The Vow of Purity
How Does Putting God First Strengthen Your Marriage?
James Greer
Feb 21, 2021 34m
When you put God as your first priority and your mate second, God will strengthen your marriage. When you live a life that is honorable and pleasing to God, you receive blessings and guidance that keep your marriage on the right path. Video recorded at Pineville, Louisiana.
TranscriptionmessageRegarding Grammar:
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
James Greer (00:00):
Well, good morning, Journey Church. Good morning for those that are online. And if you're online, watching, man, we'd love you to say who you are and where you are from. Hey, man, we're continuing our series Breaking Up is Hard to Do. And tomorrow I have been married 47 years. I said, hey, look, that's my good-looking wife. And look at all the hair I had. I wish I had some of that now. Wish I could just borrow some of it. Huh? Amen? There we go. I got another one of us. Yeah, man, just groovy. That's one of those little leisure suits. They're so outdated. If I kept it now, I could probably sell it for an antique. And then, oh, there's our babies. Now that ours are grown, we've got to keep them in the picture. Y'all know about that. Yeah. And then, oh yes, that's my love. Yeah. I think we look better now than we did then. And that's our Christmas picture. I mean that's, you know what? When we got married, y'all, we didn't even have a ceremony.
James Greer (01:02):
We went to the Justice of Peace. You know, it's what you do after you get married that calls you to stay married. Now there's nothing wrong with having a great wedding. Amen? But I can tell you, you can have a great wedding, but what you do after the wedding's going to determine if you stay married. Amen? I got married. It's so exciting though back then. I mean I can remember pursuing Debbie. Can y'all remember when you're talking on the phone, you're just going, oh? And they go, oh. And you're thinking, oh yes. And then one night, I wanted to see her. I had my little motorcycle and I drove across town. I mean, knock, knock, knock on her window. Who else would be knocking on her window but me? I'm the love of her life. Right?
James Greer (01:46):
Debbie. Debbie. She goes and tells her mother. Why would you go tell your mother? Somebody's knocking on your window, don't you know it's me? By the way, you do not do this. And so I'm saying Debbie. And her mother yanks the curtains back and says, James Greer, you better never come over here and do that. I'm about to have a heart attack. Then I have to go face her later. Now really and truly, her mother loved me. Later. The crazy things you do when you pursue somebody you love. Amen? And we're going to be continuing, we're going to get kind of a quick review of where we have come from. And we said, number one thing in your priorities is you got to put God first and you put your mate as number two. So God's number one, your mate's number two. Jesus said, you should love the Lord the God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. That's number one. That's the first and greatest commandment. No doubt. He said, that's settled. You put Him first. And the second one is love your neighbor, love your mate like yourself. So number one, God's first. Your mate's number two. Right? The second thing is you got to get your priorities right in life.
James Greer (02:55):
Just overall, if you haven't stopped and taking time to get your priorities right, because your priorities are gonna greatly determined your blessings, your direction, and it'll ultimately determine your destiny. Third, you got to understand the importance of a vow, a vow before God and a vow before your mate. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes, when you make a vow to God, don't delay to pay it for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you have vowed. In fact, He said it's better not to vow than to vow a vow and not pay it. Yeah. Now I wanna say something about vows. We have couples in our church that have broken their vows not only to God but to each other. And they've decided to work it out to the glory of God. In fact, so well we have some of them that said, if you're here or you're online or you're in church and you're struggling with one of the mates that's broken their vows but you want to bring it and work it out to the glory of God, guess what? They're willing to work with you.
James Greer (04:06):
In fact, did you know one of the couples I talked to a few weeks, a few months ago and they told me that as of right now, their friendship, their finances, their marriage is better than it's ever been in their life. So you should never break a vow, but if you broke a vow, you don't have to stay broken. We have people that will work with you and God will, He's a God of a second chance. And we want you to be helped. Fourth, you learn that God is a jealous God. And there's legitimate jealousy. Legitimate jealousy is anything you put before God, God has a right to be jealous. God says, I am a jealous God. The children of Israel learned that. God was blessing them and blessing them and blessing them. And what would happened was they would put something else.
James Greer (04:57):
They would start idolatry. Anything you put before God is really idolatry. And what would happen is they would become into bondage or slavery and fear and defeat and discouragement. Now see what happens? You can be a Christian for a while and you love the Lord. And then as life goes on, you start putting other things before God. And when that happens, you'll have some kind of bondage in your life. You have some fears in your life that you normally don't have. You'll have some discouragement and defeat. And it might be today that God's telling you it's time for you to start putting God back first place in your life. Because listen, when you don't have these four priorities in order, your life will be in disorder. You put God first, your mate second, you get your priorities right, you make a vow to God and to your mate, and you understand that there's legitimate jealousy. And then the fifth we're going to add today and we're gonna add a sixth one next week, the fifth one today is understand the truth about love.
James Greer (05:57):
Because listen, we pursue what we love and we give to what we love. In fact, what would you give to helps you to love. If I ask you today, are you still pursuing your mate? See, the problem is many times we pursue what we don't have. That's what Adam and Eve did. They had everything in the Garden of Eve, but they pursued the one thing they didn't have. See, there's a problem with that. If you're not careful, if we're not careful, we began to take for granted the very things that God's given us. We take for granted our mate. we don't care for it like we should. And somebody else might be grateful to have them, to start caring for them. See what we don't care for, somebody or something often will. I've seen it happen over all the years. I've been in the ministry so long. And one mate will just not really care for the other one. And they take them for granted and they go for years and years and years. And the other mate finally gets tired and says, I can't take it anymore. And they leave them. Then the mate that had taken the other for granted, then they want them back all of a sudden and they want to pursue them. But many times they've hurt them so bad and it's too late.
James Greer (07:11):
Husbands and wives, why don't we pursue them now where we don't have to lose them later? Amen? I mean we need to promise to always pursue our number two. God is our number one, but we need to pursue our number two. But there's something that often happens that people don't understand. You know, after a year, 18 months, sometimes we just don't have that tingly feeling. Do you remember when you first kissed? Oh my goodness. You just had that, oh, it just tingles. You know? And it's a documented fact. You know, your first 12 weeks to 12 months, when you're together, you can almost see each other and touch each other. And your brain releases endorphins and you have this tingly feeling there. There's a problem with that. That's not necessarily love. Sometimes that's infatuation and sometimes it doesn't last after 12 months. See, love is an action that even more than a feeling.
