The Rhythm of Relationship | Rhythms | Pastor Jeremy Foster | Hope City

i'm glad that every everybody's here each and every one of you um we have all of our campuses joining in and we literally have people from all over the world that watch online it's our hope city extended family come on let's give them a great big hand we're glad that you guys are all with us wherever you're watching from just put it in the chat let us know where you're watching from and if you haven't caught the last two weekends on uh youtube or on our app or wherever you consume media at um a podcast or whatever please go do that the last two weekends in this rhythm series i believe are paradigm shifting and ultimately life-changing if you allow god to speak to you through we've been very practical last two weeks ago i talked a lot about trauma and the truth is all of us have been through trauma all of us have dealt with trauma some of us are dealing with trauma now and others of us will go through it later and you need a godly biblical perspective on how to walk through that and then last weekend pastor daniel preached on the rhythm of rest and aren't you grateful that we have a teaching pastor you can just bring it i mean it was phenomenal not only does he have a great beard he's a great teacher and rhythm everybody say rhythm rhythm the definition is a strong regular repeated pattern of movement or sound you most of you can hear rhythm when music comes on like you can hear it now what's funny is some of you can actually dance to it and others of you you you can't you can't find the rhythm you want you feel it you're like aw and we're like hmm this is not this is not okay how many of you know you can't dance like you know i just can't dance raise your hand at least you know god bless you you know you can't you just know you can't how many of you know you can dance you know you can't a good half of you can't what's funny do people who can't dance they don't know they can't dance they just like what is that a new tick-tock move that's not it's not going viral bruh it's bad but what's funny is they just get they just they just dance i mean some of y'all you you've been throwing the lasso for a long time and nobody's coming nobody but one of these days somebody's like all right so you keep throwing that lasso come on but you the truth is here's the truth have you ever seen somebody dancing and you can just see them have you ever seen a silent disco you ever seen a silent disco somebody don't even know what a silent disco is we went on a cruise ship a while back a couple of years ago we go on this cruise ship and we're on the cruise and they invited us they said hey we're going to have an auction it was a it was a fundraising cruise it was great um we're gonna have an auction and then we're gonna uh we raised uh seven million dollars for missions on that trip it was great but we're gonna have an auction and then we're gonna have a silent disco and i was like that sounds like the worst party ever but what i didn't know is that like everybody has headphones everybody has headphones well everybody dancing has headphones and if you're just there you can't there's no music playing but they all have headphones on and there's like four different channels that they can select they can select hip hop they can select oldies they can select rock and roll and they're all out there just getting it and we were just laughing we're like idiots this is the greatest thing i've ever seen i was videoing it it was like and you and there was no noise except for us everybody standing around laughing at him and then you could hear like jump jump but i could i knew that i knew the song cause they all started doing this i was like and then somebody was like hey would you like some headphones i was like no i'm good i know for real just listen to the song and i put it on and right when they put it on i heard hammertime and i was like uh oh like they weren't ready and i got out and i started i and you could tell somebody else who had your song because they were in the same mood you're like we're gonna throw it back twice over that shoulder twice over that show like it was on and then i turned around and all of my friends that we were just laughing they were all laughing at me but here's what i want you to understand they couldn't hear the rhythm i could hear the rhythm and what was cool is i would connect with the other people who were here in the same rhythm as me now every now and then i'd be up be up next to somebody and they'd be like doing this i was like that we ain't listening to the same song the problem with some of y'all is in life you're trying to dance with people who aren't listening to the same song and you wonder why you're out of rhythm and you've got a rhythm of negativity and fear and anxiety and worry we've got to get in the right rhythm and this weekend we're going to talk about the rhythm of relationships and you've got to get in the right rhythm how do i get in the right rhythm you got to listen to the same song but what if we don't like the same song i'm not talking about music i'm talking about the rhythm of the word of god because here's what's crazy is if we are all listening to the same did you notice that today across all of our campuses we sing the same songs you couldn't hear them at katy campus you couldn't hear them at woodlands campus you couldn't hear them but they were singing the same songs we were worshiping at the same moments but in this room you were worshiping you were singing now what's amazing is none of you were up here leading it none of you were producing the sound that was causing all of us to worship together in sync but it was because we were worshiping to the same sound we were listening to the same sound when i'm listening to the same sound of hope and joy and peace and love and patience and goodness and kindness and the fruit of the spirit is flowing in my life then i'm going to attract people that are