chapters of the bible including murder and i don't know if they have any type of connection whatsoever but god's word talks about it and brings wisdom to it and can i just be a pastor for a second it is one of the top two areas where people hurt the most in can i give you the top two relationships and money those are the top greatest stresses and pressures in people's lives and hear me hear me hear me if your faith doesn't work on monday it's no good if god's word doesn't work in the areas of our life where we feel the greatest stress and the greatest pressure then it is no good why why are you calling the series back to the jungle what's the whole jungle analogy well here's the deal the first relationship ever adam and eve started in a can be amazing places me and my wife were actually in puerto rico and we were walking through i think it's called el yonke i may have said that wrong but it was this jungle with a rain forest and it was i mean amazing there was waterfalls and exotic birds and all this foliage it was blazing hot outside but yet it was cool almost cold as we were walking through because of the overhanging brush and there were all types of exotic fruits i mean it was absolutely amazing besides the fact that we had to walk three miles just to get to the waterfall and when we finally got to the waterfall it looked like somebody had just turned the faucet off i'm joking it was beautiful it was beautiful it just wasn't worth a three mile walk and my wife she's one of those explorers she loves experiences and where i could do this jungle and every time we get to a sign the sign says like three more miles and i'm like that's what the last sign said she said isn't this amazing and all i'm thinking is we're going downhill and our car is back up there so whenever we see this waterfall we gotta hike all the way back up it was beautiful though it was peaceful it was also a little scary because our tour guide was saying hey try not to touch anything that you don't recognize what you mean i don't recognize any of this he says some of the most beautiful plants are poisonous some of the most harmless animals actually are not as harmless as they look and make sure that you watch your step because if you step in the wrong place or on the wrong thing you can actually slip and remember we were going downhill so one slip it's like hey i'll see you at the bottom it wouldn't be baptism it would be your real funeral but i find that relationships can be the exact same way they can be beautiful they can be full of peace i'll tell you there's something about having people in your life and it may not be a romantic relationship it may be your connect group or friends or whatever there's something about having people that when life gets stressful you can run under the cover of their humor or just their encouragement or their support or whatever it may be there's so much joy there's so much peace god said this it's not good to do life by yourself you weren't designed to have this lone ranger mentality it's just me against the world no no can i get in trouble a little bit no way if god ain't by himself god the father god the son god the holy spirit even in one there's a group and we were made in his image we were not designed to live life by ourselves here's the problems relationships are treacherous and dangerous you can slip and fall you can touch something poisonous you can look at something and i don't want to call people an animal but you can look at something that looks cute and furry and gracious and turn out that it's venomous and has ill intention and end up walking out of that situation heartbroken and damaged and the thing is for so many of us we never really received a tour guide or a map on how do i make it through this experience called life and relationships and romance and marriage and and all these different kind of things so over these next three weeks we go we're going we're going to go hiking through the jungle get you get your hiking boots on and we're going to kind of work our way through this thing next week we're going to talk about hey how do i date how do i find the right person and if i'm married how do i build or re-build the relationship that god's given us it's amazing when you go to purchase a house the like colonoscopy they give to your credit i mean they are calling your employer from 15 years ago i need pay stubs from the last 20 years of your life i need to know 15 people we can kidnap just in case you miss a payment and that's for a mortgage that statistically in america most people only keep a house for about five years but they'll give you a marriage certificate we're like two questions are y'all related do y'all have spouses somewhere else that's literally the only two questions they ask y'all y'all and even west virginia they probably ask you one [Laughter] pray for me i need help but the reality is many of us most of us we get sent on this journey that was meant by god to be full of joy but there are a lot of pitfalls on the way with no direction with no preparation with no help and it's like good luck what we want to do is we want to bring some wisdom some direction some some some focus to how do i build or rebuild this blessing that god's given me but every blessing without wisdom sometimes can feel like a curse so what i want to do today i want to preach from the topic of custom made somebody say custom custom-made this is not from a ludicrous song if it was i would say custom made and custom fitted but i didn't because it's a ratchet song so i just called it uh custom custom made and i want to unpack kind of how do i find the one how do i find that person that god has called me or or how do i ensure that the one that i picked that i thought was the one is really the one there's so many people that they are on this search they're on this expedition to find mr wright or mrs wright who's mr right who's mrs wright they're the one that we just have chemistry oh they just get me they understand me they love me for for who i am when i get around them butterflies just start going off in my chest i get nervous i just think about i just i'm looking for mr or mrs right if you love jesus can you take notes in church i promise you you'll have a lot better chance of making it into heaven if you take notes in church the first thing