God Saved my Marriage - Joel and Savannah Ramsey

and uh savannah's seven months pregnant can you tell that's right and so sorry love maybe you should pray for us say hello and help us bring it back to jesus joel and i just wanted to share a little bit of our testimony with you guys today and we're going to be really honest and vulnerable with you but um it's about how god restored our marriage but i don't believe that it's about marriage restoration it's actually about the transforming power of the holy spirit and what happens when you and your little life comes into contact with the god of the universe and so as we were praying this afternoon just saying like holy spirit what is it you want to do today because we don't have an agenda hey i don't want to come and give you my best three ideas i want to come and be a conduit for heaven to transform and invade your life so as we were just praying this afternoon like god what is it you want to do he was saying i want to invade every single person in this room i don't want them to leave looking the same it's not about marriage it's not about even though that is a fruit of when god comes into contact with your situation and he does want to restore marriages today he was saying i want to bring healing i want to bring freedom there's people in this room who suffer from things like anxiety and depression he's saying i want to bring freedom from that bondage and so i want you to prepare your hearts and um just like even now say god i'm here and i'm surrendered because as we speak and tell you the story holy spirit he will begin to mess you up i promise he's here and he will as we begin to share you're going to feel you might even feel his tangible presence now he's on a mission today and no one is safe not one person is safe from the presence of god so um joel and i we met when i was 15. yes is that right and he basically saw me as the little sister who hates that i hate that so when i was 21 that's why 21 15. it's appropriate to think she's a little sister that's a minor detail [Music] so when i turned 16 i did what every confident girl does and i asked to chill out and um shortly after when i was 17 he just told me quickly i did when she approached me she tracked me down yes that's what happened i did then go in uh speak with the parents get permission a whole bunch of awesome things so just a little bit of a lesson young men in the room speak with the parents sorry he then proposed to me when i was 17 and by the time i was 18 we were married and nine months later around my 19th birthday we were separated i very much felt like britney spears so we had this rough run and nine months into our marriage it was a complete mess and it was um very public and very messy because when you when you marry the pastor's son of the biggest church in your state that's just the nature of how these things go but it was very clean in that we were separated for a year and a half and i think we spoke maybe three times it was done it was over it was dead in the water this marriage was a disaster from beginning to the bitter end and it was now over and one day oh baby maybe you should tell this part well i just i just think like a little bit of show you how good we dated right like we dated for about a year and on valentine's day i found it appropriate to um break up with savannah over italian food so i was good at dating is what i'm saying um and and you know doing dating well is really important in fact you just don't date so you can hold hands kiss if there's any young people in the room dating is not even in the bible it's a whole other topic to talk about sometimes but um but there is this it's like make sure you submit your even your young years to to the leadership around you and to god in what you're doing um i was on staff at our church leading worship at our church we're leading worship to thousands of people around the world you know because i didn't listen and because of a few mistakes we made we entered into this relationship that that that just wasn't you know savannah was probably not saved she grew up in a christian home uh she grew up in the christian family and said you know you tick that box and you're good right i want to tell you if you're going to date someone if you're going to make sure there's someone who's so sold out for the lord that their attention's on jesus are not on you in worship amen like i know you want to worship and do the look across but like that's not a good start right like just but seriously make sure that you're seeking god in in all that you're doing and it's like when he's the center of everything you do then you'll find freedom and grace in everything that you do and you'll step out of the works of the flesh and into the things of the spirit and your relationship will be godly and not worldly like it's really easy to wrap uh christian language around worldly dating styles and think we're doing it right and and you know the wisdom of man is actually wars against the things of god and then too often we we do we wrap human wisdom in language of god and we call it wisdom and it's not we're warring against what god actually wants for us to walk in purity to walk in holiness and to live out a relationship that serves god in every part of what we do and that's not always popular preaching but it's true preaching and you know we're not here to please people here to please god and love people and so we can truly love you and we're not afraid of you and we don't need you to love us back we can actually love you because we love god first so we can actually love you with his love and so we we got into the dating world and the truth is there's an assignment against marriages there's an assignment against the people of god there's a thief who comes to steal kill and destroy and since we started dating savannah eventually started getting plagued with like severe anxiety um severe depression paranoia just all sorts of things that we weren't equipped for and i was too arrogant to notice i was too caught up in what i was doing i was too caught up in for me ministry for you it might be business for you it might be you're so caught up in your kids that you're forgetting about what your husband's going through and i