James Greer (08:12):
Our feelings come and go. If you're not married, there's a couple of things you gonna remember. Almost every one of these points apply to having a better relationship with Christ and the better relationship with Christ you have, the better relationship you have with everybody else. But if you're not married, you need the test of time and knowledge and getting to know the person. It grows. You need to know their character. You need to know their characteristics. You need to know how they react under pressure, when they're angry, when they're upset. You need to know time. You need to know mainly the difference between, you ready?, infatuation and in love. The only way you can do that is know what love really is.
James Greer (08:50):
Let me give you three types of love. And to have the best relationship, the best marriage you really need all three. The first one is eros. Most people know what that is. That's an attraction. You see them, you see them, and you're attracted. By the way, you shouldn't marry somebody you're not attracted to. You shouldn't say, look, they're so ugly I want to marry them. I mean, you know, really? I think I'd have some kind of attraction to them before I married them. Amen? But it's not just that. It's a sexual love and that's part of marriage, but that won't sustain the marriage. That's only if you're married. Anyway, Proverbs 15:5, it talks about that. It said you should be faithful to your wife just as you take water from your own well. If y'all don't know what that means, I can talk to you later probably. Don't be like a stream from what you just, any woman may take a drink. Don't do that. In fact, he says, if you don't understand it, let me explain. Verse 17, save yourself for your wife. Don't have sex with other women. That's pretty clear. Amen? Be happy. Be happy with the wife you married when you were young. Be happy when they're young, be happy when they're old, not that I'm old. Amen. Somebody's wise. Whoever said that is a wise person. Maybe the wisest person in church.
James Greer (10:27):
I'm just saying. She's beautiful, graceful, just like a deer. I'll be honest with you. My wife's better looking than a deer. But anyway, you should be attracted to her and stay deeply. Y'all know what the New King James, the King James version says. I like it better. You should really like her, like her breasts and let her breasts satisfy you. Amen? I'm just saying that's what the Bible says. It says what it says. And if you're married, you need to obey what God's Word says. Anyway, pursue being in love. Stay in love. Pursue it. It doesn't happen automatically. It'd be great if you were in love and you just push automatic pilot. It doesn't work that way. Eros. Stay sexually attractive and active. That's what it means. Have a date night, give gifts. Women, you can give gifts too. Compliment. Have private vacations. I mean, listen, I love it because one of the best ways to stay married is have special moments. I can remember me and Debbie first got married. You know, we didn't have a honeymoon. We didn't do anything. I finally won a trip to Las Vegas. Remember, Mama? You talk about country come to city.
James Greer (11:54):
I walk in MGM and it was just built. I take my camera out. I'm taking pictures. I think this is cool. They come get me. You know? You don't do that. Okay. Don't do that. But I didn't have credit cards back then. So I had to pay cash to rent a car. And it's a good thing. They don't build those big casinos because you win. Because you lose. And thank God. You know, we still had money because we got our refund back on the car. But that was kind of, we got, that was a special moment. I remember that. We had special moments later. I can remember a time we went zip lining and the zip line, you got to hang upside down. I can remember. Man, I can remember, we got to get baptized in the Jordan. Isn't that cool? I mean we got to go to Holland and see the tulips and the wheels. And I mean we've just been blessed to go most of the world.
James Greer (12:47):
And what I'm telling you, we had special moments because life is not always easy. Life is hard. You need to make special moments. And some of you say, well, I never get an opportunity to do that. You might not. I hope when we go, you can share the times that we go. But there was times we couldn't go anywhere. We would say, if you'll keep our kids this weekend, we'll go get to be by ourselves and we'll keep your kids. You can go for a weekend. You can go for a hike. You can go somewhere. It takes work. I say if you're married though, you can make breaking up hard to do if you'll go back and make special times that you did. Because that brings me to number two. It's phileo love. That's one of my favorites. I think the older you get, the more important it is. It's friendship. It's companionship. It's sharing your life together. It's your home. It's everything. I believe you should be best friends before you marry and best friends afterwards.
James Greer (13:55):
In fact, if you're not best friends, I don't think you should get married. I know boyfriends and girl--it looks like they fight all the time. They don't even act like they like each other. But we love each other. I think that's something else. I think you should be best friends. I really do. Why would you get married and somebody else be your best friend? Romans 12 tells us a little bit about that. Don't just pretend to love others. Pursue it. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what's good.
James Greer (14:37):
Love each other with genuine affection. We'll talk about that. Take delight in honoring each other. Don't be lazy. Work hard. Serve the Lord enthusiastically. In other worlds, not only love, joy, don't be lazy, but do it the right attitude. Be excited about it. Let me give you three ways that you can pursue your mate whether you're a man or woman. Number one have genuine affection. If you're here and you're with your mate, raise your hand. If you're here, raise your hand if you're with your mate. Now take that hand and hold your mate's hand. Yes. I'm just playing. Anyway, hold your hands. That's one way you show affection. When you walk out today, they just hold their hand. You can just put your arm around them. That's showing affection. You can touch. It's just genuine affection so you're holding, you're touching, you're hugging and you're not having sex.
James Greer (15:40):
Ladies, let me tell you a little secret. Just because y'all are holding our hands and hugging us does not mean men want sex all the time. Sometimes we're just wanting to be hugged. Quit picking on us. Anyway, you got to become self-giving instead of self-seeking. I mean every time you want something, you want a snack, you want a drink, young people, every time you want something, ask your parents if you can get it for them. If they don't faint, you'll grow. Mates, every time you want something, ask your mate if he wants something. This is an unbelievable, simple insight. Listen, when you intentionally, selflessly give, you become less selfish. If you'll intentionally, selfishly give, you become less selfish. Being selfish is one of the number one problems in every single relationship. Why don't you practice this week every time you want something, get it for somebody else? That's good, Brother James. Second, second. Pursue honor.