i want you to write down is this and it's going to be right direct stop looking for the right one i'm going to save you a whole lot of time and a whole lot of stress stop looking for the right one in this passage that we read in genesis chapter 2 the bible says that god made adam as we talked about last week he made him out of the dirt and he formed him and he fashioned him then he looked at adam you got to understand adam was in a perfect world there was no sickness there was no disease there were no volcanoes there were no earthquakes everything was perfect he had everything that he needed and here is god looking at adam saying something's not right it's not good that he is by himself and we have to find a help mate we have to find somebody that he can do life with we have to find mrs right and i miss this i've read this a million times the bible says that god put adam to work and he started naming all the animals and as we just read it he said when he had finished naming all the animals that a comparable help mate could not be found which means adam wasn't just naming animals he was looking for options and he ain't finding me somebody say bless god can i encourage some of y'all that have been searching through every cranny and have not found an option adam had god's help and he still couldn't find him is that encouraging god actually was helping adam find the right person and he still couldn't find him to the point where god says okay here's what we're going to do we're going to stop looking and i'm just going to custom make the right person for you you have to understand that people that god has called you to do your life with your spouse your business partners your friends or whatever it may be you're not going to randomly just pick and find it's going to be custom-made by the lord in psalm 139 16 it says this your eyes saw my substance before i was yet unformed and in your book they all were written the days watch this fashioned that word fashion what does that speak to it speaks to forming to creating to carving to sculpting fashion for me when as yet they were none of them this is what god said about you your whole ma your life was made custom that before you were even born god custom-made your parents believe it or not really those people he custom-made your spouse he custom-made your business partner or whatever it may be god is saying no no no no no you're not gonna find that person kind of just going like the king and i from flower to flower to flower what's a flower he said that's not how it works it is custom-made just for you reminds me of the woman at the well that jesus ran into and she was looking for mr right going all over the place and here's what the bible says jesus accosted her in john 4 says this jesus said to her go call your husband and come here oh you found mr right you found the perfect person for you go get em and the woman answered and said i have no husband he said i'm married i've been married a couple of times but i still haven't found mr right jesus said you speak correctly for you have had five husbands and the one whom you now have is not your husband in that you spoke truly in other words she was looking for love in all the wrong places you're not going to find it but i need to find mr right i need to find mr wright what do i need to do then what do i need to be searching for i'm so glad me and my wife are coming up on our seventh anniversary uh here in august come on and i'm so glad we've been married for going on seven years and we're not getting married now because i'd be in trouble and i'd be more broke than i was when i got married six years ago six years ago we didn't know squat about fashion we ain't no nothing about no red bottoms no bespoke no custom nothing my wife had an amazing dress she spent a lot more on it than i wish we had spent but that's a different story for a different day i went down to the local tuxedo shop and i said hey give me the gray one let's go with that they said oh this is slim fit it was two sizes too big i was thinking about showing my wedding pictures i decided against that for the sake of the presence of god in this place their idea of custom was there was a piece of elastic in the belt you're going for a sign does it fit no i just pulled it elastic a little bit more and tug it in here and guess what she married me i said i do and it was great god help us if we had gotten married today i don't even think instagram was popping like it is nowadays six years ago nowadays you can't get married until you break the ground everything gotta be custom and tailored and all that other good stuff people you know what i'm not even going looking for a store because they're not gonna have what i want i have to go find me a tailor and that taylor is going to make it uniquely to me i shouldn't be looking for the right one i should be looking for the tailor [Music] because if i seek the tailor the tailor is the one that knows my measurements the tailor is the one that knows my desires the tailor is the one that knows exactly what i need and he's gonna make it be spoke for me how am i gonna find the right one stop looking for the right one and start looking for the tailor of the right one that's why in everything that we do at destiny church our number one vision is this to help people know god it's that simple if you're not a follower of god if you've never surrendered your life to christ our goal as a church is to introduce you not only to your spouse's tailor but to your tailor to the one who made you the one who formed you the one who fashioned you the one who loves you if you've been a christian for 20 years god bless you our goal is to help you grow more in love and to learn more about the tailor of your soul the bible says that god is infinite which means that there is no limit to how much of him we can experience and how much of him we can know can i give you a quick little test how do i know if i know god how well i know god is directly connected to how much i rely on other things to fulfill me if i'm looking for a person to make me happy to make me feel secure it's an indication that i don't know as much of god as i need to some of you like pastor this message had nothing to do with me i'm happily married we have great marriage i'm going to preach i'll come back in four weeks