don't know what everyone's gone through everyone goes through something different but i was so caught up in and prideful and didn't really know what to do but had too much pride to get help to with what we were going through and and because that it caused this tension in our marriage it caused this thing and i remember speaking with somebody one day and i said man i feel like savannah's making me pick between you know my ministry and my marriage and i got terrible advice and he looked at me and said oh what are you going to do like there's a question in that like my ministry doesn't exist without my marriage because and so and so there's this thing and we'll and and one day i just gave up and i was like i cannot do this we're in such a spot of like pressure and tension and there was so much hurt and there was so much bitterness going on in our relationship that i gave up that i said i can't do this and i knew by doing this i was giving up everything i had you know i was giving up my job i was giving up what i did and i wrote a letter on a on the and i put it on the desk and i said in our house and it said i think it was more like a post-it note more like a post-it note and this is not an exaggeration of like to shorten what i said i said i'm sorry i couldn't be who you wanted me to be have a good but have a good life goodbye and i packed my bag and i drove off two hours away from our house and i was like i was such in a spot and i didn't know what to do and because of what we were going through was just this hectic experience and two days later i came back and i was just like man what have i done and but by that point it was too far gone we'd we'd hit this brick wall it exploded the thief came in added extra deception to what we were going through and we believed these lies and we ended up like savannah said separated after nine months of marriage and that's not the plan for the man in ministry right that's not the plan for what what we see for our lives when i was 16 well i mean i can't wait to be separated after nine months of marriage like that's that's not what we're looking for and so when we're in this spot and we're separated for about nine a year and a half we were separated for we barely spoken and we moved on with our lives it was to the point where savannah was she was seeing another guy i was unofficially seeing another girl because we're still married because in australia you have to wait about a year before separation before you can actually divorce and um and so there was this thing it was so finished i i say that part of like she was seeing someone i was to give you the picture of how finished this marriage was like it was over the only reason we weren't divorced is because we were legally not allowed um to be divorced and and so this is the the distance between where we could have been and where our marriage was and one day i was in worship and just worshiping god trying to figure out everything just trying to like god you ever been there like god what the heck like where are you like what's and i began to question everything i'm worshiping god and he began he showed me this picture he he painted this picture of this this dirty rock it was like covered in lava and that black lava that's dried and it was like this thing and he chipped the end off and on the inside there was a small piece of gold and he said to me so strongly in my spirit he said joel that's your marriage you need to go get it and so there i am like what the heck do i do with that because it's now a year and a half and with this is done i'm like how do i go get this marriage and so i just drove over to her house and pulled out the front i said hey call her on the phone hey we really need to hang we need to really need to talk and she's she's like you know when i would call she would make up lots of reasons to not hang out with me and i'd say look we need to talk she's like i'm like are you busy she's like yeah i'm real busy got stuff on and i'm like i'm out the front of your house and she's like okay so over the next two weeks i eventually somehow convinced her to move back in with me and give our marriage another shot and so then we move back in together and for the next three months our marriage is even worse because it's like we have all the original problems plus an extra year and a half of being separated and all the mess and hurt and brokenness and bitterness that came with that and so now we have this issue of like three months in like we've tried we've given it a shot man god this is not working and have you noticed how that happens it's like finally you get a word from god and then the furnace gets seven times hotter and you think what the heck god i thought this was from you so it was worse for three months it was um we were just at each other's throats and we had already been through separation so that wasn't even there was no fear attached to that anymore and i remember us sitting down one night and i just said to joel you know what we can say with full integrity that we've given this our all let's just get out before we kill each other let's just get out and he agreed he's like yeah you're right this is terrible so we decided that night to um separate for the second time now and the next day joel goes to church i wasn't going to church at that time i was like joel said i was born into a christian family but i you know i was born into a south african family i thought it was the same thing i'm south african because my parents are i'm christian because my parents are i didn't know that it required a relationship with jesus i didn't know that it required complete trust and belief and reliance upon him i just thought christians were good people so i didn't know god and now not only do i not know god i hate christians so i'm not going to church and joel goes to church and i'm driving to pick him up the service is over and as i'm driving in my car jesus comes to me and it's really dangerous to drive your car with jesus in it just so you know but i can't describe to you he came to me and i'd never met him before but i knew straight away this is god it was like i was home and the presence was so overwhelming it filled the entire car there was even a moment where i thought how does he