James Greer (17:00):
[inaudible] say, ain't no way. I'm preaching. In most cases, that will work. In some cases, it won't. Number two, pursue your mate with honor. Man, honor's almost a lost art today. I mean honor's to value, it's to respect. Men want respect almost as much as anything, to hold in high esteem, to be precious, to be valuable. It means to be built up. It means to believe. Let me tell y'all something about honor and respect. You ready? Our nation is in a mess. They don't honor and respect anything. I can tell you if Biden came in that door and Trump came in that door at Journey Church, we would honor them both. Let me tell you what. Biden just signed something that I don't agree with. I don't believe that transgenders, if it's a male, should be able to play now because he's transgender on females sports. And they signed it into it. They shouldn't be able to do that. I disagree with that.
James Greer (18:11):
I don't--but if he came to our church, I would still honor his position even though I disagree with what he believes, unless he asked me to do something that was against, that would dishonor God. Then I would honor God. What you got to learn to do is honor the position even if you don't agree with the person, as long as they don't ask you to dishonor God. Amen? So when you go to work or you go to school or you go home, you honor the position unless they ask you to do something that dishonors God. If you go to work Monday, don't you be dishonoring your boss, talking to somebody else because that dishonors God. If you've got a problem with your boss, go see your boss or keep your mouth shut.
James Greer (18:52):
If you go to school Monday, don't dishonor your teacher. That dishonors God. You see how that works? But just because a whole nation is dishonoring each other, Journey Church, we want to bring honor back. Amen? We're going to honor the position even there's times when we can't agree with the person, as long as they don't ask us to dishonor God. Because without honor, you have disorder. And it brings dishonor. I mean see, honor, you decide. It's not what everybody deserves. It's a decision you make. When you don't intentionally honor somebody, you're unintentionally dishonoring them. See, Satan wants us to have a nation and a home and a family of dishonor because it brings disorder. And when you have dishonor and disorder, it destroys a family. Then it destroys a city and then it destroys a nation. And that's what's happening today. Bring honor back. Amen? Third, don't be lazy. Don't be lazy in your relationships. Don't be lazy. I mean the Bible says, never be what? Lazy. Work hard. Serve the Lord with enthusiastic. Be excited. What if I came to church and said, oh, I got to preach today. Yup. Then I got to go home and be with my wife. Son of a gun. Somebody gotta do it. That'd be exciting.
James Greer (20:26):
Listen, I love to preach. I mean it's exciting to me to preach. You know, lazy people, they always make excuses, don't they? I mean, oh man, they make excuses. Love always makes a way. But I'm gonna tell you if you're in business or you're at work and you want to be successful, you got to work hard. For y'all, if you want your body in good shape, it takes work. You want your yard in good shape? It's work. If you want your marriage in good shape, it takes work. I mean it's great. You know, in our marriage, our retreat, we had over 60 something people. You know, we got almost 60 or 70 people signed up to go through the class that Darrell's teaching starting Wednesday night? And you still have time to sign up. Do you realize that 60, 70, 120. We might have 140 people [inaudible] time.
James Greer (21:07):
All going through. You know why? Because they want better marriages. It's work. You got to keep growing. Spiritual growth is the only guarantee your life and your marriage will get better. You gotta water it. You gotta pull the weeds. The water is a type of the Holy Spirit in your life and in your marriage. And there's weeds that you have to learn to pull. Let me give you an example of some of the weeds. Matthew 13, it says, and what is the seed? The seed is the Word of God. It's preached. You can receive it or you can have a hard heart. And it fell among thorny weeds. [inaudible]. And the seed is like a person who hears the teaching, unless they're worried about their life. Worry is a weed. There's times I worry. There's times you worry. God's saying you do not live a life of worry.
James Greer (22:02):
I hope you didn't come to church and you're all focused on all your worry because it's a weed that God says you need to pull. Do you think that your worries are too big for God? I hope during the worship service, you worshiped instead of worried. See, if you're still sitting here worrying, you need to pull the weed and you need to worship God. That's a weed. It's not a lifestyle. Temptation of wealth. It's a weed. There's nothing wrong with working. You need to work hard. The Bible said work hard. But if it gets before God and it gets before your mate, it's a weed that needs to be pulled. You say, I'm just trying to get ahead. Well, who are you getting ahead of? You getting ahead of God? You getting ahead of your mate? It's a weed. You gotta be careful. Stop. Teaching from growing.
James Greer (22:50):
Guess what happened? So the teaching, it doesn't produce any fruit. You come to church, you come to church, but you're not pulling the weeds out of your life. So you don't have any fruit in your life. So what do you do? Instead, but what is the seed? It's the Word of God. It fell on good ground, your heart. You're receptive. You're ready to accept it. You came to the preacher. You said preach to me. God, I want to hear your Word. I want to change my life. And the seed is like a person who hears the teaching or the Word and understands it. And that person, he grows and produces fruit, the love and joy and the peace. And sometimes it's a hundred times more. Sometimes it's 60. Sometimes 30. See, I'm gonna tell you. If you come to church, your heart needs to be right. You need to be receptive. God says, I want some fruit in your life. Amen? Pull the weeds. Get the water. The Holy Spirit. Let Him have His will and His way in your life. See, you're never going to have the love, you're never going to have the friendship unless you come in, receive the Word, hear the Word and obey the Word. It won't happen.
James Greer (23:45):
In fact, I don't believe you'll ever have the right relationship with God or your mate unless you come to church on a regular basis and you get in the Word and you get unto the Word. And then don't allow familiarity to rob receptivity. In other words, it's familiar. I come to church. You didn't just come to church. I hope you get an insight. I hope you write it down. I hope you post the right thing. I hope you apply it to your life. Don't just come to church because it's familiar or it's out of habit. No, no, no. I want to be receptive. I want my heart to be right. I want to apply something to my life. I want it to change. Don't let your marriage, I'm married. Big deal. I'm married. No, no. It's a privilege. Thank God you're married. You don't have to be married. You get to get married. Praise God that you're married. Amen? If you have a job, you better thank God you have a job. There's a lot of people today that don't have a job. If you want to have that job, God will move you to that job. You got to learn to be thankful for where you're at and what God has you doing. Amen, Brother James.
James Greer (24:48):
Not lazy people though. No, they're too lazy. They're one-sided people. They always want to receive instead of give. See, they're too lazy. It takes time and work. It takes energy to bring honor and value and to look the best you can. See, I don't know. Some people think, I don't know. What do you think you're doing? You think it brings value just to be as ugly as you can? I think you should do the best you can with what you got. I think some people just want to be ugly to be ugly I guess. Hey, honey, I'm ugly today. No, you're lazy today. Do the best you can. It takes work. It takes work to speak the right words, to get a gift, to have time, the acts of service, the physical touch, to physically look good. That's work. Lazy people, they don't want to do that. Lazy people want to make an excuse why they can't do that. Stop being lazy.