this is great it may not be a relationship that's your crutch it may be influence it may be your net worth or the size of your business or people's opinion of you or whatever it may be or you may be running from the opinion of someone who said that you couldn't do it or whatever it may be but when we need exterior things to feel full on the inside it's an indication that we do not know god the way that he desires for us to know him because he said in his presence there is fullness so so here we are in the jungle looking for a mythical creature we're searching for for this creature called mr right or mrs ray pastor are you saying that there's no such thing as mr right there's no such thing as mrs right no no there actually is a mr and mrs right for you but here's the deal your definition of mrs wright and your definition of mr right is not actually the definition our definition of mr and mrs right is the person that accepts me for who i am all my mistakes all my flaws they're the person that when i find them i will finally be complete so i could live any way that i want to live i could do whatever i want to do i can sleep around i can party i can drink i can do all of this but when i find mr or mrs wright all of it's going to come together all of it is going to be complete there's a doctor-less parent who is a a psychologist and studies relationships in his specialty and and here's what he says says if you try to build intimacy with another person before you have gotten whole on your own all your relationships become an attempt to complete yourself when we say i'm looking for mr and mrs right wright oftentimes what the world means is i'm looking for somebody that makes me feel okay with me i'm looking for someone that completes me you know what we say we say some really romantic stuff that if you break it down it's really dumb you complete me that's weird i can't live without you that's not true because i just met you and you look like you've had a whole lot of living before i met it sounds good but honestly these are thoughts that come from a toxic from a from an empty heart the bible says that when people get married that they should leave their mother and father and that the two shall become it didn't say one half and one half for example a couple mathematicians the wrong question for you what's one times one oh this is a smart class i came up with notes just in case this is for the four o'clock service that's what that is so one times one is question what's one half times one half a hole okay you're not that smart okay one half times one half throw it drone throw it up throw it up quarter don't pull your phone out so take that down a half of a half is what a quarter so if i step into a broken relationship as a broken person and i step into a relationship with another broken person here's what happens we end up eroding each other and i end up leaving that relationship more broken then i went into it because i went into it expected can i tell you what cruelty is cruelty is expecting out of someone something that god never put in them god never put in my spouse the ability for them to complete me to fulfil it's not my wife's job to make me feel like a man it's not my wife's job yes she needs to honor me yes she needs to respect me but it's not her job to deal with my insecurities i don't need her to complete me that can only be done in god here here's the problem with tailors you go and you get your measurements and you know they take all your measurements and all that other good stuff and they tell you your waste is up here it's not down here and all this other this is like why are you measuring up here that's not where my waste is calm down the inseam and the out seam and all this other kind of stuff and then they say this come back in three months or whatever it may be i'm gonna i'm gonna make this outfit for you it is somebody say custom-made here's the problem it's custom-made to the size i was when those measurements were taken so as long as i don't eat don't breathe and don't even look at a taco bell until i go back for the fitting it'll fit but if anything changes if i gain weight if i lose weight the measurements that were taken then no longer apply to the time of the fitting pastor i don't know i need to find mrs wright only problem is i'm married uh to mrs wrong so i gotta figure out i actually heard somebody say this as an excuse to get a divorce god told me this isn't the person he intended for me really now people act like god don't anyway here's what i discovered about my wife she wasn't made to fit the current version of stephen god made her to fit the healthy version of stephen he didn't make her for the broken version of me he made her for the best version of me so as long as there's emptiness and there's brokenness and there's unhealth and there's bitterness and perfectionism and all those other issues that i need to bring to the cross and allow god as long as i'm out of shape emotionally she's gonna feel like it's not the right fit and it is the right thing here's the enemy whispering in your ear oh you married the wrong one they don't accept you for who you are they just trying to change you at all no no no no they were made for you but not that version of you can we just have a little bit of fun that's why middle schoolers and high schoolers have no business dating parents oh can i get some fathers in this room to say oh that's cute no that's not cute the only purpose to date is to find somebody to spend the rest of your life with and if you haven't even fully grown into yourself you don't even know what your identity is you don't even know what the vision what your future for your life is you're just trying to brush your teeth and bathe on a regular basis how do you expect to know your measurements and what you fit into well we were middle school sweethearts and now what you trying to say i'm saying you're an anomaly i'm not saying that it wasn't god i'm just saying that when i was in middle school i couldn't figure out which shoe to put on which foot teacher's like raise your left hand god says i've custom made the right person for you but we got to deal with you first write this down let him make you let him make you you know so often we're concerned about finding the right person or god fixing the person that we've