How God Restored our Marriage | Pastors Jeremy & Jennifer Foster

come on let's give Jesus innovation to worship he's good hey y'all this is my wife Jennifer come on somebody we're glad each and every one of you guys are here if it's your first time my name is Jeremy this is my wife Jennifer and we are excited not just having a Morial campus and all three additional seating rooms here at this campus but also our Cypress campus rkd campus and the thousands of people watching online let's welcome all of them in will glad you guys are with us I'm fired up you know why I'm fired up I'm gonna tell you why I'm fired up because today today eighteen years ago today we said I do and here we are celebrating by sharing our story in fact I have some pictures of our very first date right here pictures of our very first day and it was an amazing moment look at my top and look at your great crazy like crazy I was like crazy like crazy red eyes I was like that one no the one on the left like looks like we tried to fix it and then one that was prophetic was just half crazy then another picture when we started dating we started talking we were we had just gotten off four-wheelers crazy about no I was giving somebody the side I don't know what's going on right this way I you know and then and then 18 years ago today we got married right there baby and here we are and I'm still crazy about you I'd go hungry I'd go black go crawling down [Music] to make you feel my na na and your seat [Applause] so we're gonna we're gonna share with you some things and here's what I think all campuses even if you're watching online I think it's important that you take notes because what you're gonna get is eighteen years of hard learned lessons I wish we would have known this stuff before we got married I wish we'd have known this stuff early in our marriage we've learned it we've we put it into practice and man it works here we are eighteen years and God is so good so the first thing is I'm just going to teach you how to spell marriage a lot of you think you know how to spell marriage here's how you spell marriage doesn't start with an M you turn the M upside down it's wor K that's how you that's how you spell marriage marriage is spelled work because you have to work on your marriage here's the challenge I think a lot of people look at marriage like a game of Jenga anybody ever played Jenga before you played Jenga so i'ma go first this is this weekend is Jennifer's very first time to play Jenga that one came out super easy look no that's it those are the easiest ones to go for that is not wrong and this and this right here is exactly what most people do with their marriage they they erode the foundation they take away from what it's built on and somehow it becomes a game and then when one of us pulls that last foundational piece out and it and it falls apart it becomes a blame game and and this is a problem marriage shouldn't look like Jenga it should look more like Lincoln Logs anybody remember Lincoln Logs how many y'all remember Lincoln Log raise your hand if you play with Lincoln Logs see none of the Millennials are raising their hands you know why because they had iPods and they had games and that's why all they know how to do is play games y'all now ready for these bombs I'm gonna be dropping look his even got a little cowboy bait there you are baby girl how you know you know look at him when you pulled him off the horse he still stands like this is the game of Lincoln Logs and this has to be built together on a foundation and really what we want you to do is we want you to just see we want you to see this see this example because you're gonna find your relationship in one of these ways you're either playing Jenga pulling the foundation apart or you're building with Lincoln Logs and here's here's what we want to teach you there's several things that you need to work on the first thing that you need to work on is you've got to work on your vision somewhere in the back backstage there's a box that this came in and the reason we were able to build the house is because we followed the instructions on the box you have to have strong vision you have to have a plan for your marriage and even the scripture talks about this proverbs 29:18 says where there is no vision the people perish so you need to have a plan and this is something that we've often talked about we like to dream about our future and we have a plan and dreams for like 150 60 years from now correct we're gonna be in there rocking chairs facing where I'm all girls be holding your old hand here's the problem we didn't know we didn't know that you were supposed to have a vision so when we first got married we didn't have a vision but we had love right and love is all you need right wrong everybody who's ever been divorced will tell you they started with love but love is not all you need you know I've told you this throughout the course of the series the only thing you need to fall in love as a pulse but if you want to stay in love you've got to have a plan but falling in love is fun I remember the first time that I met you the first time that I saw you first time that I saw you is October 99 and I fell hard in that moment you did not but I fell mom yes but I always like to tell this because it's not the first time I saw you I saw you at a conference and I noticed you you did but it wasn't like that that was lighter because he walked in and I just remember seeing this guy with this really ugly bright lime green shirt in orange tie I mean I still don't know what you were thinkin Hertz yeah do you I don't know what you were thinking but you wanna get I was in style I was wearing no mister large and in charge and I just remember thinking hey this is God then we then we we met