James Greer (25:47):
And then there's the agape godly love. That's the giving love. That's the only, that love has to come from God. That's an unconditional love. That love, you have to get it from God to be able to give it. I'm gonna tell you what. If you don't keep pursuing the love that you have, it won't be long you won't have the love that you had. You need to keep pursuing, prioritizing. Let me give you some thoughts as we get ready to close. You've got to pursue God. You got to pursue Him first as your Lord and Savior. You can only have God as your Lord and Savior through Jesus Christ. If you're here today and you're not sure if He died that you'd go to Heaven, the most important thing you can do is to pursue Jesus. You say, hey, I know I've sinned before. I believe Jesus died for my sins and I'd like for Him to come into my heart. So you pursue God through Christ. Some of you've done that, but you just got lazy. You're not pursuing God anymore. Man, I love to pursue God. Almost every day, I go and I pursue God. He tells me secret things and new things and exciting things and confirms things and gives you directions and visions and wisdoms and significance and success and things that are beyond your imagination.
James Greer (27:15):
You pursue Him, you'll find Him. By the way, God's not hiding from you. You seek Him, you shall find Him. Pursue Him. Some of you become lazy and you're making excuses and you're trying to tell me why you can't pursue God. No, you're lazy. That's why. You pursue what you love. Some of you need to say today, God, I need to ask forgiveness. I want to rededicate my life. I want to pursue you, God. I want to pursue you through biblical love if you're married. I want to have all three in my life and my marriage. I want to have the Eros. I want to have the phileo friendship love. And I want to have agape love. And God, I know that I can never do that unless my love comes from you. That's what 1 John says. It says beloved.
James Greer (28:08):
Let's love one another for love is of God. Where does love come from? God. Everyone who loves has to be born of God. Unless you're born of God, you don't really have that kind of love. You might have sexual love. That won't sustain your marriage. You might even have friendship, but it won't last. It's gotta be born of God. He who does not love because you don't know God. God is love. You'll never have a lasting love. You'll never have the relationship that God wants you to have unless you get your love from God. You say, well, I'm not married. You still got to get your love from God. When your relationship is right with God, your other relationships will be right and when they're not, they won't. People are always blaming the other person. Listen, if your relationship is right with God, you can make it through almost anything else in life. And when it's not, things are worse than they'll ever be in your life. So we got to pursue God, pursue our mates. We got to bring honor back. Honoring your marriage and honoring your family. I don't think it's funny at all if you dishonor your mate out in public. I don't think it's funny at all when you run your mate down in public. I don't think you should do that. I don't think it's funny when young people dishonor their parents. I don't think they should do that.
James Greer (29:42):
I think that it doesn't matter what everybody else is doing. We're not everybody else. We're Journey Church family. Young people, I want you to bring honor back. I want you to honor your parents. I want you to honor your teachers as a witness for Jesus Christ. People that go to work Monday, Journey Church family, I want you to honor your boss, whoever that is. I don't want you to dishonor them. I don't want you to dishonor God. I don't want you talking about anybody, not anybody on the job. You bring an honor because you're a witness. You're the light, even in the most darkest of the world. So we're going to bring honor. We're going to understand what it is to make a vow and a commitment and we're gonna live up to it. We're going to be different.
James Greer (30:33):
We're not going to be lazy people. We're going to work hard. But not only are we going to work hard, we're going to do it with the right attitude. We're going to be enthusiastic about pursuing it with God and with our mate and on our jobs. Because see, we can make a difference. The world is looking for something different. God had just told us how to do it. And you know what? If we pursue God, then He'll give us the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the rest of the world isn't doing. It does not matter. You'll be different. Nobody ever made a difference. You ready? That wasn't different. I want you to be different. I want them to say, you must go to Journey Church because you're so different in your home and your job and school.
James Greer (31:25):
Would you stand and let me pray for you? God, you're some awesome God. I thank you that as we pursue you, we find you. We find you that we find love. We can take that love and pursue our mates, our friendships. We can't do it without you. For those that might not know Christ, they want to pursue God, you've got to come to know Jesus. I pray that you would pursue Him this morning. For those who have become lazy, I pray today you'd rededicate your life and say, man, I need to rededicate my life. I need to start pursuing God. I need to spend time with God. I need to be at church every single Sunday. I need to be there with my mate. And even if they don't come, I need to be there. I need to spend time in God's Word during the week even if it's just a few moments every day. I need to pursue Him.
James Greer (32:15):
I need to stop being lazy. Maybe today's the day I need to join this church. I can join with next step. I can join online. Or we've got the altar open. You can come and join. Maybe you need to follow through and biblically, publicly baptism like we had in the last service. You can do that. You can mark online or you can mark your next step card or you can come in front. Maybe you need somebody to pray with you to pray for you. You can do the same thing. All three ways. What I would not do is go home the same way that I came. I would come and say, man, God, I need your love. I want to share your love. I want to leave with the love and joy and peace that can only come from you. God, I pray that Satan would be bound through the power and blood of Jesus Christ. I pray for those that are married. I pray right now, spirit to spirit, their hearts would begin to be knit together. Pray a hedge of protection around about that marriage. God, I pray you'd have your will and your way. It's in the precious name of Jesus I pray. Amen.
Bruce Goulart (33:25):
On behalf of Pastor James, I just want to say thank you for joining our online experience today here at Journey Church. Wasn't that just an amazing message that Pastor James just shared about how if you put your spouse second and God first, then you can lead your spouse closer to God? Now don't we all want to do that today? Now, if you need someone to pray with you or you need to take your next steps, we have a link down in our comments right now that you can click on. And someone is on standby, ready to pray with you or help you get to your next steps. I have two exciting things that I just want to talk about. The first one is our WhatsApp group, strictly for our online community. That means it's meant for you. Here on our website, you'll be able to get devos and stay connected and be involved at Journey Church. And so we want you to join right now. So click that link and join. Now, the second thing that I'm super excited about is we have a new thing called Journey Fam, an online campus. But what that means is basically it's going to be a community for our online experience and that's super exciting. So there's a link right now in your comment section that you can click to join the Journey Fam. And I hope that you take a moment so that way you can join. I hope that you have a great day and a great week. And I hope to see you next Sunday. Thank y'all.
Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.
Well, good morning, Journey Church. Good morning for those that are online. And if you're online, watching, man, we'd love you to say who you are and where you are from. Hey, man, we're continuing our series Breaking Up is Hard to Do. And tomorrow I have been married 47 years. I said, hey, look, that's my good-looking wife. And look at all the hair I had. I wish I had some of that now. Wish I could just borrow some of it. Huh? Amen? There we go. I got another one of us. Yeah, man, just groovy. That's one of those little leisure suits. They're so outdated. If I kept it now, I could probably sell it for an antique. And then, oh, there's our babies. Now that ours are grown, we've got to keep them in the picture. Y'all know about that. Yeah. And then, oh yes, that's my love. Yeah. I think we look better now than we did then. And that's our Christmas picture. I mean that's, you know what? When we got married, y'all, we didn't even have a ceremony.
James Greer (01:02):
We went to the Justice of Peace. You know, it's what you do after you get married that calls you to stay married. Now there's nothing wrong with having a great wedding. Amen? But I can tell you, you can have a great wedding, but what you do after the wedding's going to determine if you stay married. Amen? I got married. It's so exciting though back then. I mean I can remember pursuing Debbie. Can y'all remember when you're talking on the phone, you're just going, oh? And they go, oh. And you're thinking, oh yes. And then one night, I wanted to see her. I had my little motorcycle and I drove across town. I mean, knock, knock, knock on her window. Who else would be knocking on her window but me? I'm the love of her life. Right?
James Greer (01:46):
Debbie. Debbie. She goes and tells her mother. Why would you go tell your mother? Somebody's knocking on your window, don't you know it's me? By the way, you do not do this. And so I'm saying Debbie. And her mother yanks the curtains back and says, James Greer, you better never come over here and do that. I'm about to have a heart attack. Then I have to go face her later. Now really and truly, her mother loved me. Later. The crazy things you do when you pursue somebody you love. Amen? And we're going to be continuing, we're going to get kind of a quick review of where we have come from. And we said, number one thing in your priorities is you got to put God first and you put your mate as number two. So God's number one, your mate's number two. Jesus said, you should love the Lord the God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. That's number one. That's the first and greatest commandment. No doubt. He said, that's settled. You put Him first. And the second one is love your neighbor, love your mate like yourself. So number one, God's first. Your mate's number two. Right? The second thing is you got to get your priorities right in life.
James Greer (02:55):
Just overall, if you haven't stopped and taking time to get your priorities right, because your priorities are gonna greatly determined your blessings, your direction, and it'll ultimately determine your destiny. Third, you got to understand the importance of a vow, a vow before God and a vow before your mate. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes, when you make a vow to God, don't delay to pay it for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you have vowed. In fact, He said it's better not to vow than to vow a vow and not pay it. Yeah. Now I wanna say something about vows. We have couples in our church that have broken their vows not only to God but to each other. And they've decided to work it out to the glory of God. In fact, so well we have some of them that said, if you're here or you're online or you're in church and you're struggling with one of the mates that's broken their vows but you want to bring it and work it out to the glory of God, guess what? They're willing to work with you.
James Greer (04:06):
In fact, did you know one of the couples I talked to a few weeks, a few months ago and they told me that as of right now, their friendship, their finances, their marriage is better than it's ever been in their life. So you should never break a vow, but if you broke a vow, you don't have to stay broken. We have people that will work with you and God will, He's a God of a second chance. And we want you to be helped. Fourth, you learn that God is a jealous God. And there's legitimate jealousy. Legitimate jealousy is anything you put before God, God has a right to be jealous. God says, I am a jealous God. The children of Israel learned that. God was blessing them and blessing them and blessing them. And what would happened was they would put something else.
James Greer (04:57):
They would start idolatry. Anything you put before God is really idolatry. And what would happen is they would become into bondage or slavery and fear and defeat and discouragement. Now see what happens? You can be a Christian for a while and you love the Lord. And then as life goes on, you start putting other things before God. And when that happens, you'll have some kind of bondage in your life. You have some fears in your life that you normally don't have. You'll have some discouragement and defeat. And it might be today that God's telling you it's time for you to start putting God back first place in your life. Because listen, when you don't have these four priorities in order, your life will be in disorder. You put God first, your mate second, you get your priorities right, you make a vow to God and to your mate, and you understand that there's legitimate jealousy. And then the fifth we're going to add today and we're gonna add a sixth one next week, the fifth one today is understand the truth about love.
James Greer (05:57):
Because listen, we pursue what we love and we give to what we love. In fact, what would you give to helps you to love. If I ask you today, are you still pursuing your mate? See, the problem is many times we pursue what we don't have. That's what Adam and Eve did. They had everything in the Garden of Eve, but they pursued the one thing they didn't have. See, there's a problem with that. If you're not careful, if we're not careful, we began to take for granted the very things that God's given us. We take for granted our mate. we don't care for it like we should. And somebody else might be grateful to have them, to start caring for them. See what we don't care for, somebody or something often will. I've seen it happen over all the years. I've been in the ministry so long. And one mate will just not really care for the other one. And they take them for granted and they go for years and years and years. And the other mate finally gets tired and says, I can't take it anymore. And they leave them. Then the mate that had taken the other for granted, then they want them back all of a sudden and they want to pursue them. But many times they've hurt them so bad and it's too late.
James Greer (07:11):
Husbands and wives, why don't we pursue them now where we don't have to lose them later? Amen? I mean we need to promise to always pursue our number two. God is our number one, but we need to pursue our number two. But there's something that often happens that people don't understand. You know, after a year, 18 months, sometimes we just don't have that tingly feeling. Do you remember when you first kissed? Oh my goodness. You just had that, oh, it just tingles. You know? And it's a documented fact. You know, your first 12 weeks to 12 months, when you're together, you can almost see each other and touch each other. And your brain releases endorphins and you have this tingly feeling there. There's a problem with that. That's not necessarily love. Sometimes that's infatuation and sometimes it doesn't last after 12 months. See, love is an action that even more than a feeling.