flowing in that same sound why do i always attract bad people you attract what you are well when i when i teach business leaders i teach them this be the culture that you want to see well i just don't like my business if you're a leader you if you're a manager of any sort you lead any sort and you go i don't like my team my response to you as a coach or a consultant would be well you don't like yourself because you reproduce what you are so if you don't like the sound that's coming back to you you ought to check the sound that you're sending out because the issue is you oh i'm preaching good on a sunday right now turn to somebody next to you and say i'm the problem oh that was fun to watch i got to tell you there was one lady she just looked straight ahead he said i'm the problem and she just went like i i already knew that that's why that's why i invited you to church today some of y'all didn't say i'm the problem some of y'all said you're the problem turn again i'm gonna give you another chance turn against somebody else and say i'm the problem the truth is the biggest challenge that you will have in any of your relationships is you you're the biggest issue well why do i always have these problems in relationships well there's one common denominator all those relationships is you but it's so much easier for us to point it out to somebody else but i can tell you this the healthier you become the healthier your relationships become this weekend two weeks ago i talked about an unfulfilled expectations and untreated pain we talked a lot about trauma i would encourage you to go back and watch both of those series in this rhythm series today i want to focus in on this and there's so many people that have this and it is it is a challenge and that is an unhealthy view of self have an unhealthy view of myself now that can be cultivated over time it can be cultivated through pain in my life and this is why it's so important this is why david was very clear psalm 23 he said the lord is my shepherd what is he saying i'm not always going to just lead myself i want to i want to i want to follow the lord a shepherd does two things he directs and he corrects here's when you'll know if the lord is your shepherd or not not when he directs when he corrects can i take the correction many of us have an unhealthy view of ourself our self-esteem is so low we always talk ourselves out of what god is trying to walk us into or the opposite our self-esteem is so high we would never stoop so low as to do something god has called us to do it's how you view yourself well where does our identity come from i want to show you this um i have two sons i have a lot of kids but i have two sons i have a five-year-old and i have a four-year-old jack and gunner and they are both rough and rowdy i mean these dudes are tough they are fun jack is big for a five-year-old we played t-ball the other day uh the first first game t-ball was yesterday and if y'all have ever played t-ball with the kids you know that uh there really are no positions on the field whatsoever whenever the opposite team hits the ball all the kids run to the ball you come the kid came from the outfield came all the way and so i had to back jack up because he was so fired up he's the biggest kid on the team he's throwing kids out of the way just to get the wrestling the ball out and i was like tame you know but i'm all so proud of you bud you got the ball it was so funny because because gunner is a little bit smaller but he's feisty too both both of my boys are tough jack has a little bit of a soft heart gunner is just all he's just wild and he has to be because he's short he's smaller he's smaller his mama babied him [Laughter] that's true so in my house i toughened him up like come on let's wrestle my suplex she's like be gentle i'm like nah you're gonna be a man tough i throw him up against the wall you know and then i sleep on the couch whatever it's fine but the other day we were wrestling in the living room and and gunner just went wild i mean he just helicoptered you ever seen a kid helicopter like he just he went after jack and and jack just like picked him up and threw him down it's like wham and dinner was like ah i was like calm down guys stop stop somehow i looked at jack and i said jack god be gentle you're you're bigger than gunner and gunner screamed at me we don't allow that in our house but i listened because it was weird what he screamed i said jack you're bigger than gunner you got to be careful and he screamed no he's not what he is not bigger than me he stomped his foot on the carpet which was very ineffective and jack started giggling and it made gunner mad he's like i'm bigger i'm a big boy screamed i'm a big boy and i started laughing i was like yeah but jack is bigger than you he said no he's not so i said all right y'all come here jack you stand right here gunner you stand right here and i stood them back to back and i promise you the disparity's like this and i said all right now back away i said this is jack and this is gunner and gunner said see we're the same size and i looked at him i said okay cause how you gonna argue with that he's a product of me do you know why he thinks he's bigger because i keep telling him cause i'm trying to toughen him up cause his mama makes him a mama's boy you can't even argue with it you know you do he's the baby of the family she's like you leave my baby alone i'm like you get over here you baby get and here's the thing she calls him her baby and so i've been telling him for a long time you're not a baby son you're like okay pick that up a little baby i'm like you're not a baby son you're a big boy like what four or five months ago he started believing it and then he got mad when you call him a baby come here baby he was like i'm not a baby i'm like he's my son i'm a big boy and what's hilarious is now he thinks he's just as big as anybody else now is he no will he be yes where did he get his identity from