in 99 I felt pretty hard for you we kind of started talking and and nobody really knew that we were talking and I heard you telling this story a couple of years ago it was funny because you were just telling one part of it you were telling to this party in his house hey you tell the story I will and we're sitting on this couch and the couch is packed with people but we're sitting beside each other and he had the lamest game heavily eighteen years and five kids I'd say it's pretty good game don't say like that lamebrain gonna give that one to you that is true but y'all this boy starts talking about his shoulder injury he's like but you were like yes you can no I did what you didn't tell people was on the way to the party that night she was riding with a friend and her friend was like hey do you know this guy Jeremy and Jennifer was like I do and this grows like he's kind of cute and first I'm like kinda whole lotta but um but then she was saying she didn't know y'all she didn't know that we were talking that she was like well I think I might try to talk to him and Jen like change she went from like June Cleaver to Madea in like 0.36 she was like nah me and him we're talking that's my man cuz she even early on you were prophetic you knew what she won't even already seen what you had come on that is right baby and and the problem was it was fun falling in love but we didn't know how to stay in love because we had no vision for our relationship when you have a vision for your relationship it will force you to face your foundation that's the second thing you have to work on is you have to work on your foundation oftentimes I'll ask people what is your relationship built on and they'll say something like oh it's built on love it's built on commitment it's built on Jesus and stuff on J's is built on J's I said and really it's not your relationship is built on past experiences and future expectations and oftentimes those expectations aren't even communicated this is why it makes you so mad when somebody does something you're like why did you do that well because of their past experiences and we're not prepared for that we don't prepare for a life together we prepare for a wedding well we'll take months to prepare for a wedding when we've been preparing for a divorce for years because we don't understand we've been followed this this cycle of the world listen if you're taking notes I want you to write this down you cannot promise your way past preparation okay some people are saying I dude that actually can't making crazy promises I love you I'll love you forever for richer for poorer you didn't know that you'd actually get poorer poor and you have to be prepared for that but oftentimes the marriage the marriage commitment is only as good as your ability to commit I can promise you all kind of things but if my track record doesn't prove my promises then are my promises any good some of us are marrying people we wouldn't loan $100 to when I walk into the bank and I asked them for a loan if I roll up in there and I'm like what's up I'm in my best suit like what's up y'all give me a loan look at your boy I look good will you pay it back I promise okay no they say let us see your license and then what do they start doing they start checking my credit no no no no no I promise I'm gonna pay it back I promise oh your your promise isn't oh good it's your track record it's good the most important thing on your wedding day most Brides would say what's a dress it's a dress and to make sure that my bridesmaids don't outshine me you know it's the dress and to make sure that my mother-in-law and my future mother-in-law doesn't wear a big white dress you know we make it weird and the groom would say were the most important part of the wedding day is the honeymoon you know I mean like Brides prepared their whole lives for the wedding and grooms wear the bow ties for the honeymoon you know that's a chain but the most important thing on your wedding day is your past yeah because that's what proves whether or not you can do what you're saying you're gonna do your pass is a greatest indicator of your future well you don't understand we're crazy about each other he's been so kind of me we've been in love for 10 weeks but he's been an idiot for 10 years give it some time I promise you who they really are will come out and it's important that you know before you say I do who they really are because I believe that commitment should stay binding and you should stay married you should stay strong than that there's some things that you can do that we believe will help you I want you to talk about single people where the single people at all campuses where you guys single Pig hold your hands up keep them up look around that's what you working with we got three campuses a whole bunch of service it's some of y'all like I'm going to another campus huh we got we got connector starting up absolutely single people we've talked about this throughout this series and you guys know that you need to set your standards high don't just settle for anybody with a pulse don't be like he's just breathing so I guess he'll be that's not gonna hurt that's not good you need to look for somebody who is going to honor you and respect you value you and love you and look at the way they treat their family look at the way that they treat their friends because ultimately that's the way they're going to treat you absolutely and you learned something you had a revelation throughout the course of our marriage that when you said it the other day while we were preparing I was like hold up wait a minute but I want you to say it explain people that are married what lately so I think that married people some of you need to lower your expectations now listen I feel