already found and i've discovered that just as god custom made my wife for me there's also a little bit of reconstruction that needs to go on in my life so me so that i can fit into what he always designed for me i heard this story from pastor andy stanley that blew my mind he said there was a young lady at his church and she grew up in a christian home and loved god i don't know she went to university of maryland it's where most people go when they get turnt out i'm trashing to school this is not the time to shout [Laughter] but she went to school in freshman year she just lost her mind i don't know if it was just being sheltered and never getting to make her own decisions can we just talk a little bit parents let your kids make some decisions before they leave your house because if they're going to make some wrong decisions it's great for them to make it under your covering so you can help them navigate it don't control them because they're going to lose their mind when they leave i don't know what this girl's story was but she went out freshman year and she lost her mind she got turnt out drinking and partying and sleeping around and all this other kind of stuff and and it went on for freshman year for sophomore year for junior year and junior year she was out with a group of friends and at a restaurant and she met this guy and this guy was i mean mr right her dream guy he was handsome he loved god he was articulate he was telling her about his faith and how god had transformed his life and how god desires to do that for each and every person and she could not wait to get to her dorm to call her mom and say mom i found him i found mr right she gets home and she calls her mom said you not believe it it was amazing mom this is a guy that i could bring home like i mean he has his faith he he loves god like i could i could submit to a guy like this his mom said okay if he's really as great as you say he is he's not looking for you because a guy like that wouldn't be looking for a girl like you babe he wasn't hitting on you he was witnessing to you this case you a tough question are you the person that the person you dream about dreams about can i ask another question am i the person that my spouse dreamed about we have these fantasies of mr writer mrs ryder i'm going man i'm looking for somebody that they they have grace they love me they love god or whatever it may be and oftentimes we focus on what we're looking for and we don't spend a lot of time focusing on who we are becoming because i've discovered i attract who i am it's very dangerous to say all men are dogs it's very dangerous to say all women are you know gold diggers or whatever it may be because you attract who you are and our indictment of who we attract is actually an indictment of somebody say i'm gonna let god make me it's here's the here's the reason why it's so much more fun and so much easier to look for the right person because it's painful to allow god to deal with me it's painful to allow god to make me can i can i help you out though it may be painful for god to deal with your pride or your insecurity or whatever it may be but it's miserable to stay who you are right now i'mma run off the stage and hide in the back after this message if you make you miserable if you can barely deal with you how do you expect somebody else to love you i mean let's just be real for a second you're such a perfectionist you can knock out 95 of that project and you obsess and beat yourself up over the 5 that you got wrong if you can't even show yourself grace how do you expect somebody else to show you grace so many of us we we we have a broken heart maybe from our childhood or a broken relationship or whatever it may be and nothing comes out of our mouth but venom and put-downs and sarcastic statements and and here's what we do we we laugh at the end of it so when you know i'm just joking i'm just joking i don't talk about your mama that's just joking man [Applause] you can't deal with you how do you expect somebody else to deal with you how do i find mr or mrs right simple become mrs or mr right and watch god bring that right person in when you do you think god would make somebody for you and then bring them for you to abuse them he said no no i got him but we gotta deal with that little crazy little twitch in your eye we got to we got to deal with that before i can bring the rapper so here's a simple question how do i let god make me how do i position myself so that god can heal the broken parts of me can i give you three simple things the first way that god makes us the first way that god heals us is through his word in psalm 107 verse 20 it says this he sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions it's god's word that cancels out all the negative words we've believed in ourselves it's god's word that cancels out all the destructive patterns that we've brought in to our lives is god's word that brings healing you need god's word in your life and can i make it practical the sunday message is not enough the bible says thy word have i hid in my heart that i may not you will always get a biblical message every single sunday that will transform your life but i'll tell you sunday's message is about good enough to get you to sunday evening sometimes i wake up monday morning this is not a verse a day will keep the devil away no no no no i need to meditate on god's word by the way as your way out the door if you don't have a bible there are free bibles right there in the info booth and there's also a prayer guide that has a bible reading plan that no matter what day of the year you're on you just pick the date and it'll give you a passage that you can read for that day i don't know how more practical to say this you will remain broken until you fall in love with god's word he has given us his word to heal us the second way that god makes us whole is in community the bible says this in james chapter 5 verse 16 confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be yell that word at me healed the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much there's certain stories there's certain encounters as a pastor that mark you for life i remember i was about 12 years ago i was a youth pastor i was preaching at a conference in virginia and this young lady came up to me and she was