your identity is received not achieved you know where he got his identity from his father who's telling him you're bigger than what you think you are you're a big boy god doesn't listen god doesn't call you where he sees you he calls you where he created you to be and then makes a way for you to become who he's called you to become we all go through hard times in life that beat us up simon peter's a clear example of this when he meets jesus he talks to jesus and and then jesus calls him and he follows jesus and then he has this revelation of who jesus is in matthew 16 verse 13 jesus says who do men say that i am and they said well some say you're elijah and some say you're one of the prophets some say you're jeremiah some say you're john the baptist and he says but who do you say that i am because because it's less about what other people think about god and way more about what you think about god simon peter goes i know who you are you're the son of god very clearly he says you are the christ the son of the living god and watch what jesus says jesus answered and said blessed are you simon barjona which means son of john for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father who is in heaven so you've had a revelation of who i am watch what he does verse 18. and i also say to you that you are peter no he's simon nope you are peter which means rock cephas and on this rock i will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it what is he saying when you realize who i am i'll tell you who you are and not even hell can stop you if you know who jesus is this is why it's important for you to know who jesus is he's known who you are the whole time you realize this is not the first time that jesus called simon peter his parents didn't name him peter they named him simon but the first time that jesus meets him in john chapter 1 verse 42 and he brought him to jesus and jesus looked at him and he said this is the first time he meets him you are simon son of john you will be called cephas which when translated is peter this is the first time that jesus meets him that's got to be a weird conversation can you imagine if you brought a friend to church you're like hey i want you to meet jeremy he's the pastor and you're like hey jeremy this is my friend brandon and i was like you are brandon son of phil and nancy you will be called rolando your friend's like i i'm out i'm out this is weird why would jesus say you're simon son of john you will be called cephas why because jesus doesn't call you who you are he calls you who he created you to be and it's up to you to decide whether you're going to walk in that or not this is more critically important for us to get than what we realize because life has a way of tearing your god-given identity from you we go through fear and doubt and depression and anxiety and inaccurate assumptions and worry and all of these things that try to push us down and most of this comes from toxic environments i love how how david closes psalm 23 verse 6 he finishes the last sentence he says and i will dwell in the house of the lord forever this is not a statement of location because that would be weird if you're like i'm going to dwell in the house of the lord forever and you wanted to stay here now those of you who watch online you don't know this but this is not this is not our building we rent this on the weekends this is a school we set up and we tear down every weekend we have an incredible dream team give them a great big hand they do amazing at all of our locations but if you if you showed up here to our west houston campus tomorrow you're like i'm going to dwell in the house of the lord forever they would take you to jail which you could dwell with him there he's been in prison too paul wrote a lot of really good books from prison maybe some of y'all should do that this is not this is not a statement of location this is a statement of environment he's saying everywhere i go i want the presence of god to go with me this is how i can have peace in the midst of pain this is how i can have joy in the midst of a hard situation when nobody else has joy i can have joy the truth is a lot of you have been in toxic environments and we're going to unpack that today a lot of who you are right now is a result of how you were raised and the environments that you are in consistently and there are some traits of toxic environments how do i know if i'm in a toxic environment here's the sad thing it might be normal to you but it's not okay normal doesn't mean it's okay normal just means it's normal for you two weeks ago i talked a lot about trauma and some of you come from trauma and trauma was normal for you but that doesn't mean that it's okay and i'm not just one of those pastors who's just gonna pray about it i think we ought to pray about it but then i think we ought to awaken ourselves educate ourselves get some wisdom knowledge and understanding and allow god to help us so if some of these if some of these things ring with you then you're either you were either in a toxic environment or you're in one right now there's four traits that we'll talk about today number one is reckless words reckless words we talk bad we talk down or we talk about people all the time you ever been around somebody who just they're just real direct with their opinion like you don't even have to ask them they're going to tell you what they think they're going to tell you what they think of you and everybody else and they're like well you don't want my opinion don't hang around me because i just say what i think i'm like well you probably shouldn't out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and you have a mean heart no i'm just real no you're just real mean here's where that comes from if you're one of those people listen to me you probably came out of an environment where you were put down where you were talked about or you were talked down to this this is important for us to learn it's