like some of us have set so many high expectations on our spouse and then when they don't meet our needs you know we that's where we think we get our joy from and it's not they can't make us happy only Jesus can make us happy and this is something that I did early on in our marriage I expected you to meet all of my needs and when you couldn't my whole world came crashing down didn't realize how broken I was only Jesus couldn't meet my needs that's right well and at the end of the day what happens is we put so much responsibility on our spouse to bring me joy and to bring me peace how many times have you heard this set or maybe you've said it well you don't understand he just doesn't make me happy anymore yeah she just doesn't make me happy anymore that's a personal problem that's not your spouse's problem the Bible doesn't say the joy of your spouse will be your strength this is a joy of the Lord will be your strength you find that foundation in Christ and then you live in the overflow here's what Romans 15:13 says may the god of Hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope how by the power of the Holy Spirit listen you can't do this without the power of the Holy Spirit you can't recover from what we recover from without the power of the Holy Spirit we walked into our marriage with with wrong expectations tough past experiences I came from a family of healthy marriages you came from a family of broken marriages all we had is love we didn't have wisdom we didn't have knowledge we didn't have understanding but boy we had love and we hit a brick wall on down on day one but I want you to talk about some of your past experiences in work so I was a victim of sexual abuse in fact my earliest memory I was age for the abuser was my brother he was someone that I adored thankfully I told my other siblings who told my parents about the abuse I can remember talking to my parents and I actually remember my brother coming home and I'm watching as my dad walks out to meet him in the driveway and I remember my brother hanging his head down and that's the moment that I knew that they knew but he knew that they knew and then I you know 30 years ago the way that they handled things are not like the way they handle things now and so my parents are actually given the option to either put him in jail or sends him to the military so they chose the army so he went away nobody explained that to me and they do to the stress and the pressure my my parents got divorced and no one's explained that to me my father just went away and so my mother loved me my parents loved me you just didn't deal with that stuff so we just didn't talk about it anymore five six years later my dad and my brothers showed back up my brother came home a war hero I went to the party like nothing ever happened he continued to stay in my life like nothing ever happened fast forward to 12 years old my mother meets her highschool sweetheart again and they marry and I'm very excited because now here you know I have another person in the house who has a father figure and he was very loving he has two sons I was very excited one was close to my age one was older but I was very excited because I felt like now I have a sibling but they were both very mean to me the older ones started name-calling and body shaming killed my self-esteem and then behind closed doors he was trying to rape me in my own home always trying to sexually assault me in some way people were there still I was very vocal about it I was telling my parents but because he was older he convinced him that I was lying so now I start connecting the pieces together and I'm like oh this happened to me when I was 4 and it was ok and this is happening to me now and it's ok no one will do anything about it so I guess this is a way that men are supposed to treat women I needed attention so badly because I just felt so ugly that I realized very quickly at the age of 13 and 14 that if I started acting a certain way and dressing a certain way I could get positive attention and I can control that attention and so when I entered high school I went to my very first football game and I caught the eye of a senior in high school he was 18 Cauldron I was 14 my mother allowed me to go on my very first day and please listen to me parents don't do that well we're not ready for that at 14 15 even 16 years old we're not ready I was not ready to experience the type of relationship I was walking into I quickly fell for this guy I thought I was in love this was a grown-up relationship and it was amazing for the first year it was amazing but then it got bad I didn't realize that first year he was pulling me away from my friends I was isolated he was my whole world I was skipping school just to be with him and so and then he turned it on me and that's when the minnow abuse came and the body shaming came and the name-calling and he would do things to me and I would beg him please don't leave me sending him the message that hey you could do whatever you want to to me because I'm always going to be here I didn't know any better and then he started to physically abuse me and it got rough and I went through this from birth almost five years from the age of 14 to almost 19 years old I was in this relationship and by the time it was over I realized that this guy has stolen everything from me just like all the other men in my past my childhood was gone I was broken and so I started going out every night I was in a different Club every night before I would even hit the clubs I was drinking tequila hard liquor loved to go have fun loved to be drunk had to have a guy on my arm every second because that's where I got my identity from so I didn't know not how to not have a relationship it took one more relationship with a guy