John Gray - Fight for the Family
Every resource of hell is designed to dismantle the family. Let's emasculate the man. Let's get one of them women that like to talk a lot, amen to all the black women, amen. Love y'all. Oh, no you didn't. Why don't you talk about them white women, too. And hispanics. No, no, no, poppy, we're going to do it this way. You need to listen to me. You need to listen to me. I don't have to listen to you. No. Do you know where that comes from? Here's what the Bible says. In Genesis 3, Johnny this is so... I'm laughing, I'm trying to focus. In Genesis 3, when the serpent deceived Eve and Adam, this is what happened. The Bible says, this is real deep, the 8th verse, Genesis 3:8, write this down...
Now, let me help you to understand something. That question was not for God. God knew exactly where Adam was. He wanted Adam to know that I know that you're out of place. Do you know that you're out of place? One interaction with the enemy causes us to lose dominion, and not only lose dominion, now we're in the garden God created for us walking in shame. How many of us live in the thing God planted us in, and because of past experience, because of bad thinking, we walk around defeated, we walk around less than, because we have allowed the lie of the enemy to permeate and overtake the truth of God that's been declared over our lives?
God said, Adam, where are you? He said, I hid because I was naked. And God said, who told you you were naked? What God says is, who told you and gave you a false reality? Who told you something that I didn't tell you? And why did you take that as truth when you've been walking with my sound in the garden? I'm going somewhere because in Genesis 2:25, it says, "And the man and his wife were both naked and unashamed". This is not about clothing. This was about spiritual uncover. We were unveiled. I could show Eve everything about me, and I wasn't ashamed. I could show him my broken places, and I'm not ashamed.
The enemy comes to sow shame because shame causes you to cover, and when you have to cover, you are already masking a part of you that the other person that's in your life was literally called to either pour into or get value from. You hiding your broken areas is only delaying the beauty of God bringing two together, and they shall become one. You're not one when you get married. It's a life-long process of becoming. That's the will of God. It doesn't happen overnight, and because we've been watching too much tv and listening to the wrong voices, we assume it's supposed to happen in five years, ten years.
How is it that you've been living by yourself for a certain amount of years, and then all of the sudden, you expect to just be in harmony with this other person in a year, two years, five years, ten years? And the enemy is counting on your impatience and your misunderstanding of what marriage is in order to get you out of it! We got to fight for this thing because the enemy has been real stealth in breaking up marriages and sneaking in strange women and ungodly men and whispers and back biters. And I bind that devil in the name of Jesus. Ain't no perfume that good, man of God. Walk away. Ask the Lord to show you what she looks like in the spirit so you can see what it is, not what it smells like.
Some of y'all are looking at me like I'm so mad at you, I'm ready to go. Well, maybe it's something you need to confess to God because you ain't really mad at me. I don't know what you're walking through, but we're going to fight for marriage in here, and we're going to fight for family in here. We have so many people that are walking through life unhappy, unfulfilled, have never dealt with their issues, and God is saying, we gotta fight for that tonight. I'm not saying we're going to get it all done tonight, but we need to at least address it tonight. The man and his wife were both naked and unashamed, and here comes the enemy, breaks it all up, and now Adam and Eve are hiding in the garden uncovered, ashamed. And God is saying, is there anything you've been hiding? Like you could actually hide from God. He said, where are you?
That wasn't for God, it was for Adam, and that's what God is saying to us today. Where are you? In relationship to me, where are you? Are you hiding from me in plain sight? Do you think I don't see what you're walking through, what you're struggling with? All you had to did was come tell me what you're walking through. I was going to cover that. I was going to cleanse that. It was always my heart to give you the best, but now you're hiding and walking in shame, and you confess what the enemy said about you over what I declared over you. So easy for us to believe the lesser. So hard to believe the greater.
It's easy. I was born in sin and shapen in iniquity, but it's hard for you to hear, "I created you for dominion. Let them have dominion and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and the beasts of the field". You'll let somebody outside the church say, see, now, you're trying to do something that's not Bible. Everybody gotta struggle. We already know, because of fallen state of man, we're going to struggle, but that doesn't change God's original intent. He never intended for it to be this hard. He never intended for those tears to rock you to sleep. He never intended for broken heart to be the absolute in your life. God intended for you to walk in beauty and harmony and love and peace and joy, and he wanted you to have dominion over your emotions and over your mind and over your spirit and over your family and over your children.