important for us to get here's what the bible says proverbs chapter 12 verse 18 reckless words pierce like a sword but the tongue of the wise brings healing if i've always got reckless words around me it will hurt over time it will hurt me it will hurt my relationships and it will ultimately hurt the destiny that god has placed in my life i remember when jaden was in the third grade she came home and she had her trapper keeper everybody remember the trapper keepers and i opened the trapper keeper and on the back page she had written in big letters sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me is not true because she knew what all of us know sticks and stones will break your bones but words can crush your soul over time i might heal from a stick or a stone but i'm still carrying wounds from words this matters more than you realize the second toxic trait of a of a toxic environment is negative attitudes negative attitudes people are just negative all the time it's hard for me to be around negative people actually it's hard for them to be around me well i just can't do it i'm like you can no i can't i can do all things through christ who gives me strength let me know if christ loves me he loved judas do you realize he didn't even fire judas off of his staff he loved you judas was the bookkeeper judas was stealing and jesus still told him i love you if jesus loves judas don't you think that jesus can love you they're like i got to get away from you right now negative people drive me crazy they're always trying to talk you out of something that god's trying to talk you into i'm not talking about honest people who are actually really trying to critique and help you sometimes we'll label a helper a hater and that's our problem that's our own insecurity but there are some people who are just negative i remember being told by a pastor that i respected one time he said hey listen one of these days you quit all that foolishness all those crazy voices successful people don't like all that so congratulations none of you were successful according to him one of these days when you quit all that foolishness you'll be a good bible teacher and it affected me negative attitudes actually affect you over time it affected me i remember talking to her and talking to my family and like okay i'm gonna try to shift a little bit i tried to stand behind the podium it affected me for like three weeks like the first time i got up to preach i was like so honored to be here this momentous occasion i like tried to you know do my thing i i really thought i did well i thought i didn't do any voices or ridiculousness i remember asking her i was like how did i do she said terrible if you were trying to be what that guy wanted you to be perfect if you're trying to be you because you used seven voices i said seven she goes yeah you just can't help but that's who you are stop allowing that guy to try to talk you into being what he is not who you are negativity will always drive you away from what god has called you to third thing is an unbalanced life people are just on high highs and low lows all the time and maybe that's what you were raised around you never knew what you were going to get you never knew if mom was going to be happy she was going to be sad you never knew if dad was going to be angry or if he was going to be distant you never knew if your brother was going to beat you down or want to be your friend you just high highs and low as a roller coaster relationship i remember jessie's here with me this weekend i remember the very first time that jesse wrote a roller coaster she was about six years old and uh she was tall enough to ride the judge roy scream y'all remember that wooden rolly the white wooden roller coaster and i was like jess you should do it you you can fit they'll let you on and her mom was like you should not do that i was like nah she's gonna love it she's gonna be dad's little roller coaster buddy she's gonna love roller coaster she didn't ride another roller coaster until three years ago at disney world all right because this thing scared her so bad and i had a blast like it was hilarious for me i thought we were having fun the whole time i found out when we got off we were not having fun and we didn't have we i as in i didn't have fun for a while there was people over in this region that made sure that i knew but i remember her getting on the ride and she was excited when we would go up a hill she was like and then we go over the hill she would ah and start crying and that's how some of you live life it's this unbalanced life of high highs and low lows all the time and i'm up or i'm down i'm nowhere in between or i'm doing a loopty loop we were on a plane the other day and as we were walking by the pilot's door uh jack was with me and he said hey buddy how you doing and jack said i'm doing good are we going to do a loopty loop today was like please don't do that he said don't tempt me little guy i was like hey bro don't drink either let's go scare me but there are some of us that are always doing a loopty loop in life high highs and low lows do you realize i learned something in counseling and by the way i go to counseling i think you ought to go to counseling i can't lead as a good pastor and tell you to do something i won't do i'm also in a group and i lead a group i think you ought to get in a group i also went through growth track and i'm on the dream team come on somebody all right but i was in counseling a few years back and i was talking to my counselor about high highs and low lows of pastoring and being in leadership and he said here's what you have to understand you don't have to ride the roller coaster i said well how else are you going to get anywhere he said the roller coaster always comes back around so get off and watch it and he was christian counselor he said hold god's hand and watch the high highs and the low lows and decide how you will respond accordingly from the safety of the