who hurt me so bad that the cops got involved and he knew who the guy was because he had a history and he said Jennifer you're lucky to get out of that house with your life you're lucky to be alive and I knew then that it had to stop I was out of control something was wrong something was broken I did not know what but I needed to change and thankfully my friend who I would go clubbing with she had a history of church and she had found her way back to Jesus and she called me and she said will you go to church her me and I just said yes I didn't know then that I needed Jesus but I knew that I needed something and it wasn't the clubs so I go to church I don't remember what the pastor was preaching but I do remember the altar call because I ran down front I knew that I needed Jesus and I knew he was going to meet me where I was that night and so I gave my life to God that night and I have never been the same from that night on stepped back into another club I stopped shrinking I knew I didn't need any men anymore it was just me and Jesus and I have forever been changed by the [Applause] challenge is you were saved but you still weren't set free right and and it's and it's because the church for years has distance itself from actually talking about abuse won't talk about it we want you to be happy one should be filled with love and joy and peace and we're not gonna actually talk about your issues we're gonna kind of gloss that and say Jesus will fix everything but Jesus often won't fix everything you have to use some tools that are at your disposal if you're a parent you need to listen to those little babies listen to those kids be their protector listen if you're the parent of a teenager it's okay to at times be the bad guy and say no you can't hang with those people I love you too much look I've told my daughter's it what if your date comes over here when they come over here my thumb a bullet I mean I'm alert I'm a toss someone be like you saw that one coming next when you ain't gonna see coming you know I got people and if I had to do it myself I'll be ready for prison ministry I'm all good whatever [Applause] but I don't want to negate that with with funny stuff you you listen to a podcast the other day that major blood ball I want you to talk about it recently I just listened to Lisa Bevere she's an amazing speaker and author and I was listening to her podcasts and she was talking about this subject of abuse and the church at how the church handles it and she said I was preaching at a conference and when I finished preaching I went offstage to pray for someone and she said this lady came up and she was crying and she said pastor Lisa please pray for me I'm in an abusive relationship and he actually just threw me down a flight of stairs and it broke me up pretty badly and Lisa was taken aback and she said honey I'm so sorry she said you need to get out of that relationship you need help please go home and go talk to your pastor and the lady stopped and she said I did talk to my pastor and he told me that I must have done something to deserve that somebody needs to throw him down a flight of stairs probably shouldn't said that out loud but this is real church um listen if you're in an abusive relationship I want you to hear me two things number one you've got to get distance I'm not telling you to get a divorce I'm telling you got to get distance now for your own safety listen anybody can victimize you but once you hear what I'm going to say you have to decide if you're gonna you're gonna remain a victim okay victim mentality says this is the way it's been this is the way it's it will always be if you want to defeat that you've got to talk to somebody you've got to get out of that we have a resources today and our next steps table at all of our campuses where you can find the right people to help you Houston Christian counseling you ought to go go talk to somebody get in a group her mother was a wonderful lady who didn't know how to handle it she didn't have a group of people around her and so when you know better you do better that's right we didn't have the education so now we have no more excuses so good well and and a lot of a lot of people are here in this today and maybe maybe you're an abuser and and what I've discovered when I talked to abusers at times is they don't know they're an abuser because it was so normal for them let me let me tell you what happened with us all of that brokenness she's saved but she's not set free and that enters our marriage and our problems began on the honeymoon that's right when you heard my story I mean just a brokenness and finding Jesus and when I found Jesus all the things happen that we are taught and that we listen to in the Bible and we read and I felt like a new creature in Christ I had new dreams I had new goals I wanted to draw close to this Jesus that I really never had a relationship with before but unfortunately and fortunately but unfortunately this guy walked in fortunately but unproblematic with Christ and I didn't get the time that I needed to fix all this broken that's why it's so important we talk about building that foundation with Christ we would have still got married but we should have taken some more time we got married after we had known each other for nine months premarital counseling we went to one session and we laughed we were like everything he knew everything everything we did who's the smartest man in the world okay but it did that that cycle started back in day one of the honeymoon we had our first argument and the cycle began and that's when the abuse begin again only this time it didn't come from a man it came from me and that's really hard for me to say because it's like I've always been the one who was being abused and now