suicidal had attempted to take her life multiple times and it was one of those encounters where you just sense the holy spirit say don't lay hands on her don't pray for her just talk to her and just listen to her she began to tell me her story i had about she was about 16 years old at the time and about 10 years prior she had been abused sexually and when they found out they came rushing to her aid and were heartbroken and covered her and prayed for her and a year went by and two years went by in three years and that abuse began to manifest in her life through self-destructive patterns they tried medication and they tried this and they tried that at about 10 years she said everybody's just tired of me everybody's just over me they're tired of me being broken they're tired of me being okay i'm tired of me being broken and i don't know what to do and i feel like in that moment the holy spirit just gave me a vision here's what i told her i said if you had broken your femur leg when you were six years old they wouldn't have just prayed for you they wouldn't have just said oh we're so sorry we're going to be here for you they would have rushed you to the hospital for emergency surgery to repair what was physically broken and had the ability to take your life the only problem is throughout the brokenness of life there's parts of us that gets broken that a scalpel can't touch that we don't know where what surgeon do we take a broken heart to and because we don't know what surgeon to take that broken heart to we begin to say dumb how many dumb things people say like time heals all wounds you wouldn't say that about a broken leg time doesn't heal a broken leg matter of fact if you don't take that leg and get it into surgery or whatever it may be it's actually going to become infected and you may actually lose that leg and you may have the ability to lose the entire patient just because of that unaddressed issue can i can i take it a little bit further sometimes to heal a broken leg they actually have to i don't hear all that out i get squeamish when you start talking about blood and not another kind of stuff but sometimes it causes more pain on the road to health and recovery god says hear me if you want to be whole if you want to be healed you got to talk to somebody he said you got to share with some hey this is the brokenness in my and listen to me don't don't beat one of them people they got all their issues tattooed on their arm and you hey y'all crazy no we could tell you didn't have to tell us no there's a safe place one of our goals for connect groups is that you have a place maybe not the first week or the second week maybe not to everybody but you can find someone where there's safety to say and i don't think i'm okay i think money means too much to me i think people's approval the bible says confess your sins one to another that you may be healed and then the last way that god heals us and makes us whole is in his presence somebody say in his presence psalm 16 11 says this you make known to me the path of life here's what the psalmist said he says here's how i figure out life you will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hands one translation says this in your presence there is fullness how do i make sure that i'm not half of a person looking for a relationship with a half of a person to fulfill me make sure you're filled up before you get there make sure that you've allowed god to fill you with joy make sure you allow god to fill you with confidence i don't need somebody to tell me that i look good to know that i look good tell me something i don't know [Laughter] no in his presence there's fullness of joy so probably should have up here i don't picture a spaghetti strainer right you know spaghetti strain a little metal thing you pour spaghetti in it a little spaghetti falls out because there's holes in it right that's what every single person's life looks like that's what every single person's heart looks like and we need to get into god's presence so he can fill us up the only problem is when god fills us up but we have holes of rejection and insecurity and bitterness and lust and all this different kind of stuff in our hearts it ends up leaking out just as fast as it fills up that's how people get cynical with church you know i went to church and man i see it worked for a few months you know i i just started feeling the peace i started feeling the joy i mean i was i'm gonna lie it was different it was nice it was nice it was nice but you know after a while i just realized that nothing was really changing it wasn't really working for me so i stopped going can i tell you what happened you came into the presence of god but yet there was holes in your heart and all the joy i've heard people say this so much if only the feeling that i felt in church i could feel it at home you can but you got to fill up some of those holes can i tell you how to fill up the holes god's word it's god's word that patches those misconceptions that we have about life about our purpose about who he's called us to be about what the direct it's god's word that patches up those holes and the more of god's word that i have in my life the more of his presence remains and the more of his presence can i hold where do the people come in well there's some holes on the back of your head and you can't see back there and you need somebody else in your life to say what's that what's what what's that what are you talking about that stank attitude what's that that way that way you look down on people what's that what's smells like insecurity is that what that is smells like bitterness is that you need somebody to have your blind spot say hey there's an area that the presence of god is leaking out and watch this journey as i fill my life with more of god's word as i get into his presence more and more and more and i allow people trusted people around me to point out my blind spots i become more of a container of the presence of god watch this god's presence bring healing god presence brings joy god's presence brings prosperity and then i go and i find somebody who's filled with the power and the presence of god and wherever two or three are gathered in his name there he will move and all of a sudden my marriage my relationship becomes a supernatural housing for the