James Greer (08:12):
Our feelings come and go. If you're not married, there's a couple of things you gonna remember. Almost every one of these points apply to having a better relationship with Christ and the better relationship with Christ you have, the better relationship you have with everybody else. But if you're not married, you need the test of time and knowledge and getting to know the person. It grows. You need to know their character. You need to know their characteristics. You need to know how they react under pressure, when they're angry, when they're upset. You need to know time. You need to know mainly the difference between, you ready?, infatuation and in love. The only way you can do that is know what love really is.
James Greer (08:50):
Let me give you three types of love. And to have the best relationship, the best marriage you really need all three. The first one is eros. Most people know what that is. That's an attraction. You see them, you see them, and you're attracted. By the way, you shouldn't marry somebody you're not attracted to. You shouldn't say, look, they're so ugly I want to marry them. I mean, you know, really? I think I'd have some kind of attraction to them before I married them. Amen? But it's not just that. It's a sexual love and that's part of marriage, but that won't sustain the marriage. That's only if you're married. Anyway, Proverbs 15:5, it talks about that. It said you should be faithful to your wife just as you take water from your own well. If y'all don't know what that means, I can talk to you later probably. Don't be like a stream from what you just, any woman may take a drink. Don't do that. In fact, he says, if you don't understand it, let me explain. Verse 17, save yourself for your wife. Don't have sex with other women. That's pretty clear. Amen? Be happy. Be happy with the wife you married when you were young. Be happy when they're young, be happy when they're old, not that I'm old. Amen. Somebody's wise. Whoever said that is a wise person. Maybe the wisest person in church.
James Greer (10:27):
I'm just saying. She's beautiful, graceful, just like a deer. I'll be honest with you. My wife's better looking than a deer. But anyway, you should be attracted to her and stay deeply. Y'all know what the New King James, the King James version says. I like it better. You should really like her, like her breasts and let her breasts satisfy you. Amen? I'm just saying that's what the Bible says. It says what it says. And if you're married, you need to obey what God's Word says. Anyway, pursue being in love. Stay in love. Pursue it. It doesn't happen automatically. It'd be great if you were in love and you just push automatic pilot. It doesn't work that way. Eros. Stay sexually attractive and active. That's what it means. Have a date night, give gifts. Women, you can give gifts too. Compliment. Have private vacations. I mean, listen, I love it because one of the best ways to stay married is have special moments. I can remember me and Debbie first got married. You know, we didn't have a honeymoon. We didn't do anything. I finally won a trip to Las Vegas. Remember, Mama? You talk about country come to city.
James Greer (11:54):
I walk in MGM and it was just built. I take my camera out. I'm taking pictures. I think this is cool. They come get me. You know? You don't do that. Okay. Don't do that. But I didn't have credit cards back then. So I had to pay cash to rent a car. And it's a good thing. They don't build those big casinos because you win. Because you lose. And thank God. You know, we still had money because we got our refund back on the car. But that was kind of, we got, that was a special moment. I remember that. We had special moments later. I can remember a time we went zip lining and the zip line, you got to hang upside down. I can remember. Man, I can remember, we got to get baptized in the Jordan. Isn't that cool? I mean we got to go to Holland and see the tulips and the wheels. And I mean we've just been blessed to go most of the world.
James Greer (12:47):
And what I'm telling you, we had special moments because life is not always easy. Life is hard. You need to make special moments. And some of you say, well, I never get an opportunity to do that. You might not. I hope when we go, you can share the times that we go. But there was times we couldn't go anywhere. We would say, if you'll keep our kids this weekend, we'll go get to be by ourselves and we'll keep your kids. You can go for a weekend. You can go for a hike. You can go somewhere. It takes work. I say if you're married though, you can make breaking up hard to do if you'll go back and make special times that you did. Because that brings me to number two. It's phileo love. That's one of my favorites. I think the older you get, the more important it is. It's friendship. It's companionship. It's sharing your life together. It's your home. It's everything. I believe you should be best friends before you marry and best friends afterwards.
James Greer (13:55):
In fact, if you're not best friends, I don't think you should get married. I know boyfriends and girl--it looks like they fight all the time. They don't even act like they like each other. But we love each other. I think that's something else. I think you should be best friends. I really do. Why would you get married and somebody else be your best friend? Romans 12 tells us a little bit about that. Don't just pretend to love others. Pursue it. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what's good.
James Greer (14:37):
Love each other with genuine affection. We'll talk about that. Take delight in honoring each other. Don't be lazy. Work hard. Serve the Lord enthusiastically. In other worlds, not only love, joy, don't be lazy, but do it the right attitude. Be excited about it. Let me give you three ways that you can pursue your mate whether you're a man or woman. Number one have genuine affection. If you're here and you're with your mate, raise your hand. If you're here, raise your hand if you're with your mate. Now take that hand and hold your mate's hand. Yes. I'm just playing. Anyway, hold your hands. That's one way you show affection. When you walk out today, they just hold their hand. You can just put your arm around them. That's showing affection. You can touch. It's just genuine affection so you're holding, you're touching, you're hugging and you're not having sex.
James Greer (15:40):
Ladies, let me tell you a little secret. Just because y'all are holding our hands and hugging us does not mean men want sex all the time. Sometimes we're just wanting to be hugged. Quit picking on us. Anyway, you got to become self-giving instead of self-seeking. I mean every time you want something, you want a snack, you want a drink, young people, every time you want something, ask your parents if you can get it for them. If they don't faint, you'll grow. Mates, every time you want something, ask your mate if he wants something. This is an unbelievable, simple insight. Listen, when you intentionally, selflessly give, you become less selfish. If you'll intentionally, selfishly give, you become less selfish. Being selfish is one of the number one problems in every single relationship. Why don't you practice this week every time you want something, get it for somebody else? That's good, Brother James. Second, second. Pursue honor.
James Greer (17:00):
[inaudible] say, ain't no way. I'm preaching. In most cases, that will work. In some cases, it won't. Number two, pursue your mate with honor. Man, honor's almost a lost art today. I mean honor's to value, it's to respect. Men want respect almost as much as anything, to hold in high esteem, to be precious, to be valuable. It means to be built up. It means to believe. Let me tell y'all something about honor and respect. You ready? Our nation is in a mess. They don't honor and respect anything. I can tell you if Biden came in that door and Trump came in that door at Journey Church, we would honor them both. Let me tell you what. Biden just signed something that I don't agree with. I don't believe that transgenders, if it's a male, should be able to play now because he's transgender on females sports. And they signed it into it. They shouldn't be able to do that. I disagree with that.