fit how does he fit in this suzuki but his presence it like seeped into my being it was almost suffocating i knew i was i knew i could never get away from this love and as i was in the car sitting pulled over for safety i felt this vacuum suck everything out of me all the bitterness all the hurt all the deception all the anxiety the depression the paranoia like joel said i was suffering with such severe anxiety and depression i was riddled with fear i had fear of man fear of um a fear of every i was afraid of moths i mean that's really scraping the bottom of the barrel moth i was riddled with fear and it governed my life there would most days i couldn't leave my closet not just my house my closet and i would sit in there convinced that if i left i would die and as i was in the car with jesus this vacuum sucked everything out of me and then he filled me with his peace and his love and his presence and i am i finished driving to the church to get joel and i can't describe to you the intensity of the fire of god in the car and he gets in the car and you know when you're when you have holiness in the passenger seat it's it's awkward like what do you say in the face of pure holiness and reverence and awe so joel and i just sit in silence for the whole car drive home it's like so i just get in this car and i and i looked at it i said like in the car and i was like i could see something that happened it was this amazing presence in this car of what someone was saying so we drove home in silence for 20 minutes this didn't say a word and we get to the camera we pull into the driveway and i look and i say who are you and she just unloaded on me with what just happened she just told me what she just experienced in the car and she preached the gospel to me and she's like this thing and she said joel i love you so much she said but i don't need you see i had encountered freedom and i had encountered love true love the person love is a person i had encountered the love of christ and so i didn't need him sometimes that's offensive in a relationship i don't need you because we've so replaced love with need and we think if you don't need me you don't love me but i was in a place of food now i said joel i don't need you but out of everyone i choose you because i see you with the eyes of christ now i see you for who you are i see you for your value and i ask nothing of you and if you want to walk away right now that's okay it's gonna be okay and so and so we just sit in there and she's just unloaded on me and i'm like oh my gosh and i could i was so excited that something had happened she she'd become a christian that day in the car and actually surrendered her entire life to jesus christ so we sat there and i'm so excited that she's free because as we read before the anointed one has set us free not partially but holy and wonderfully free and now she's carrying this freedom and the truth is freedom's offensive to those who are bound free especially in religion freedom can be super attractive but you have to with religion we have to rip that thing off rip right out of the way and it was this thing and i was so excited but i'm still bound up holding all the hurt because i've not had the encounter with the holy spirit who's going to liberate me from my problem and so for the next three weeks savannah is just an absolute mess in a good way i met the holy spirit what else is there that's what we were designed for it's our whole purpose in life you have a calling yes but your purpose what you were designed and created for is intimacy with the holy one jesus poured out his spirit on all flesh so that you could could be in this intimate relationship with perfect holiness and i had had like a taste in my car and i became like an addict for the presence of god and i would wake up in the morning holy spirit would be sitting on the end of my bed and he began to teach me he began to reveal who i was who joel was he began to reveal his nature he began to open up the word of god and it became living and active in my life and i was just like this junkie but something else the presence does is it makes you a little bit incapacitated so joel would leave for work in the morning this happened for about three weeks and i would be lying on the floor trembling in the presence and he would get home at night and i would still be there i didn't know what was happening i'd never been to a revival meeting i just was encountering glory the fire of god the consuming fire it burns up all flesh you can't look very cool in a consuming fire if you pour gasoline on someone and set them alight i promise it won't be pretty and that's what god did for me for three weeks so i lost my job because i didn't turn up to work but i didn't care i was obsessed and after three weeks of this madness of me disappearing for hours of a time at a time to hide away with my beloved whom i'd found joel cracked big time we're just sitting and we're gonna have to shorten the rest of the story for the sake of time but we're just sitting in our in our small little tiny studio apartment and one night and it was this tension and season where she was so free so i'm so excited but as i said i'm still i'm struggling and now with what she's going through it's even more uncomfortable for me because i get home and she's weeping i get home and she's laughing or i get home and she's just encountering god and i'm desperate for that now but i haven't had it and so the one night we're sitting in our bedroom and she gets up to go do something in the kitchen and i said um sweetheart could you get me a milo now milo is like quick it's like a a chocolate thing you put in a glass you add milk it's delicious and so i said can you get me a milo and she's like of course and she goes in 45 minutes later she's never come back so now if you've ever had a milo you can't wait 45 minutes for a milo you're like come on people and so and so i get up to go find her because she can't go far because our house is a studio apartment that leads to as a kitchen that leads to the bathroom it's like that's it so she can't be gone too far for 45 minutes and so i walk into the kitchen and i open the door to the bathroom and there she is encountering the presence of god she's weeping