Are You Struggling With Problems In Your Relationship?

James Greer: [00:00:00] This is so interesting today because we're going to be talking about don't be fooled by what's really causing you stress and problems in your life. In fact, if I said right now, if I just started around the room and I said, what do you really think is causing you to be stressed out, you'd probably be fooled. In fact, the truth about relationships, the truth about stress problems, they're both caused by the same thing. There's one thing that causes most problems, and there's the same cure. The thing that causes most problems and most stress is the wrong distractions. See, I was going to preach that at the end of the message, but I couldn't wait. It's the wrong distractions that cause most of the problems, but the right attention and the right attraction is the right cure. And you're going to see how that falls out. In John 16:33, it says, these things I've spoken to you. Then it's real important that you don't get distracted this morning. These things I've spoken to you that in me, Jesus, that you might have peace. In the world, you're going to have tribulation and things that can cause you stress and things that cause you problems. But be of good cheer because Jesus Christ has overcome those things. I mean, I've got dogs.

James Greer: [00:01:29] I mean my dogs, they cool. My dogs can cause distractions, though. Even my dogs can cause problems. If my dogs, if they get the wrong distractions and they keep me from giving Jesus the right attention, they can cause stress. Anything can cause stress if it's getting too much of the wrong attention. See, the distractions can be good things. I mean it can be a good hobby. You're going to find out today the one that got distracted was doing a good thing. She just wasn't doing the best thing. And especially with Christians, what brings stress in your life is many times, we are doing a lot of good things, but we're not doing the best things. And because all the good things that we're doing, we're being distracted from the best thing. And because we're missing out on the best thing, we're having stress and problems and we're being fooled by it.

James Greer: [00:02:43] That's good, Brother James. Here's the real question. If I quoted Matthew 6:33, seek ye first the Kingdom and his righteous and all things would be added unto you, everybody would say, Amen. But let me paraphrase it for you. Is your love relationship with God more important than any other single factor in your life? Is your love relationship with God more important than any other single factor in your life, and does your schedule reflect that? If the answer is yes, you don't have much stress in your life. You have stressors, but you don't have stress. So that comes to real question and your schedule reflects that if you really want to know the truth. So what we're going to do, I'm going to give you some insights. We're going to read the passage and then I'm going to give you some insights about the truth, about problems and stress. So if you have your Bible, we're going to stay in Luke chapter 10 the whole time, and we're going to start in Luke 10:38 through 42 and I'm going to read that and then I'm going to just give you some insight. And in Luke 10:38, it says, Now it happened as they went, they entered into a certain village.

James Greer: [00:03:59] I like it because it said now it happened. Any time Jesus comes into the house, things happen. Amen. By the way, Jesus is in the house. And now it happened as they went in that he entered into a certain village. And there was a certain woman named Martha. Now, I want you to get this. Then it was Martha that welcomed Jesus into her house. Who welcomed Jesus in the house? Martha. Yeah, man. The first thing you got to do is make sure you got to get Jesus in the house. Right? But Martha, she had a sister and her name was called Mary. And Mary also sat at Jesus' feet. And she heard his word. See, one of the things that I hope you're doing this morning, I hope you're not being distracted from hearing the word of God. But Martha was distracted. Can you all say distracted? With much serving. And she approached him, Jesus, saying, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to come help me.

James Greer: [00:05:19] So here goes Martha. She walks him in the house, and now she starts telling Jesus what to do. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and stressed out. You got all these troubles, all these problems about many things. Now listen to this. But one thing is needed. How many? Isn't it something, if I could tell you, there's only one thing needed to really reduce your stress in your life? There's one thing to reduce the problems in your life. There's one thing to have a better relationship in your life. Not 50 things. One thing. And Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her. It can't be taken away from her. That's what Jesus said. He said in John 16:33, These things have spoken unto you that in me you might have peace in the world. Distractions of the world. You're going to have tribulation, stress and worry. Be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. So let me tell you the first thing that you need to do and the first thing I need to do is we need to welcome Jesus into the house.

James Greer: [00:06:31] Now, when I say welcome to the house, I'm talking about welcoming into our entire life. Now, the first thing we need to do, Journey church, is make sure we're welcoming them into our house right here. Amen. So when you come into the House of God, which is Journey Church right now, you need to make sure you're welcoming him into your life, welcoming him into your heart, that you're not being distracted by everything else that comes along in your life. So welcome him into your life, and as I go through this, not just your heart. Your whole life, the whole being. Everywhere you go and everything you do. So, so many people have welcomed Jesus into fire insurance. I'll say you don't want to go. If I ask everybody upstairs, downstairs, does anybody want to go to hell? Everybody would say no. I say if you don't want to go to hell, raise your hand. Oh, everybody raised their hand. But the truth is, when you say believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you're saying I want Him to be the Lord of my life. And see, so many people said, I don't want to go to hell, but I don't want him to be the Lord of my life. So it happened as they went that he entered into a certain village and a certain woman and her name was Martha, and she welcomed him into the house. So to begin, if you want to reduce your problems, you want to have a better relationship, you want to do your stress, you've got to welcome him into the house. And then when you welcome him into the house the right way, things always start to happen. I love it because it was Martha that started it all. She's the one that welcomed Him in the house. You know, way too many people don't welcome him totally into their life.