platform with your savior i think it's very important for us to understand that we can't just constantly live an unbalanced life and then the fourth one is wrong choices maybe you make wrong choices or you're around people who consistently make wrong choices first corinthians 15 33 says do not be misled bad company corrupts good character this is why it's important look you can't control every environment you're in maybe you're in a toxic work environment or maybe you have some toxic family issues that you can't just get out of that's why we put on the whole armor of god before we do anything i pray this prayer often god shod my feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace gird my loins with truth put the breastplate of righteousness upon me and the helmet of salvation on my head and my right hand put the sword of the spirit in my left hand put the shield of faith though i can quench all the fiery darts of the enemy oh god use me today in whatever situation that i'm in why because i can't control every environment but i want to control what's on the inside of me the challenge is the environment affects you over time look at me you can want to be as good as you can be i want to be the best but i fall into habits neural pathways in my brain i've been studying a lot about that don't have time to unpack it but you literally have neural pathways in your brain that when you start thinking negatively your brain falls into that and then you catch yourself doing something you promised you would never do and you asked yourself why am i doing this again i hate this is what paul was talking about when he said i want to do right and i don't do right i want to do good and i do wrong oh who's going to save me thank god but jesus is with me this is why we don't conform to the patterns of this world we're transformed by the renewing of our mind do you realize that 41 000 people every year according to the surgeon general die by secondhand smoke they never even put a cigarette in their mouth they're just in an environment those environments affect you people who spew negativity and make wrong choices and live unbalanced lives and reckless words over time affect you listen to me you are a result of the environments that you've been raised in or that you were consistently in i want to go counseling on you for just a second although i am not a counselor i want to tell you the four things that your parents taught you four things that your parents taught you they're going to put them on the screen is discipline self-care joy and emotional regulation discipline self-care joy and emotional regulation your parents taught you these things or whoever raised you if that was a foster parent or maybe a guardian your first seven to ten years you learned these things okay discipline that's like habits and things that we do consistently then self-care that's not just sleep or rest that might be physical activity that might be um in fact there are three prongs to this this is important you have to you have to have uh spiritual care and the church typically talks about spiritual care we don't talk a lot about emotional care where you need to be seen you need to be heard you need to be in a safe environment where you can open your heart and not feel judged and talk openly about what you're dealing with and what you're going through that's why you need to get in a group get in a group get in a group get in a group get in a group around people go through freedom but there's also this physical side of it that's more than just sleep how many times have you had sleep and not actually got rest you learn you learn these cycles from your parents like this this whole self-care side of it nutrition i learn from my parents working out you learn from your parents connection to nature you learn from your parents all physical matters physical touch hugs you you need hugs some of you actually need less hugs you want more boundaries and people touching you if you're married you need sex some of y'all weren't listening at all to the whole talk and you're like hey baby write that down that's a man of god right there you take notes girl [Applause] joy where do you get joy from hobbies how do you play how do you how do you have fun how do you how do you cultivate relationships you learn this stuff from your parents emotional regulation that can be prayer and getting in the word but but ultimately emotional regulation is realizing that my emotions don't have to control everything i say it like this choices lead feelings follow i don't want to just lead with my feelings and some of you are looking at this list and going yeah my parents didn't teach me any of that and that's what i'm saying they taught you that whatever version of this you learned you learned it from your parents and you're reproducing that in your own life in many areas my family taught me good discipline good habits okay they did not teach teach me great self-care my mom's sitting right over there and i love my mom but they were workaholics and also we're from louisiana nutrition what's the nutritional value of gumbo good that's what it is i had some dude ask me one time you need to eat more tofu you need to eat more you know like just vegetables just real bland no salt or anything like that i was like why would i do that to myself he said because you want to live i said well i'm alive but the truth is we're both going to die i'm just going to die with a good taste in my mouth you know what i mean i just play it i'm not playing like we like fried chicken hey man like my dad and my dad's preaching somewhere right now but my dad might we'll eat at any time my dad would be like i'll be like hey dad you're hungry because i could eat i could eat and what does he always suggest mommy's like let's go to popeyes like why does it always have to be chicken look you learn this stuff from your parents nutrition i love i love chocolate ice cream i do after 11 pm it's even better it's