here I am I'm the abuser I only knew one way to fight and so when he was sitting over there arguing with me just using his words and not his hands I didn't know what to do with that because I'm used to defending myself and so literally all this rage and anger just starts coming out of me that I didn't even know they had in me well it was what the psychologist now we know they call it escalation so what had happened in all of her relationships is whenever they would get into a fight he would do something that she would do some of then he would do and she would do something and finally he would do something so bad he would throw it through a window or push it through a wall or push her out of her car or whatever that was so bad that obviously it was obvious to him that he had to apologize she didn't have to apologize he would then take all the blames I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry so that's what she was trying to do she would escalate the fight hoping that at some point I was gonna slap her I was gonna punch her I was gonna throw her through a wall so that I would realize man I'm so sorry I didn't mean to do that but that never happened so she became the one who was constantly asking yes and it started on the honeymoon and it was in our marriage we we had a baby really fast I got pregnant on the honeymoon all this stress all this tension just was mounting I didn't realize I had postpartum depression but guys I'm not talking about like when I want you to understand how bad it got so I'll give details my husband used to walk around with long sleeves during the summer time to cover bruises he would have to wear makeup to cover the scratches and the bruises on his face I would call the cops with you know at any time and just make up story to get him in trouble I was so manipulative I would use my two babies you know as leverage if you don't do this you know I'm out of here I'm taking your children you'll never see them again I would go behind closed doors locked doors with my kids and he didn't know what I was doing he was fearing for the worst and I was happy to let him believe that the worst would happen because I was so manipulative to this man and during that time here we are in the small a small town his father and mother are pastors of a church that's pretty well known there were the youth pastors we're supposed to have it all together we're supposed to be perfect so we're having these knock-down drag-out fights in the car on the way to church and we get to church and we're like praise the Lord Saints how y'all doing today we had nobody to talk to because the expectations were so high she would wave at people and blame okay we poke fun we're poking fun because it's so uncomfortable it's really hard for me to tell you guys this because it's harder for me to tell you this part then when I was being abused because I feel so evil and thank God I'm not this person anymore thank God but I can't believe I treated my husband this way well here's here's what people need to know and it took us a while it took me a long time to figure this out that's not who you were no that's what had happened to you but because you had never healed what had happened to you those past experiences came out it's correct now here's the challenge I had so many high expectations on her that were uncommunicative there was no way that she could live up to it and so what happened is I didn't love my wife like Christ loved the church when I when I realized she had a problem I was like hey you got a problem you're crazy you lost your mind lady like God deliver me right now your son is waiting for the promise and that ain't it and this whole lot happy anniversary this whole idea of what I married the wrong person I bought into it I married the wrong person but there was no infidelity we loved each other we just didn't like each other let me tell you a foolproof way to find out if you married the right person or not go home you're gonna have to dig a little bit find your marriage license and on your marriage license if that if that person next to you in your house that's the person that's on there congratulations you married the right person you just got to work on it you do and what what happens is you've got to actually be honest we weren't honest with what we were dealing with we kept our pain private listen you got to take off the mask this is why you got to get in a group I didn't have a group I didn't have anybody to go to I didn't know who to talk to and I want you to understand this God cannot heal who you pretend to be that's good you got to get around some people let's say this is who I am now I'm not saying the first week of your connectr if you're like hey guys my name is Jeremy my wife's beating me you know you don't you don't do that that's a little weird but you take you take some time to get to know some people around you I wish I'd have known what to do I didn't know what to do I'll never forget the day that she said I'm done I'm leaving you I'm out of here you're never gonna see your kids again she laughed and and she tried to come back a few days later and I wouldn't let her back I wish I would have known then that what we were getting ready to do was a very clear step in helping heal a marriage and that's number three you got to work on your issues you got work on your issues I wish I'd have known that's an intentional step and here's what I want you to understand I said work on your issues not their issues I could have said all day long and told you in fact if those days if you'da set down and listened to me I'd have told you everything that was wrong with her and if you just said what did what have you done ever like nothing well you talked about me I'm the victim here but I didn't