While we’re experiencing social distancing, relationships are more important than ever. That’s why we’re taking this time together to ensure our relationships have a strong, healthy foundation. In this mashup teaching, we’re gonna get back to the basics. Michael Todd shares how important Bible principles are to having lasting relationships. And then tagging in, Steven Furtick offers great insight on the importance of what we should focus on in relationships.
what are you doing
man i’m out here just trying to recover
from all that has happened with this
book relationship goes you got a number
one book man god is so good we gotta um
we gotta celebrate okay let’s do it how
are we gonna do this give the people
something
[Music]
hold on me and you tag team preaching
about relationship goals they’re not
ready for this pastor stephen because if
this actually happens people are going
to start winning in relationships warn
them again one more time hey listen
if you about to click on this and keep
watching this
this is going to change every
relationship that you have right now
i’m too hyped i’m about to go crazy at
this current moment you preach i preach
everybody buys the book relationship
goals
in this corner
weighing in 185 pounds of anointing he
hails from tulsa oklahoma
oh you’re the best-selling author of
relationship goals
pastor mike todd
tag i’m in except i don’t weigh 185
pounds thank you for the anointing
[Music]
let’s go
and i think that if we could ever start
living by the principles of god we would
avoid a lot of the problems of life
i’ma say it again if we could ever start
living by the principles of god we would
avoid a lot of problems in life write
down my first point right now
the more principles you learn from the
word of god the less you pray about what
to do
i’ma say it again because some of y’all
like
what did he just say he said you don’t
have to pray that much listen to what i
just said the more principles you learn
from the word of god the less you have
to pray about what to do if you have a
car made by a manufacturer whatever your
car is a kia a honda a ford whatever
your car is
the car comes with the manual
most of us have never read the manual
can we be honest if you have read the
manual to your car lift your hands right
now and i see if you lie put your hands
down tremaine you know you didn’t read
the manual okay most of us never read
the manual
so
if something goes wrong with our vehicle
most of us panic
most of us if we start the car we start
hearing a noise and then it slows down
and the acceleration goes down we pull
over to the side we start panicking oh
no what’s gonna happen and usually we
call a mechanic
because the panic leads to problems
and so when we start panicking we then
find problems and then we find a
mechanic when the mechanic gets there he
comes in he doesn’t seem tense worried
frustrated nothing he comes in he tries
to start the car he listens to what’s
happening he then goes up and he opens
up the hood he goes past all of the
other things and goes straight to the
problem and he’s able to fix exactly
what’s wrong with the situation because
he knows the principles of a car
okay y’all are going to get this in a
second you pay him 350 dollars why
because you did not know how to fix it
yourself you could have saved time and
money and not had to pay for it if you
knew the principles i’m talking about
your relationships and you don’t even
know it
you are paying
so much in time and energy and hurt and
frustration and you’re losing purpose
and losing your life because you’re
paying for something that you do not
know the principles of
oh i’ve already preached it
and and many of you are depleted and i
dare say overdrawn in your account
because you’re paying
for not knowing the principles
when i think about this
you need to understand this
principles simplify life
when you understand the principle of a
thing life becomes simple i want you to
write that down principles simplify life
prove it to you the car that most of us
drive works on the principle of
gasoline you know how to put gas in your
car you know that principle so when your
car goes on e
don’t nobody be praying about that
because they know the principle
they don’t say oh god i’m on e father i
just thank you right now that you would
send a ram in the bush god i thank you
father that you would make a way for the
petrol to get into my tank god i need to
call a phone a friend holy spirit who
should i call diane diane i need you to
touch and agree with me because right
now i’m out of gas and i know that god
can be a way where there is no way lord
would you please bring a quick you don’t
do that
because you understand the principle of
gasoline so you don’t have to pray about
what you understand the principle of
you don’t have to pray about what you
understand the principle of and so what
ends up happening is if you run out of
gas you’ll find the nearest gas station
you will put the gas in the car and you
will pump it because you understand how
the principle of a car is supposed to
function
that’s the way it’s supposed to be for
all your relationships
you’re supposed to understand the
principles of relationships so you don’t
have to pray about what you already know
the principle of
see how quiet it is
because the truth is most of us have
never read the manual
about relationships
most of us have never been taught the
principles our parents didn’t know how
to do it so they didn’t teach us about
it pop culture acts like they know how
to do it so they’re the only ones
stepping up and saying this is how it’s
supposed to be this is how it’s supposed
to be but they didn’t make it so it’s a
it’s one of those things where they’re
telling you how it’s supposed to work
but they have no guarantees in their
life you ever got a product that wasn’t
made by the manufacturer so you get no
guarantees with it and that’s what’s
happening a lot of our relationships are
broken because we’re getting taught and
they’re given to us by somebody who
didn’t make them
and when you didn’t make a thing you
can’t guarantee it i feel that
so what i’m trying to tell you right now
whatever happens in your relationship
you are supposed to know exactly what to
do
know what’s wrong with it and how to fix
it
but the reason we can’t is because we
haven’t read the manual
the reason i’m trying to to to dig down
on this and y’all i feel like a teacher
today i i really want to take you
through the word and build the value to
why god is supposed to be the ones to
define our relationship why our
relationship with him is our ultimate
relationship goal because out of that
relationship all of our other
relationships will be successful out of
the relationship i have vertically with
him everything i do down here will be
able to win but what we’ve been trying
to do is do a relationship down here and
ask him to bless it
when he wasn’t the first relationship go
for us
i think that many relationships fail not
because of a loss of love
but because of a loss of focus
that would be one of the reasons that a
church fails as well while we’re at it
is that you lose your focus when
you stop caring about what god
cares about
god will no longer back you
in your endeavor
and so