anointed i want to say i'm sleepwalking i'm not i've made a decision to go to that refrigerator how many you fight with yourself over you're like i'm not getting out of bed to do it i'm just not i'm not going to do it not tonight i'm going to do good and then you find yourself walking in there you're like and you open the fridge you're like oh how how are you how'd you get you get over here you get over here and you open it up how many of you ever had the resistant ice cream that you can tell the ice cream's like no you don't need me you're like come on you go run it under hot water and then there are nights when the ice cream's just like yeah and you're like oh you get like 12 scoops and i put all kind of stuff in my ice cream i do i'm not even afraid i'll get dutch chocolate bluebell ice cream and sprinkle up saltine crackers in there some of you are like ooh and that's why i have a microphone and you don't because i know how to eat good i'll put pretzels in there and some chocolate sauce on that the holy spirit i can just go into a food coma that night that's not that's not good self-care i learned that from you i love you i love you she's she's talking back to me i could hear her don't don't bring her a microphone i didn't i didn't learn good exercise from my family we just we moved too fast we were always doing stuff we were working i learned a great work ethic but didn't learn i didn't learn that i did learn nature connection like getting outside going in the woods i love that i learned joy from my parents now i didn't learn hobbies from my parents because my dad didn't have a hobby my dad loved to work that was his hobby he's in ministry he loved ministry i love ministry and then i have a family and they're like hey we love ministry but we don't get as much joy out of it as you do we want to go do something fun like well helping people is fun i mean last time i checked we live by this not by whatever you want and you can boy you can talk yourself into anything can't you this is important for us i learned good relationships for my parents the joy comes out of solid relationships they pastored a church in winston-salem north carolina and once a month i remember going i remember we would go to greensboro north carolina i think it was greensboro we would go to this little debbie's diner we'd go to this debbie's diner and we would sit there with other pastors and they would cultivate relationships and friendships and i loved that i learned that you learned this stuff good or negative and you're reproducing this in your life and some of you are looking at this going man i've been in some broken environments and and maybe just maybe it's not this other person maybe it's me maybe they're trying to help me and and i just can't see it that i'm producing some of this stuff and if you've been in broken environments the good news is god specializes in healing psalm 147 verse 3 says he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds aren't you grateful that we serve a god who will not leave you the way he found you but he loves you three things you guys can play a little something soft behind me there's three things that he does three things that you have to do number one you have to reveal the hurt you have to reveal the hurt the road to healing begins with revealing you have to actually open up and say hey i went through some pain look at me i think this is important some of you have learned to live with the pain and it happened you actually need to talk about it you actually need to do no i've dealt with all of that no you actually haven't and that's why it's showing up in every area of your life and you can't seem to escape that pain well it always happens to me that's because you haven't dealt with it you haven't actually revealed it you need to tell god and one other person the first thing you have to reveal to you you got to reveal it to yourself i'm i'm hurt i've gone through some pain psalm 32 verse 3 says when i kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long be honest with yourself with god and one and at least one other person and if it's something heavy go to a counselor go sit down with somebody who's a professional and if you don't like that counselor go find another one not all counselors are great i don't mean that bad if you're a counselor in here god bless you i don't know if you're good or not you ever had a great teacher and then kind of a mediocre teacher love them i love teachers but even teachers know not all teachers are perfect go to a different counselor go get somebody make sure that you that you actually put yourself out there reveal the hurt the second thing you got to do and this one is hard you got to release the people involved i tried to come up with another solution there's not one some people just refuse to forgive now listen i'm not i'm not saying this is going to be easy a lot of pastors talk about you got to forgive some of you that's going to be a hard thing i was talking to my my counselor and he said this he said if i'm if i hit you if i if you're in a car and i hit your car and i come over and say hey i'm so sorry do you for you forgive me i said yeah he goes wait a minute what if it rolls your car and you lost your leg and you've got a couple of your kids in icu you forgive me i'm like oh that's going to be a process because yeah i can forgive the act but i've got to look at the impact over time this is why i have to unpack this forgiveness is not an easy thing well i can't do that you can't do that forgiveness is a supernatural thing that you're gonna have to have god's help with because i can tell you this and this is really important if you don't release your offender you will begin to resemble them because you become like what you focus on and if you focus on the pain all the time then you will begin to inflict pain or attract pain in every relationship let's get healing in our lives and actually release people and forgive people and i'm not