and just this overflowing joy is all over her and i look at her and i said where's my milo [Applause] but um as i did i broke and i fell to my knees and i just began to weep as i was being the spirit of god came on me and delivered us and set us free and showed us that this is the freedom that he paid for two thousand years ago that was happening is we'd believed lies we've been deceived by the devil we've submitted submitted ourselves to the enemy's plan and he'd had his way with us and in this moment he was revealing where the spirit of the lord is there lies freedom and so i wept and we sat there and we hugged and we cried and from that day forward our marriage has never been the same you know we had people tell us you know you're going to have to have counseling for double the amount of time you were separated for to even get back to where you started in the first place and the truth is we're not anti-counsellors but we do believe in the counselor the holy spirit that he's the teacher and he's our father and he le if you submit yourself and if you yield yourself to his plans his purposes and his voice he will lead you and guide you into all truth and all truth happened as jesus blood was poured out on the cross you see if the anointed one set us free not partially but holy and wonderfully the day we received him then we have to start walking in the freedom that he paid for this is the substance of our salvation like we have all things that pertain to life and godliness in christ jesus meaning the day you became a christian you received everything you need for life and to live it godly but we have to choose to believe this truth understand this truth if you're being led and guided and counseled let them be leading you and guiding you and counseling you into the crucifixion of jesus christ and the reality of what that is because you see like we all have problems we all go through something we all have a problem and our story might seem big to you or for some of you it might seem small but the truth is it doesn't matter because your problem is not your problem your problem is the lack of the reality of christ and him crucified in your life that's not to bring condemnation but it's to draw you into a place where you recognized what jesus paid for he paid for not for marriages to fall apart he didn't pay for you to stay in your sickness he didn't stay pay for you to stay in your bondage and your brokenness he paid for you to live free and it says where he who the son sets free is free indeed and so we found this freedom that day and our whole life began to be transformed the supernatural nature of what happened gave us an opportunity to be in a place like this in every conversation we have not just in marriage problems or relationship problems but in life to show people and teach people the reality of christ in him crucified the apostle paul he didn't he came to the corinthians and he said i come to you and i i don't want to know anything among you except christ and him crucified he wasn't saying that the cross is the only thing we should ever talk about he's saying i come to you knowing nothing except christ and him crucified because he knew that everything you need for life and godliness every spiritual blessing is found in christ and him crucified and the mysteries the depths of your salvation you received are unlimited we have to stop living from blessing to blessing and living like hell on the in-between like you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in christ jesus so if you understand the reality of that you'll start living the blessed life because every spiritual blessing has been given to you in christ jesus and this is the truth so you won't believe the lies does that make sense christ what he did it's so powerful and his freedom for everyone who would believe it's like this amazing moment in the worship when when we spoke about maybe your breakthrough your promise hasn't come through yet don't live by what you experience live by faith believe god for whatever you haven't even seen yet is going to come to pass but the good thing about realizing what christ did for you is that you have peace on the inside regardless of what happens on the outside peace is not found in the external peace is found in your right standing with god the bible says the kingdom of god is righteousness peace and joy in the holy spirit because with the spirit of the lord is there is freedom and freedom for a believer means right standing with god you are as you have the righteousness of god in christ jesus which produces and gives you peace with god which means if you have peace with god then that peace cannot be robbed from you except for what you submit and allow the enemy to rob from you because you have peace with god which produces joy that's unshakable it puts you in a position you're positioned in christ that no matter your external no matter how long you've been waiting for your breakthrough no matter how long your marriage has been broken no matter how long your child has been running away from jesus no matter how long you've been sick no matter how long you've been anxious to depressed it doesn't matter if you realize the truth you have peace with god then the reality of what he did will begin to manifest in your life and rather let our experience define the word of god we let christ and him crucified in the living word of god the holy spirit teach us and we begin to let the word of god define our experience and so we but we we're just so passionate about what what god has done in our marriage but it's like savannah said it's so much more than what he did in our marriage it's what he wants to do in your life so you can live in the life that he paid for you to live in so that you can be a blessing to this world like our worlds are messed up like we're living in africa it's messed up we come to america it's messed up but when the darkness gets darker we get to shine brighter we get to show people the reality not of a watered down gospel but that the anointed one set us free not partially but wholly and wonderfully and freedom is the most attractive thing to somebody who's bound like if you have a prisoner and he's in a prison cell we can come and make it look