power of god because i'm bringing something to the equation let's land this plane last thing is this find who else he is making so stop looking for the right person allow him to make you but then you need to find who else he is making this is where you're getting into okay who do i want to do life with who who who do i want to date singles who who who do i want to get into business relationships with who who do i want to allow to be in my inner circle or you need to find somebody else that god is making i was actually on a panel last week and they were saying what what would you tell people is the number one thing to look for in a spouse if you're single and you're looking for somebody to marry what's the number one thing you should look like here's number one you should find out are they fine are they gorgeous oh they have pasta that's not biblical they need to love jesus when i wake up in the morning and roll over i'm not looking at jesus i'm looking at you so i need to make sure when i roll over i say thank you jesus and not oh jesus so number one is are they attractive so let's go into number two here's number two have they allowed god to form and fashion them many of us are not in love with the person we're dating we're in love with the potential of the person that we're dating but can i tell you what potential is just that potential potential to be po potential to be a deadbeat there's a lot of potential potential is just hey this is what could be but there are no guarantees the only thing i can bet on is is there evidence in this person's life not that they love jesus but that they have submitted to jesus and they're allowing him to change them and make them we'll get on to the married folks next week so moving on but can i help you out if you're here married stop trying to change your spouse you can't do that only god can't do that so what i'm looking for is there's someone that there's evidence in their life that they're submitted to almighty god psalm 7 verse matthew 7 15 says this beware of false prophets can i translate i don't care that they go to destiny church or i met him in church so there are some crazy people up in this church pastor you know they're there i know they're here i know you i know you i know you you can stay i just want you to know that i know that you know that i know that you're here it says beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but innerly they are ravenous wolves but you will know them by there do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles even so every good tree bears good fruit but a bad tree bears bad fruit the apostle oprah said this that's sacrilegious forgive me i'm sure she got it from somewhere else she said when somebody shows you who they are believe them the first time i was going you could play i'mma land his play singles i'm only talking to singles right now if you're married close your ears ain't got nothing to do with you you listen to me if you're single dating is the only place where grace is not allowed that was perfect that was perfect sometimes in the kingdom of god we can so see potential and the future in people there's one thing to seeing potential in loving and seeing the future in someone it's something completely different to connect my life to theirs forever when i'm making the decision to connect forever i don't need potential i need a resume i don't care about your job and your income and all that kind of stuff i need a resume of you submitted to god that you're not the same person you were six months ago that he is making you that he's forming you that he's honing your character that he's developing you because his presence in anybody's life is truly the only thing i can bank on pastor i really wish i had known this before i said i do now what do i do come back next week as we're going to talk to about how to build but also how to re-build god said in his word very clearly hey if you came to christ and your spouse is an unbeliever don't leave them stay with them because there's something supernatural that god is going to do in that relationship because you're there let's pray father god we're grateful we're thankful god that in this moment god we're in your presence and you are filling us up god i pray that you would send your word to heal us god that you would bring trusted people even in connect groups in our life how to watch our blind spots can i pray in this moment that you'd begin to heal the broken heart and start with me god god that you would make us into who you called us to be this is where you are with your eyes and your head about if you could pray this prayer with me say holy spirit what are you saying to me i just give god a moment to make this time to make this message personal to you maybe it's been a while since you've submitted your heart for god to examine it like david said lord search my heart know my innermost beings maybe you're in here and if you were honest you would say you know i've never submitted my life to christ i've never given god authority over my life to to call the shots to make my decisions for me good news bad news bad news is you're not a christian because the bible says being a christian means that you surrender you've submitted to god the good news is that his presence is in this room right now to accept you into an eternal relationship with him you're in here you said pastor i can't say for certain that i have a relationship with god but today i want him in my life right where you're sitting can you pray this prayer with me say lord jesus thank you for not giving up on me thank you for dying on the cross so that all of my sins all of my mistakes can be erased today i surrender i give you control be my lord and my savior use me for your glory make me whole in jesus name amen and amen and amen come on church can you celebrate for every single person that just made the greatest decision ever

Channel: Union Church

Views: 46,597

Rating: 4.9591837 out of 5

Keywords: relationships, relationship series, relationship message, you and I, relationship advice, relationship problems, relationship goals, message on relationships, relationship series Michael Todd, keys to marriage, relationship myths, couple goals

Id: 8YC04Or10J0

Length: 49min 59sec (2999 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 10 2020