saying you ever have to go back and rebuild a relationship with those people you absolutely do not have to do that you can release them and never even talk to them but you can't go through life and not forgive them you know why because the bible says if you want to be forgiven you have to forgive when you don't forgive you're burning the bridge you have to walk across to get into heaven release them and number three refocus on god's plan for my life god has a plan for your life and he's created a way for you to get there listen god does not always deliver you out of every situation he more often than not delivers you through the heart situation he's with you in the heart situation i love that whole chapter of psalm 23 you ought to read the whole chapter all the things god does because it's bookended it's bookended with the lord as my shepherd and i'll dwell in the house of the lord all the days of my life the lord is my ship i want to wake up every day the lord is my shepherd and i want to be in his presence the lord is i want to i want to be led and guided by god and i want to be in his presence all day and if i do those things all the promises in psalm 23 are mine i shall not want he'll lead me beside the still waters he'll restore my soul he'll make me to lay down in green pastures he'll be with me in the valley of the shadow of death i won't have to be afraid because he'll be with me his rod and his staff will comfort me he'll prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and i will dwell in the presence of the lord do you know what this means here's what it means jeremiah can you come help me out taz and jesse can y'all come up here and help me really quick i want to show you what this means and it's very important for you to get this jay where's jeremiah there he is um i want i want to show you something so you're going to be god okay everybody say hey to god hey guys hey guys okay all right so obviously it's not god but um anyway if if i'm following god if i'm following the lord as my shepherd and goodness and mercy are following me i want you to look at look at this example what does this mean this means i'm surrounded does this mean i'm perfect no does this mean i'm never going to make a mistake no god knows you he knows how messed up you are that's why he loves you in spite of your sins while we were sinners christ died for us and he wants to lead us and guide us but he doesn't expect us to be perfect he expects us to need him if you don't need jesus well you haven't had a revelation of who he is or who you are but if i'm following jesus all right jesus go this is the problem with many of us is we're trying to direct jesus from right here we're backseat driving jesus y'all need to quit that if i'm following jesus and i make a mistake and i fall back who picks me up mercy mercy picks me up mercy says i'm not going to let you i'm not going to let you stay down and then we just keep going and you know what happens over time as i walk with following god as my shepherd i've got good i've got goodness and mercy following me mercy picks me up but goodness you are a beautiful goodness it's my daughter goodness makes it all good so when i'm in that horrible situation of pain and frustration i need mercy and mercy says no it's not over it's not over even though you've messed up even though you've made a mistake and god's still moving forward we're still going where god has called me to go but goodness stays a little while on that mistake and on that pain and works on it so that when i look back over my life and say yeah i went through that pain but but god used that to turn it into good because he works all things together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose god has a purpose for your life you just got to keep going and following god and listen this is what i want you to understand no matter what pain you have been through god still can lead you he still can heal and i need you to understand it's a process it's not going to be quick it's not going to be easy it might be a challenge but i want you to commit to the process i want to do what god has called me to do i want to get in the right rhythm of relationships and the right relationship to get in rhythm with first is a relationship with god would you bow your heads at all of our campuses for just a moment if you know you're not in a right relationship with god but you want to be would you just lift your hand and say i acknowledge it bible says when you acknowledge him he'll acknowledge you there's hands all over the room thank you thank you thank you thank you hands all over the room listen i'm we're going to pray and i don't want you to go anywhere because ben's going to come out our campus pastors are going to come out we're going to tell you what your next step is that's very important that you get out and you text that number so that you take the next step it's not just a prayer you pray but it's a life that you live but it begins in your heart will you pray this prayer with me all across all of our campuses pray it out loud jesus you're the only one who can save me i believe you're the son of god you died on a cross for my sins and you rose again on the third day so that i can live free forgive me of my sins i give you my pain my past my heartache all of my toxic environments change me god from the inside out i receive your love i receive your grace i receive your forgiveness i receive your plan for my life and i'm asking you jesus to be the lord of my life in jesus name amen

Channel: Hope City

Views: 5,930

Rating: 4.955224 out of 5

Keywords: Jeremy Foster, Hope City, pastor jeremy, jermy foster, jeramy foster, hope city church, trauma, the rhythm of relationship, relationships, hope city houston, hope city ujeremy, hope city jeremy, jeremy hope, sermon, therpay, therapy, inspirational, jesus, faith, rhythms

Id: Jq10ZUbzgIA

Length: 43min 50sec (2630 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021