sometimes what we call
failure is really just
broken focus
it’s the reason why the passion that
exists in some parts of relationships
when it’s getting started
tends to leak and you wonder where it
went it wasn’t necessarily that you lost
the love you lost the focus
it’s very difficult to keep that first
love focus in any relationship i think
jesus is calling us back to focus if
you’ll notice the bread on the sandwich
from the little uh passage that we just
read
both of them start with seeking seek
first his kingdom ask and it will be
given to you seek and you will find on
both ends of this passage where jesus is
speaking on several different subjects
is this idea of
focus
especially in our culture i think the
focus when it comes to our relationship
tends to be a little broken
when i say that it’s broken i mean that
it’s misplaced and misleading
sometimes we’re so focused on
falling in love
that we are very uneducated about the
process of staying in love
talk to me anytime you want to
and there’s a
there’s a a romantic notion
that is
reinforced with every romantic comedy
that the falling part is where the
excitement is i was looking at an
article getting ready for this series
where
the author said there’s a reason that
fairy tales end in marriage
because nobody wants to see what happens
next
nobody wants to talk about the other
half now watch this the first area you
got to decide you got to decide your
focus because you can always decide your
focus you can’t always decide about all
the factors you can’t always decide if
somebody’s going to stay with you or
leave you you can’t always decide if
someone’s going to ask you out you can’t
always decide if they’re going to text
you back but you can always decide your
focus so is your focus number one
on
finding
or becoming
finding
or becoming
jesus said seek first the kingdom and
the other stuff will move into position
but if you seek first the other stuff
then you will have no center of gravity
for the stuff to revolve around so it’s
important that your focus is not i’ve
been teaching this for years man i used
to go around to youth camps and i would
teach dating seminar and i would say you
know it’s not an original quote from me
but i’ll say it all the time because i
think it’s true happiness isn’t finding
the right person
happiness is being the right person
i’ll take it further since your applause
is so tepid
if you find the right person and you are
not the right person
what do you think you’re going to do to
that poor right person
no i’m not suggesting please i’m not
suggesting that if you’re not married or
something like that is because you’re
not ready yet because that all we have
to do to disprove that stupid theory is
to look at some of the people who are
married
[Applause]
so mary doesn’t equal ready okay
i could offer you many examples of that
starting with myself
but what i am saying is that
it is important to god it’s just
important to god that you have the right
people in your life but the only way
you’re going to have the right people in
your life is if you will be the right
person in your heart
that’s the only way you’re that’s that’s
the only way you’re even going to
attract them to begin with and that’s
the only thing you can control
i can’t always control whether this
person comes into my life but i can
control the kind of person that i am you
know how you have
little memories from your childhood that
are so random that you wonder how
they’re still up there from all these
years and you kind of wish you could
delete them because honestly you need
that space for more important things
like your children’s names and stuff
that you forget sometimes but i have
memory i don’t know why i remember in
sixth grade they gave us the berkeley
county writing test
i remember the prompt of the berkeley
county writing test when i was in the
sixth grade almost word for word pretend
that you are on an adventure or uh they
called it a journey with your friends
and
on this adventure or journey you fight
you come across a valuable unusual
object just describe the object
a couple weeks later
the teacher walked in with all of our
writing tests and made an announcement
she said i’ve never had this happen
before in however many years of teaching
but every single one of you failed the
berkeley county writing test we laughed
she said it’s not a joke
she said you wrote beautiful essays
you went into great detail elaborating
on the journey with your friends but
that was not the writing prompt
the writing prompt was not to describe
the journey
the writing prompt was to describe the
object
all of you wrote essays about walking
through the woods with your friends some
of you traveled across the seas with
your friends some of you flew through
space with your friends it was highly
entertaining
but none of you described
the object
the object
of relationship
the object
of love
is not that somebody else would complete
you
i’m sorry renee zellweger but you got it
wrong your line was touching it just
wasn’t true
jerry didn’t complete you
touch your neighbor say you can’t
complete me
see we teach this stuff no wonder single
people right there have their fists up
ready to fight me when i want to preach
about marriage because the way we preach
and teach it we teach it like until you
get married your life hasn’t started i
only got one question to ask you if
that’s true how can you worship jesus
we worship a guy who stayed single till
they killed him
oh no i’m not saying you have to stay
single be like jesus i’m a hypocrite to
say that but i’m saying i’m saying if
paul would have waited to fulfill his
purpose until he had somebody to
complete him we wouldn’t have 23 percent
of the new testament
and we teach it wrong we teach it wrong
we i’ve taught it wrong we we teach it
wrong in in the book of genesis uh god’s
describing marriage you talk about adam
and eve and he says that you know the
man shall leave his father and mother
and go be with his wife and it says that
the two will become one
let me tell you what it doesn’t say it
doesn’t say the haves will become whole
but yet we teach it and we treat it and
we expect it
like the haves are going to become whole
but i found out if you go into a
marriage half the two halves are going
to make hell
not whole
[Music]
it’s great preaching pastor stephen
that’s very true pastor
so what is your focus
is it
what you can control which is what god
is doing in your life or is it finding
you know
you’ve got to find a woman then you got
to find a ring then you got to find some
money
and you got to find a date to get
married and a place to get married that
everybody can come to that on the same
day working out continents different
continents people coming together from
all these different places in the world
and gotta find the dresses for the
bridesmaids something that they’ll all
wear and won’t complain about doesn’t
look good against their skin tone and
you gotta find a house and find a job
and
finding finding finding finding finding
finding finding finding do you see the
pattern here
but god said
well all of that has its place
if you will focus on becoming remember
he said the two will become
one
that’s the focus
what are you
becoming
[Music]
you