James Greer (18:11):
I don't--but if he came to our church, I would still honor his position even though I disagree with what he believes, unless he asked me to do something that was against, that would dishonor God. Then I would honor God. What you got to learn to do is honor the position even if you don't agree with the person, as long as they don't ask you to dishonor God. Amen? So when you go to work or you go to school or you go home, you honor the position unless they ask you to do something that dishonors God. If you go to work Monday, don't you be dishonoring your boss, talking to somebody else because that dishonors God. If you've got a problem with your boss, go see your boss or keep your mouth shut.
James Greer (18:52):
If you go to school Monday, don't dishonor your teacher. That dishonors God. You see how that works? But just because a whole nation is dishonoring each other, Journey Church, we want to bring honor back. Amen? We're going to honor the position even there's times when we can't agree with the person, as long as they don't ask us to dishonor God. Because without honor, you have disorder. And it brings dishonor. I mean see, honor, you decide. It's not what everybody deserves. It's a decision you make. When you don't intentionally honor somebody, you're unintentionally dishonoring them. See, Satan wants us to have a nation and a home and a family of dishonor because it brings disorder. And when you have dishonor and disorder, it destroys a family. Then it destroys a city and then it destroys a nation. And that's what's happening today. Bring honor back. Amen? Third, don't be lazy. Don't be lazy in your relationships. Don't be lazy. I mean the Bible says, never be what? Lazy. Work hard. Serve the Lord with enthusiastic. Be excited. What if I came to church and said, oh, I got to preach today. Yup. Then I got to go home and be with my wife. Son of a gun. Somebody gotta do it. That'd be exciting.
James Greer (20:26):
Listen, I love to preach. I mean it's exciting to me to preach. You know, lazy people, they always make excuses, don't they? I mean, oh man, they make excuses. Love always makes a way. But I'm gonna tell you if you're in business or you're at work and you want to be successful, you got to work hard. For y'all, if you want your body in good shape, it takes work. You want your yard in good shape? It's work. If you want your marriage in good shape, it takes work. I mean it's great. You know, in our marriage, our retreat, we had over 60 something people. You know, we got almost 60 or 70 people signed up to go through the class that Darrell's teaching starting Wednesday night? And you still have time to sign up. Do you realize that 60, 70, 120. We might have 140 people [inaudible] time.
James Greer (21:07):
All going through. You know why? Because they want better marriages. It's work. You got to keep growing. Spiritual growth is the only guarantee your life and your marriage will get better. You gotta water it. You gotta pull the weeds. The water is a type of the Holy Spirit in your life and in your marriage. And there's weeds that you have to learn to pull. Let me give you an example of some of the weeds. Matthew 13, it says, and what is the seed? The seed is the Word of God. It's preached. You can receive it or you can have a hard heart. And it fell among thorny weeds. [inaudible]. And the seed is like a person who hears the teaching, unless they're worried about their life. Worry is a weed. There's times I worry. There's times you worry. God's saying you do not live a life of worry.
James Greer (22:02):
I hope you didn't come to church and you're all focused on all your worry because it's a weed that God says you need to pull. Do you think that your worries are too big for God? I hope during the worship service, you worshiped instead of worried. See, if you're still sitting here worrying, you need to pull the weed and you need to worship God. That's a weed. It's not a lifestyle. Temptation of wealth. It's a weed. There's nothing wrong with working. You need to work hard. The Bible said work hard. But if it gets before God and it gets before your mate, it's a weed that needs to be pulled. You say, I'm just trying to get ahead. Well, who are you getting ahead of? You getting ahead of God? You getting ahead of your mate? It's a weed. You gotta be careful. Stop. Teaching from growing.
James Greer (22:50):
Guess what happened? So the teaching, it doesn't produce any fruit. You come to church, you come to church, but you're not pulling the weeds out of your life. So you don't have any fruit in your life. So what do you do? Instead, but what is the seed? It's the Word of God. It fell on good ground, your heart. You're receptive. You're ready to accept it. You came to the preacher. You said preach to me. God, I want to hear your Word. I want to change my life. And the seed is like a person who hears the teaching or the Word and understands it. And that person, he grows and produces fruit, the love and joy and the peace. And sometimes it's a hundred times more. Sometimes it's 60. Sometimes 30. See, I'm gonna tell you. If you come to church, your heart needs to be right. You need to be receptive. God says, I want some fruit in your life. Amen? Pull the weeds. Get the water. The Holy Spirit. Let Him have His will and His way in your life. See, you're never going to have the love, you're never going to have the friendship unless you come in, receive the Word, hear the Word and obey the Word. It won't happen.
James Greer (23:45):
In fact, I don't believe you'll ever have the right relationship with God or your mate unless you come to church on a regular basis and you get in the Word and you get unto the Word. And then don't allow familiarity to rob receptivity. In other words, it's familiar. I come to church. You didn't just come to church. I hope you get an insight. I hope you write it down. I hope you post the right thing. I hope you apply it to your life. Don't just come to church because it's familiar or it's out of habit. No, no, no. I want to be receptive. I want my heart to be right. I want to apply something to my life. I want it to change. Don't let your marriage, I'm married. Big deal. I'm married. No, no. It's a privilege. Thank God you're married. You don't have to be married. You get to get married. Praise God that you're married. Amen? If you have a job, you better thank God you have a job. There's a lot of people today that don't have a job. If you want to have that job, God will move you to that job. You got to learn to be thankful for where you're at and what God has you doing. Amen, Brother James.
James Greer (24:48):
Not lazy people though. No, they're too lazy. They're one-sided people. They always want to receive instead of give. See, they're too lazy. It takes time and work. It takes energy to bring honor and value and to look the best you can. See, I don't know. Some people think, I don't know. What do you think you're doing? You think it brings value just to be as ugly as you can? I think you should do the best you can with what you got. I think some people just want to be ugly to be ugly I guess. Hey, honey, I'm ugly today. No, you're lazy today. Do the best you can. It takes work. It takes work to speak the right words, to get a gift, to have time, the acts of service, the physical touch, to physically look good. That's work. Lazy people, they don't want to do that. Lazy people want to make an excuse why they can't do that. Stop being lazy.