realize if Ida loved her as Christ loved the church I would have realized that she was broken in fact I was the one who told her that she was abused as a child yeah but instead of saying hey you were abused as a child let's go talk to somebody I just said hey you're abused as a child I love you let me pray for you you're gonna be all right no you gotta utilize the tools and yes God can heal some banks but you also have to talk to somebody you need to be in a group you need to go to counseling I I think every marriage ought to go to counseling and we did some things to work on our issues during that separation that I think will help people talk about some of the things that you did yeah and so I just I had to get my focus off of Jeremy because I was very broken and has some deep issues so the separation for us was the very best possible thing that could have happened even though I didn't know it at the time and so literally I couldn't worry about him I couldn't worry about his emotions his feelings because I could not control him or how he felt I had to work on me and so I did I did the hard work I went to counseling I got help for myself resources and read books battlefield of the mind changed my world by Joyce Meyers please get that book if you're struggling it is such a huge help and it was an inspiration to me and you know just leaning on God finding that relationship with God again I did not have a relationship with God after we got married I put him on a shelf for a very long time and I was just playing a role and so I found I found Jesus again more things that I say I was raised in church I gave my life to Jesus when I was five but I didn't really need him until I was 25 and I was broken and in a broken marriage and everybody had an opinion but I found God on an old linoleum gym floor pounding out of relationship with God I had no hope in this marriage but I trusted that God was good and no matter what happened to this that he was gonna keep me and that he was gonna bring me through that and he was gonna be my peace and be my joy and be my hope you have got to build your hope on things eternal she's not eternal I wanted to I want I want this to be forever but at the end of the day I've got to build my hope on Christ many of us haven't built our hope on Christ you got it you got to work on you Romans chapter 12 verse 2 somebody needs to hear this right now says this do not conform to this world but this is a good one you could preach it but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God that's really good but a lot of us gloss over this one little phrase in there be transformed by the renewing of your mind not your mind yea this is talking to you I've got to work on me and I took some time during those 27 months of painful separation she had her place I had my place we passed the kids back and forth I didn't know what to do she was working on her I didn't know that she was working on her because we were still fighting almost every phone call ended in a fight had no hope but I started praying and I said I'll do whatever it takes God whatever it takes I know I've met people before and they said hey your marriage is broken they're like we're committed we'll do whatever it takes and then we get into a couple of sessions they're like no I won't do that you know my meat loaf yeah I would do anything for love but I won't do that you need to you need to say it whatever whatever it takes and it's got to be both of us she was given a hundred percent I was given a hundred percent you got to go all-in and we fasted if you don't know anything about fasting you need to you need to research it we're getting ready to go into 21 days of Prayer in September where our whole church prays together in the beginning of the year we do a 21-day 21 days of prayer and fasting it's so important that you've learned to fast I went on an extended fast what I didn't know she was she was fasting at the same time and I remember going to a conference and this guy coming up to me and saying I have a word from the Lord for you I was like okay thanks God it's gonna be weird or it's gonna be super general like God wants to use you Oh duh he wants to use everybody you know but this guy said he looked at me and he said you feel like you've been on the surface of Mars you feel like you're completely alone there's nobody in your world and he said but God's gonna give you faith to begin to speak metropolitan cities in faith into existence and what he was talking about was learning how to speak in faith things that are not as though they were jennifer was learning that people would come come up to hurt me like how how are y'all doing and she'd tell them what you'd say I say we're good we're good we're ho were happy our marriage is gonna be put back together no geez we were not doing we were not happy we were not whole thing but she was speaking in faith I didn't know how to do that I had to learn how to do that and I will never forget when he looked at me and he said within 60 days that thing you've been battling for two years is gonna break and within 60 days she walked into my office tears streaming down her face and she said I'm sorry I don't want to be this way anymore and I had tears streaming down my face and I said I'm sorry I don't to be this way anymore and here we are 18 years in five kids pasture her great Chuck don't tell me that God won't change everything if you're committed to it I'm not saying it's all gonna work out perfect there are people here you fought for your marriage but somebody else wouldn't I can't give a hundred percent her gift ten and it work it's got to be both of us saying I'm gonna get help I remember in the midst of it I went to an old Bishop Bishop tinny he's already gone on to be with the Lord