James Greer: [00:08:21] Now just start thinking. Did you just say, Hey, I want fire insurance? Or have you welcomed him into your life? Is He welcome to your work? Is He welcome to your hobbies? Is He welcome to your party? Is He welcome to your life, to your house? Second. Relationships, the right relationship, and less stress, it takes more than one person. To have peace, it takes more than one person. And she had a sister called Mary who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. I'm going to tell you that is something so important. You can even come to the house of God, you can welcome Him in, you can be at church and not be listening to the word. As a matter of fact, one of Satan's goal is to come into the House when I'm preaching the word and snatch it from your heart. That's why you really need take notes. But anyway, anyway. And hear the Word. Okay? You can't have a relationship unless you have more than just you. It takes more than one person to have a relationship. In this particular relationship, they had three people in the room. They had Jesus, Mary, and Martha. They had three people. But Martha was distracted in the relationship. Now you can have a relationship with just you and Jesus. Amen. But if it's just you, you don't have a relationship. You have a selfish person. You can have a relationship with you, Jesus, and Martha. But verse 40 reminds you that Martha was distracted because of much serving, and she approached him and said, Oh Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me here to serve alone? Therefore, help me.

James Greer: [00:10:25] Let me give you some insights that are in the bulletin, and they're very important. And you might want to learn next time you get stressed out. But let me tell you, number one. Just because you have three people in a relationship or you have two, it's just you and Jesus, doesn't mean you won't have problems and stress. See, too many people think just because I come to church or just because I come to know Jesus, I'm not going to have problems with stress. That's not true. You can have a husband, a wife, and Jesus in a relationship. And I can promise you, you're going to still have some problems and stress. But when Jesus is in the house and Jesus is the Lord of the house, it greatly reduces the problem and the stress. Because Jesus wants to be the Lord of the house, the Lord of the Light. And when you say Jesus is your Lord and Savior, that means He's the authority. He's the one in control. And see, this is going to be good. When you don't allow Him to be in control, things in your life get out of control.

James Greer: [00:11:44] So whatever is most out of control in your life right now, whatever's causing the most problems in your life is because He's not the Lord of that area in your life. Oh, man, that is good, Brother James. We're preaching now. Y'all are going to need this. I hope you're getting it. Number two. Number two. The problems always start, stress always starts, relationship problems always start when one of the people get distracted. When they get distracted and get distracted on the wrong things. We get distracted. She got distracted by serving. And I'm going to tell you over and over and over, serving Jesus is not a bad thing. Amen. Serving Jesus is a good thing. But at the time she was doing a good thing when she should have been doing the best thing. And the Christians over and over and over, you get involved doing good, too many good things that you miss out on the best thing. People say, Well, I'm too tired to come to church. I'm too busy to read the Word. See, you're doing a lot of good things, but you're missing out on the best thing, and therefore, you get all stressed out. Martha was distracted with good serving.

James Greer: [00:12:55] Sometimes we get too distracted on our jobs. I've done it many times. I work, I get worried, stay up at night, stressed out. I got distracted. You can get distracted on your hobbies. And most of the time I didn't get distracted because I didn't get a hobby till about five years ago. Now. I love taking pictures, but now I can actually take pictures and see the glory of God in it. I mean, I can say, man. Matter of fact, last time when I was in Costa Rica and the guys were nonbelievers, and by the third day, I swear, I said, how can you see the beauty of this and not believe that God is the creator of the world? In fact, just explain to me, how did this come about if there's not a God? I mean, there's a God. But your hobby can, your kids, when we had all the kids at home, they could be a distraction. Matter of fact, they were. Yeah, more than they were. They were such a distraction that I had to start getting up at 4:00 in the morning where I could be with Jesus. And when I didn't get up 4:00, they didn't think I'd ever been with Jesus. I was the distraction. Your phone can definitely be a distraction. I've never seen a time where I've been so distracted by my phone.