nice we can come in a prison cell and he can we can give him roast chicken and barbecue ribs and whatever you want to give him and it'll feel good and we can make church nice and we can make it comfortable but a prisoner who's in prison even if all the comforts around him is still in prison and therefore freedom is the most attractive thing that we can give them like i was saying we don't want to be seeker sensitive churches we want to be sinner sensitive churches and the most attractive thing to a sinner is freedom and that's why we love the name of this church freedom house if this is a freedom house it means those who are bound in bondage and sin can come into a place and not just find awesome praise and worship and seats but they can find freedom because christ set them free and we have to start living like it the gospel he didn't pay a price on the cross for us to live like hell all the way to heaven he came to give us life and life more abundantly now the thief came to steal kill and destroy if it's death loss and destruction then it's from the thief but jesus came to give us life and life they're more abundant [Music] with what savannah went through was like it was a hectic what we had to go through was hectic and no one should ever have to go through it but when we encountered the spirit of the living god freedom became our bread when we believed the truth of what he did for us we began to live by that truth apart from our experience and that truth began to manifest and transform our experience because the gospel set us free it did he paid the price i'm harping on the point because we have to start to believe the reality of what he did for us we can't just come to church pay our tithes warm our pew and go home religion's dead but it's christ in us the hope of glory this message is never to bring condemnation to anyone who's going through anything i've been there i've been going through something we've been there and you know savannah's anxiety and fear was so bad i would come home from leading worship at youth and she was cutting her arms with a knife it doesn't matter the depth of the deception no one's so lost that they can't be found no one's so broken they can't be healed the omg fact is that jesus christ the son of god died to set those who would receive him free not partially but holy and wonderfully and freely we received so freely we ought to give people in this room you might have been through a marriage divorce or breakdown there's no condemnation for those in christ jesus you don't have to feel guilty you don't have to feel ashamed you've been set free there is no condemnation for those in christ jesus those going through a marriage breakdown right now believe that god can fix it because he can and he will if you submit and yield to him get help get people who will lead you and not just lick your wounds but speak truth speak life speak hope hope is the expectation of good faith is the substance of the expectation of good in your life if you don't have an expectation that a good god is going to be there for you then faith has nothing to collide with for your miracle to come forth the world says don't get your hopes up the gospel says get them sky high says set your mind on things above not on the things beneath don't use human wisdom because it wars against the will of god in your life for me and savannah to move to south africa was not human wisdom if it was we would have stayed where we were comfortable but we would have warned against the will of god for our life but we stepped into a place and we trusted the voice of god and we read and understood that those who are led by the spirit of god they are the sons and daughters of god today freedom is available would you yield yourself to the holy spirit in his power would you yield yourself to the lordship of jesus christ and let him reveal to you tonight the reality of christ and him crucified and the amazing depth of mystery and wonder and glorious hope that comes through his amazing cross and his resurrection from the dead we out of time tonight but if you could just close your eyes for a minute we're about to hand back to pastor troy if you're going through anything today you know what it is in your heart you don't even need to raise your hand but savannah we're just going to pray over you guys release the presence of god and as the service finishes we'll be down the front if anyone wants to be prayed for or there's going to be a prayer team i'm sure because we've provoked some stuff tonight but if you need healing in your body your miracle working power is here today if you need breakthrough in a circumstance he's here today if you need hope he's here today if you need anything god's here today we're going to pray hand back and at the end of the service we'll be here and there'll be a prayer team i'm sure if anyone just wants to be prayed to administer to because the spirit of god is here and he wants to touch people tonight lord i thank you that you're here i thank you that right now you are intervening in people's lives i thank you that right now your miracles are being released lord that we don't have to beg you it was done it was paid for 2 000 years ago so i speak to um marriages in this room and i speak restoration into them i speak to everybody in this room and i command you to be healed in jesus name every disease blood diseases cancer pain arthritis injuries i just command those bodies to come into line right now in jesus name and i speak to every situation i see you come into line with the government of heaven right now in jesus name i thank you lord that we don't have to strive and fight for it but we get to rest in the fact that this is your will and we submit our own human wisdom the pride that puffs up and says i want to create a reason for my experience we submit that to you lord and we come into line with your will right now in jesus name amen god bless you guys it's been a privilege to be here you

Channel: Joel Ramsey

Views: 14,436

Rating: 4.9188643 out of 5

Keywords: Marriage testimony, joel ramsey, savannah, savannah ramsey, citipointe, awaken africa, citipointe live

Id: N6vTDjU-pAY

Length: 34min 30sec (2070 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 01 2020