Got one amen, I guess... I'm preaching to one person. The enemy has caused us to believe that marriage is a trap, the old ball and chain. You never see good marriages on TV. Everybody's always miserable. They make a joke of it. That's what the enemy wants. He wants to sow seeds of corruption. Marriage is not our making. We didn't make it. God made it, and the enemy wants to corrupt it and pervert it and to make light of it and to diminish it, but marriage is holy and marriage is created by God to be a model of Christ and the church in the earth, and that's why the enemy fights against it like nothing else because it looks like Jesus! Marriage is not a trap, it's a choice. It's choosing the process of development over the safety of the familiar.
And it is a choice, I'm talking to men now. I'm waiting on God. He's going to show me my Eve of the he's going to show me my rib. Man, quit playing. Be a man, make a decision. Approach her with some humility and with in honor and some integrity, and you find her attractive. Ask God about it, and then pursue it to its reasonable end. Gets some accountability around you. See if it's God, if it's not, then back away before you injure her because God wants her covered. Ladies, stop telling all your secrets on the first gathering, the first date, the first starbucks. Cover your heart for out of your heart flows the issues of life. Stop telling them everything. Don't give him everything. Don't devalue yourself. Don't give him the most valuable part of you over a meal. Y'all gotta help me here because I almost gotta go!
What I've learned is that marriage is a mirror and a scalpel. It's God's way of showing you what you were before marriage found you. Marriage is not magic. You don't become something the moment you stay "I do". You enter into something the moment you say "I do". That's why marriage is for men, not boys. When I was a child, I thought like a child. I acted like a child. I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. Singleness, after a certain point, is a childish thing. It's cute for a while, but now you're 42. You need to go ahead and make a decision. Marriage is a choice, and that choice is so filled with the promise God that when you make it, he promises favor goes with it.
I'm trying to help somebody because if you're in here married, and you didn't remember this, you got favor. Some of y'all got years of untapped favor. I'm getting ready to shout for you. For every marriage in here, I don't care if it's barely holding on, just one thin American piece of cotton between you and goodbye, if you're still together, God can begin to mend that thing. Do you know how much favor you've got with that woman next to you? Do you know how much favor you've got with that man who gave you that ring? Do you know how much favor you've got?
There's so much favor in marriage. God wants to bless it. He wants to breathe on it. He says, when you get a wife, I'm going to give you favor. That means I'm going to breathe on your ideas. I'm going to breathe on your business. I'm going to breathe on your hopes and dreams. I'm going to breathe on the things that you think about because favor comes with the territory! People talk about, marriage, whatever. I'm gonna stay single. I'll just be single. That's fine. If you're called to be single, God bless you, but there are many of us that are believing God for a godly covenant that produces godly fruit, amen?
And if people are like, well, I've been divorced. What about me? You should have preached this six years ago. True dominion is found in taking personal responsibility for your choices. When you really walk in dominion, you can say, hey, I've made some mistakes here and here and here, and I've got some weaknesses here and here and here, but God, I'm going to submit those to you, and I'm going to give you dominion over it. I've got dominion. You gave it to me. I'm going to receive your authority in that area. I want you to come and water these dry places in my garden, in the garden of understanding, in the garden of understanding commitment. God, help me. God, grow me. God mature me because I've got to fight for my family. Help me in here.
When you walk in dominion, you can't help but produce greatness. See, we've resigned greatness in others when it's been assigned to us. We resign to give other people the platform when God designed the platform for us. Greatness is my right as a son of the Most High God. Greatness is your right as a daughter of the king. It's not a suggestion. It was a command. Have dominion. Run it. Subdue it. Fill the earth! Dominion is knowing who God created you to be, and once you know something, you cannot unknow it. You can't tell me two plus two isn't four. I know that it's four. One plus three, it's four. Four plus zero, four. I know it. I know Jesus is real. I know it. I know he died for my sins. I know it. I know God caused me to make a decision to choose the wife I chose. I know it.