James Greer (25:47):
And then there's the agape godly love. That's the giving love. That's the only, that love has to come from God. That's an unconditional love. That love, you have to get it from God to be able to give it. I'm gonna tell you what. If you don't keep pursuing the love that you have, it won't be long you won't have the love that you had. You need to keep pursuing, prioritizing. Let me give you some thoughts as we get ready to close. You've got to pursue God. You got to pursue Him first as your Lord and Savior. You can only have God as your Lord and Savior through Jesus Christ. If you're here today and you're not sure if He died that you'd go to Heaven, the most important thing you can do is to pursue Jesus. You say, hey, I know I've sinned before. I believe Jesus died for my sins and I'd like for Him to come into my heart. So you pursue God through Christ. Some of you've done that, but you just got lazy. You're not pursuing God anymore. Man, I love to pursue God. Almost every day, I go and I pursue God. He tells me secret things and new things and exciting things and confirms things and gives you directions and visions and wisdoms and significance and success and things that are beyond your imagination.
James Greer (27:15):
You pursue Him, you'll find Him. By the way, God's not hiding from you. You seek Him, you shall find Him. Pursue Him. Some of you become lazy and you're making excuses and you're trying to tell me why you can't pursue God. No, you're lazy. That's why. You pursue what you love. Some of you need to say today, God, I need to ask forgiveness. I want to rededicate my life. I want to pursue you, God. I want to pursue you through biblical love if you're married. I want to have all three in my life and my marriage. I want to have the Eros. I want to have the phileo friendship love. And I want to have agape love. And God, I know that I can never do that unless my love comes from you. That's what 1 John says. It says beloved.
James Greer (28:08):
Let's love one another for love is of God. Where does love come from? God. Everyone who loves has to be born of God. Unless you're born of God, you don't really have that kind of love. You might have sexual love. That won't sustain your marriage. You might even have friendship, but it won't last. It's gotta be born of God. He who does not love because you don't know God. God is love. You'll never have a lasting love. You'll never have the relationship that God wants you to have unless you get your love from God. You say, well, I'm not married. You still got to get your love from God. When your relationship is right with God, your other relationships will be right and when they're not, they won't. People are always blaming the other person. Listen, if your relationship is right with God, you can make it through almost anything else in life. And when it's not, things are worse than they'll ever be in your life. So we got to pursue God, pursue our mates. We got to bring honor back. Honoring your marriage and honoring your family. I don't think it's funny at all if you dishonor your mate out in public. I don't think it's funny at all when you run your mate down in public. I don't think you should do that. I don't think it's funny when young people dishonor their parents. I don't think they should do that.
James Greer (29:42):
I think that it doesn't matter what everybody else is doing. We're not everybody else. We're Journey Church family. Young people, I want you to bring honor back. I want you to honor your parents. I want you to honor your teachers as a witness for Jesus Christ. People that go to work Monday, Journey Church family, I want you to honor your boss, whoever that is. I don't want you to dishonor them. I don't want you to dishonor God. I don't want you talking about anybody, not anybody on the job. You bring an honor because you're a witness. You're the light, even in the most darkest of the world. So we're going to bring honor. We're going to understand what it is to make a vow and a commitment and we're gonna live up to it. We're going to be different.
James Greer (30:33):
We're not going to be lazy people. We're going to work hard. But not only are we going to work hard, we're going to do it with the right attitude. We're going to be enthusiastic about pursuing it with God and with our mate and on our jobs. Because see, we can make a difference. The world is looking for something different. God had just told us how to do it. And you know what? If we pursue God, then He'll give us the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the rest of the world isn't doing. It does not matter. You'll be different. Nobody ever made a difference. You ready? That wasn't different. I want you to be different. I want them to say, you must go to Journey Church because you're so different in your home and your job and school.
James Greer (31:25):
Would you stand and let me pray for you? God, you're some awesome God. I thank you that as we pursue you, we find you. We find you that we find love. We can take that love and pursue our mates, our friendships. We can't do it without you. For those that might not know Christ, they want to pursue God, you've got to come to know Jesus. I pray that you would pursue Him this morning. For those who have become lazy, I pray today you'd rededicate your life and say, man, I need to rededicate my life. I need to start pursuing God. I need to spend time with God. I need to be at church every single Sunday. I need to be there with my mate. And even if they don't come, I need to be there. I need to spend time in God's Word during the week even if it's just a few moments every day. I need to pursue Him.
James Greer (32:15):
I need to stop being lazy. Maybe today's the day I need to join this church. I can join with next step. I can join online. Or we've got the altar open. You can come and join. Maybe you need to follow through and biblically, publicly baptism like we had in the last service. You can do that. You can mark online or you can mark your next step card or you can come in front. Maybe you need somebody to pray with you to pray for you. You can do the same thing. All three ways. What I would not do is go home the same way that I came. I would come and say, man, God, I need your love. I want to share your love. I want to leave with the love and joy and peace that can only come from you. God, I pray that Satan would be bound through the power and blood of Jesus Christ. I pray for those that are married. I pray right now, spirit to spirit, their hearts would begin to be knit together. Pray a hedge of protection around about that marriage. God, I pray you'd have your will and your way. It's in the precious name of Jesus I pray. Amen.
Bruce Goulart (33:25):
On behalf of Pastor James, I just want to say thank you for joining our online experience today here at Journey Church. Wasn't that just an amazing message that Pastor James just shared about how if you put your spouse second and God first, then you can lead your spouse closer to God? Now don't we all want to do that today? Now, if you need someone to pray with you or you need to take your next steps, we have a link down in our comments right now that you can click on. And someone is on standby, ready to pray with you or help you get to your next steps. I have two exciting things that I just want to talk about. The first one is our WhatsApp group, strictly for our online community. That means it's meant for you. Here on our website, you'll be able to get devos and stay connected and be involved at Journey Church. And so we want you to join right now. So click that link and join. Now, the second thing that I'm super excited about is we have a new thing called Journey Fam, an online campus. But what that means is basically it's going to be a community for our online experience and that's super exciting. So there's a link right now in your comment section that you can click to join the Journey Fam. And I hope that you take a moment so that way you can join. I hope that you have a great day and a great week. And I hope to see you next Sunday. Thank y'all.
Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.
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