but I went to Bishop tinny and I just said I can't do this anymore I'm so tired of it I can't stand this I despise this thing and he looked at me he said Jeremy sorry talk Jeremy he said don't despise anything that brings you to the foot of the cross okay and I realize God didn't make this happen God doesn't make bad things happen to good people bad things happen to good people because we live in a fallen world and this is not heaven and God allows you to have free will and free choice and people make choices to do bad things but the Lord redeems those things and he can turn the pain into purpose and create a promise to help change other people's lives and we are standing here as a living example of when you put your trust in your faith in your hope and God you go to counseling you get a good group of people around you I have a good group of people around me right now look what the Lord can do the fourth and final thing that we'll give you in closing is you got to work on finding forgiveness you can't work on finding forgiveness a beautiful marriage is simply a good union of two good forgivers people who learn to forgive gin had to go back she didn't have any conversations with any of those people but she had to go back and she had to forgive she had to release and there's somebody here under the sound of my voice and maybe maybe you've walked through some abuse I'm not saying you got to go confront your abuser unless you're currently in abuse you've got to get out you got to get help there's officers around every campus talk to an officer today get in your group you don't have to go back necessarily and talk to those abusers but you do have to release that anger the easiest way to do it is to say alright I got to find forgiveness I got to forgive them and here's why I'm not saying you gloss over the hurt I deal a lot with lamenting I lament I wish that would have never happened I bring that pain to God and say God why did it happen but I'm gonna trust you with it Lord I'm gonna release that I can't focus on that when you do that when she learned to do that it opened up our marriage and I stopped paying for the pain that someone else caused in her life because there are people in your world right now if you've not released those people who brought the pain into your life there are people in your world right now who are paying for pain that they don't know anything about they don't understand why you get so angry why you get so frustrated why you get so mad all the time it little things that they do but here's why because it's this trigger that reminds you of old pain that you haven't learned to forgive and then you know what you got to do all of us gotta learn to forgive yourself there are people who will let God forgive them but they won't forgive themselves therefore they never move into what God has called them to because they just don't believe they can move forward listen in order for you to move past something sometimes you got to go through it and the easiest way to go through it and say I gotta I trust you I know that you forgive me I'm gonna forgive myself and I'm gonna trust you to walk through this thing together Jenna and I want you to walk up here with me bye Jenna Jenna and I we walked through some things last year that I've never preached about I mention it in one message I dealt with some depression last year I've never dealt with depression in my life ever I come from the most positive family I mean we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps my dad always told me son you got to have a backbone like a sawlog determination of a bulldog gonna hide like a rhinoceros cowboy that's how this hours race out-weird was that you know anything like that don't ask me stuff like that um but but that doesn't help you that mentality doesn't help you when you drive home at night you sit in your truck in the driveway for an hour just because you can't get out of the truck but thank God for a marriage where we now we rely on Christ we have a good group around us not joking about these groups we've learned that we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength and this one came out and got in the truck with me and we walked through that together I talked to my group about it and guess what my group helped me realize dude you're working seven days a week you don't have enough help on the church staff you're setting expectations for yourself then not even God has set on you you're not taking one day off you're working all the time and I promise you if you violate the Sabbath you'll wear yourself out even God works six days and then he rested when you work six days and you take that one day to rest and I'm not saying it's got to be pajama day I can't do pajama day I need to be active I need to be on the tractor I need to be hunting I need to be fishing I need to be doing something active but just not producing in ministry or producing in work which ministry is my work not producing something for the church listen if you call me on Monday you find out how important you are go to voicemail you know why because I'm with my family you know why because they're more important than you to me I had a mic I did I'd drop it right there that's good Jen walked through some stuff that we've never talked about until this weekend you know you heard me say that I had postpartum depression we didn't know what that was number three came along I was good number four came along I was great but number five our little bonus baby I prayed him I was like god I need another dude to help me balance out all the estrogen in this house read that little mate well he wasn't expected and so have to admit to you guys when when I was pregnant with him I started feeling depression and sadness and I was very