James Greer: [00:14:25] I'll be sitting at the house looking at my phone, and I'm not reading the Bible. A lot of times it's social media. And Deborah said, Hey, get in the game. She ain't talking about football games. She's talking about her game and get distracted. Social media will distract you. It'll almost obsess if you're not careful. Be careful about getting distracted with the wrong things. You can read the wrong things, look at the wrong things, and go to the wrong places and be distracted. So the main distraction is the wrong use of your time. The main distraction in our life is the wrong use of our time. The wrong distractions, they will lead to destruction. Third insight. When we are distracted, it not only hurts relationships and brings stress into our life, we begin to blame the wrong people for our problems in our life. When we get distracted in our life, not only do we get stressed in our life, we begin to blame the wrong people in our life. Can you believe Martha when she got distracted? You know what she said? She just got distracted with much serving, doing, doing a good things, but not doing the right things. And she approached him, who is Jesus. Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving? Therefore, you go tell her what to do.

James Greer: [00:16:08] See, Martha started out welcoming Jesus into the house. Now she's blaming her sister for her stress and her problems. Her stress and her problems. Listen, instead of giving her stress and problems to Jesus, she's now blaming Jesus. The reason so many people blame is because they don't want to accept their own responsibility. When you don't accept your responsibility, the next thing you do is get angry. So you've got to be careful about distractions because they will fool you. They'll fool you to blaming the wrong people. You blame your sister, you blame your husband, you blame your job. You'll blame them. Blaming is a problem that you've got to be careful that you hadn't accepted the responsibility. See, Martha was blaming her sister for not helping her when she should have been where her sister was. Fourth insight. Jesus is calling. Fourth insight. All distractions often lead to believing the lie that Jesus doesn't care. You believe Jesus didn't care. He didn't care about your problem. He didn't care about your stress. He didn't care about what you're going through.

James Greer: [00:17:33] Well, the truth is, Jesus is the only answer to your problem and only answer to your stress. When we run from Jesus and we blame Jesus, we're running from the only true answer and the cure to our problems. And I know it for a fact because I did it. Something tragic happens. You can run to Jesus or run from Jesus. And I've done both. When you run from Jesus, you're running from the very person, the only one that has the answer and the cure. And when you keep running from Jesus, when you get the end to running, there's nothing there that can help you. So I don't know what you're going through in life. I don't care how bad it is. I can tell you right now, don't run from Jesus. Run to Jesus. Amen. Not only does Jesus care, He proved his care. He proved that he cared enough to go to the cross and die for us. Right? Fifth insight is when we're distracted instead of receiving what we really need from Jesus, I love this, we try to tell Jesus what to do. When we're distracted and we get all stressed out, instead of receiving what we need, we start trying to tell him what we need. Not only we try to tell him what we need, we try to tell him what to do.

James Greer: [00:18:54] That's good, Brother James. When we need to hear from Jesus the most, if we're distracted, even if we're distracted doing something good, we miss what we need the most. And it's not to tell Jesus what we need. It's to hear from Jesus what we need. See, what you'll do is you've got this great need in your life and you're hurting. You've got a problem, and you're stressed out because you're so distracted. When you go to God in prayer, you start telling God what you need. God, I need you to fix this. I need you to do that. I need you to get me a better job. I need you to take care of my boss. I need you to tell my kids to be the right person. And Jesus is trying to tell, you the one that needs to change. See, Martha missed that. She's the one that needed to sit at the feet of Jesus. She missed what she needed because she is trying to tell him what to do. Man, that is good because we've all done that. We've all gone and tried to tell God what we needed and still listen to him and let him tell us. Most of the time we're the one that needs to change first. When we would do that, we would be better. Sixth insight is the truth about our worries and our stress and our problems is not everyone, everybody, and everything else. One thing. We've been distracted.

James Greer: [00:20:26] And Jesus answered her and said, Martha, Martha, you're worried, you're stressed out, you've got problems, you've got troubles about many things. He's telling her, you do. But I love this. It's only one thing that's needed. Isn't that something? Yeah. One thing. One thing in your relationship, one thing in your problems, one thing in your stress. Mary, your sister that you were upset with, she's chosen a good part, which will not be taken away from her. Nobody can take it. Nobody can do it. See, Jesus didn't try to tell Martha that she wasn't worried and that she wasn't stressed out because she was. What Jesus wanted her to know is the truth and quit being fooled by the lie. What he wanted her to know is really, there's only one thing, Martha, that can stop your worries, stop your distractions. Only one thing that can stop your problems, stop your distractions. There's only one way you can have a better marriage relationship. Stop your distractions. Even if you're doing a lot of good things, you need to be doing the best thing. There's only one thing that can stop your worries and distractions. And the best thing is spend time with Jesus before you spend time with people. That will help you.