Don't let the enemy come in, did God tell you? Should you have made this decision? Be careful how the enemy comes in. He never comes in when it's all good. He comes in when there's drama. He's looking for the moment of weakness, the moment of question. He's looking for the moment that he can sneak in. He's a liar, a no good, filthy lying devil. He wants to break up your home because in breaking up your home, he gets to take your seed.
Pastor Craig and I had a nice little pre dinner meeting tonight, and he asked me, we were just talking, and somehow we got onto, hey, how's your mom? And I told him. And we were talking about my mom and dad and how they got divorced when I was real young, and he said, did you know your dad? I thought about this, I said, no. I think I saw my dad maybe four times in my life. And for some reason, it just hit a nerve with me tonight, and it wasn't until I was sitting there tonight that I realized that the devil really wasn't going after my dad for my dad's sake. He was going after my dad because of me. He knew that he had a better chance of diverting me from destiny if I didn't have a father in the way messing up hell's plans.
If I could just get that father out of the way and that husband, the house band, the man that bands the house together, if I can get him out of position, I can start whispering to his daughter, and I can whisper to the son, and I can whisper to the kids, and I can make that woman feel unloved and devalued. And God is saying I need the men to understand the power and the authority of dominion that I have given you. I'm speaking to every husband in here. If your wife is here. Grab her hand. Tell her you love her. I don't care if y'all argued on way here. Grab her hand and say, baby, I love you. I know we've been walking through the tough place, but at least we're walking through it. At least we're still together. Girl... I'm so in love with you... You don't hear me. That's the Holy Ghost.
I know my time is up, pastor Joel is out of town, so I'm going to... No, I'm playing, I'm playing, I'm playing. Love you, pastor. I know you're watching. I know you're watching somewhere with your good hair, with your good hair, just praise the Lord. All right. The enemy wasn't fighting my father just to take him out. He wanted to see because if you can get rid of the one who's supposed to take care of the garden, you can sow whatever you want. But somehow... Whoo! Somehow, even though my father left, I had a mother that was praying in that garden saying, God, don't let the weed of divorce take my son out. Don't let this community take my son out. God, don't let him be like the folks around him. God, he's going to be... He'll be different.
And by the power of a praying mother who stayed in the garden, who allowed God to cover this family, she took dominion in an impossible situation, and here I am at the largest church in America, a husband and a father! Yes! Don't tell me what God won't do when you walk in dominion! Somebody praise God in that fourth section back there. I don't know why you're sitting down. Somebody give God a praise in here.
My time is up, but we gotta fight for this thing. I'm tired of the devil tearing up families. I'm tired of him Messing marriage. Marriage is not a burden. Marriage is a blessing. Hallelujah. Yeah, we gotta work on it, but that's my garden. You might see some weeds, but what about your weeds? You got some weeds, too. Don't worry about my garden. God's going to help me with my garden. Don't give me until all your weeds is gone. Some of y'all trying to leave and beat traffic. Don't you leave. I'm talking to you. Sir, in the blue shirt. He's like trying to leave like it's black church. Put your finger up. He's like what am I supposed to do? That's right. He ain't going nowhere. Both of y'all come on back down. That's right. That's what I'm talking about, bro. That's what I'm talking about.
You know what? There are some other brothers that need to make their way to this altar real quick. This is a real unorthodox Wednesday. Any husbands and fathers, we need you to stand up and say, I'm going to take dominion in my family. I'm going to cover my kids. Look at these men of God. Do you know what it does for the women of God when men begin to talk their rightful position? When the husbands begin to love their wives like Christ loved the church, do you know how much damage that does to hell? Do you know how much encouragement that gives to single people? That there are men that are willing to worship in spirit and in truth on a Wednesday night! And as the men begin to worship, it unlocks the full potential of the woman that's next to you.
Watch how easy it is for women to worship in this atmosphere. Ladies? When we fight for the family, when we fight for dominion, when we fight for our children and tell hell, no, you can't have my kids! No, you can't have my wife! No, you can't have my mind! No, you can't have my seed! No! Not while I'm alive, not while I'm here. It's my family, it's my garden, and I'm going to bless it. To every husband that's here tonight, in the next 24 hours, your assignment is to bless your wife. Figure out a way. Do something unexpected. Maybe both of y'all are working hard, and you can't get home to cook. Bring something home. Bring flowers, a card, some candy. Play one of them old school jams when y'all used to have butterflies for one another.