overwhelmed was very stressed I was excited and she wasn't yes and at first you know I wasn't sharing any of this information with my husband because I was embarrassed and I was ashamed of how I was feeling and so I was just taking all this anger and frustration out on my husband and here we are in another dark season showing three I want you remember that we were pastoring this church at a time this wasn't years and years ago no last year so thankfully because of our past and all the things that we've walked through I said you know what I'm not gonna let the enemy destroy this again I knew that I had a loving and caring husband and we have to work on our issues together so I came to him tell him what you told me what you were feeling yeah I actually you know I never I never had feelings of suicide but I didn't want to be here anymore and what that meant was I wanted to pack my bags and I had thoughts of just packing my bags and leaving town and leaving all of them not because I didn't love them because I thought that they would be better off without me because I was so miserable and I was bringing everybody in the house down and making them miserable and I'm just so thankful that when I told you that you came along beside me and you helped me and you say you know what baby we're going to get through this together we're gonna go talk to your OBGYN you're not going to have postpartum depression we're gonna work through this while you're pregnant and we did that and I'm so thankful because I work through it and when gonna arrived oh my god we were so happy and that little boy has just filled our our hearts in our home with so much joy but I love you that's what we do that's what we do as married people really proud of 14 they are often here's what we're trying to get across to everybody at all of our campuses this is important we don't have it all together we're a work in progress but we're a work in progress and that happens when I keep working on that foundation when I go through a growth track when I get in the group when I get on the Dream Team when I start discovering my purpose making a difference changing somebody's life I realize we matter we're valuable in the eyes of God and you can do this but you got to take that for that first step or but I say next step in fact in just a moment I'm gonna pray for you and then I'm gonna ask you at the end of that prayer campus pastors are gonna come up with Sochi campus pastors are gonna come up and they're gonna give you some next step options I don't want anybody walking out during that time I talked to you last week about it all campus I want you to stay where you are they may have you stand stay where you are here's why because that moment is so important everybody say next steps because we're gonna give you some next steps and maybe you're saying listen I know all that I don't need them but if you roll out it sends a signal to somebody else say it's time to go and they may leave and that may be the moment God's trying to get them to to know what the next steps are I don't know if your marriage is destroyed I don't know if it's doing good I don't know where it's at right now but I do care I don't know where you are in your faith but I do care and I want to pray for you at all of our campuses would you bow your heads lord I thank you for each and every person under the sound of my voice I pray right now that you would bring about radical change in hearts and lives and minds and emotions I pray for those that have been abused Lord that you would remind them how much you love them and that you did not cause that to happen but you can heal them and you can take that pain and you can turn it into purpose lord I pray for those under the sound of my voice who have been the abuser I pray that they would admit it I pray that they would seek help I pray for parents that they would protect those sweet babies I pray that we would utilize the resources that are at our disposal I pray for people under the sound of my voice that they know they're feeling called they need to start a group because somebody in their world somebody and their sphere of influence needs them to reach out and say hey you can make it and lord I pray for those right now under the sound of my voice that are far from you maybe those who made a promise at one point Lord I'm gonna live for you but they've drifted far from that maybe those who just haven't been authentic with you Lord and they're wearing a mask and they need today to say that's me I need you Jesus or maybe those who've never put their trust in you if that's you under the sound of my voice here's what I want you to do maybe you drifted maybe you're still wearing a mask or maybe you've never given your life to Jesus if that's you and you you want to make that right - dad just once you lift your hand just boldly put your hand up say that's me I'm coming home Jesus put your hand up right now hands hands hands hands thank you hands hands hands hands come on let's give these folks a great big ovation a lot of courage all of our campuses I want us to pray this prayer right now will you pray with me Jesus you're the only one who can save me so I'm trusting you right now with my pain and my past and my heartache forgive me of my sins I repent I'm asking you to be my Savior I'm declaring you that you are my Lord and I'm putting my faith in you and I'm declaring right now that I will follow you all the days of my life changed me from the inside out in Jesus name Amen come on let's give Jesus innovation away

Channel: Hope City

Views: 32,713

Rating: 4.8857141 out of 5

Keywords: Jeremy Foster, Houston, Hope City, Hope, Christianity, Jesus

Id: eh3FsAr--_A

Length: 49min 39sec (2979 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 28 2019