James Greer: [00:22:06] See, the point is this. It's very important. But Jesus has to be the Lord and Savior of your life. Some of you got fire insurance. Some of you like me when I was a child, I don't even know what they said. I think they said something like, You don't want to go to hell. And I said, Heck no. And I got baptized. He was not the Lord of my life. I didn't get any better. I probably got worse. It wasn't till later on in life that I realized that he had to be the Lord of my life. He had to be the authority in my life. He had to be the one that was in control of my life. And most of the time when things in my life get out of control, it's because I'm a control freak and I try to take control back. But he's never failed me. Every time I give him the control back, it gives me a peace that surpasses all understanding. But some of you haven't done that. Some of you never given him to say, Hey, God, I want you to be the absolute lord of my life. I want you to forgive me of all my sins. I want to accept you as Savior. I don't want condemnation. I want to be free from that. And I want a brand new start in my life.

James Greer: [00:23:34] So if you would, right now, if you just stand for a minute and bow your head and close your eyes and. I want to ask you a question. If you're here today and you understand what I'm saying, while heads are bowed and eyes are shut. And maybe you were just didn't even realize it. Maybe you just had some fire insurance. And because you simply had fire insurance, you really didn't have Jesus Christ as the Lord of your life. And you'll know that because the Bible said if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things pass away and all things become new. In other words, there's been a change in your life. And today's the day that you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. Heads bowed and eyes shut. When I count to three, you just simply raise your hand because you want him to be the Lord of your life. One, two, three. Just raise your hand. Amen. Keep your hands up high. Keep them up high. Keep your hands up. Keep them up high. Keep your hands up. Raise your hand. Okay. Let's keep your hands up. Amen. Keep your hands up. Keep your hands up. While you have your hands up, they're going to bring you something in the back. Y'all in the back. And if you did, the ushers are going to ask you to fill out a card and they'll be getting them back from you. So just take your time. And fill the card out. And they'll be getting them back to you. And then in a minute, we'll just pray with you. While heads are bowed and eyes are closed and they're praying. See, you've got to intentionally continue to spend time with Jesus Christ before you get to the people and the problems.

James Greer: [00:25:39] You got to have a daily routine. It has to include Jesus. You have to allow Jesus to be the answer to your problems. Stop looking to Him as a problem. You have to spend time with Jesus. But when you're with Jesus, listen to Jesus instead of trying to tell Jesus. You got to admit that you've been allowing distractions to cause the problems. And you got to stop blaming other people for your problem. And you've got to start claiming God's promises for your problems. Now, if you filled out those and you got the pieces of paper back, they filled out, that you collect them back in those that pass them out. If you would make sure you get the piece of paper back. Let them fill them out and y'all get the paper back from them. Okay. And you got the paper back. Okay, everybody, look up here for just a minute. Okay. We're going to all pray together first, and then we'll have another invitation. Pray with me. Say, Father, I know I've sinned. I want you to forgive me of all my sins, come into my heart, and be the Lord and Savior of my life. I believe Jesus died on the cross and rose on the third day for my sins. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

James Greer: [00:27:32] Look up here for a minute. If you didn't notice, I made sure I said I want him to be your Lord and Savior. Amen. The Bible says whosoever calls by the name of Lord shall be saved. And that is what you did. And so if you did that, there's no doubt that Jesus came into your heart. And you not only will spend eternity in heaven, let Him guide and direct you like you've never done before, and you can have a peace that surpasses all understanding. Now, for the rest of us, are you really intentionally spending time with God or would you need to make a commitment to start doing that? Have you followed through in baptism like you need to? Have you been blaming other people? And today you need to say, hey, I need to stop doing that. And then maybe the most important question that we all need to ask. Is a love relationship with God more important than any other single relationship or factor in my life? And does my schedule reflect that? And if not, am I ready to do that? Let's bow.

James Greer: [00:28:37] Father, I thank you for this wonderful day. I thank you that you're in the house. I think you that people that are in the house are so receptive today. Their hearts are so open. I bind Satan that he cannot snatch the word. I pray, God, that you would give new insights that we know that don't let the wrong distractions keep us from the one thing that we need. I pray that we could reprioritize our lives and that when things get out of control, that we understand that probably Jesus is not the Lord of our life in that area and we give it to Him. And God, I pray right now in the precious name of Jesus for everyone in here that came with unbelievable stress and unbelievable problems, that first if they need to, that they would come and let somebody pray with them and pray for them. But as they make a commitment for you to be the Lord of their life and to spend time with you, even right now, they can start experiencing your presence. For those that need to come and join the church, I pray today that they'd come forward and make it public. For those that maybe that got saved, said, Hey, not only do I get saved, I want to follow through in public baptism like we just had and like we have two more the third service, I know at least. Whatever God has laid upon your heart, I pray that you'd go home today with a peace that surpasses all understanding. Let him have His will and His way. I pray it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.


Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.