Naked and Unashamed | Pastor Terrence Mullings

The orphan spirit comes upon us when we have this guarded heart and we keep people at a distance. And here's what happened with the prodigal son. The prodigal son had such an orphan spirit, he would take his father's inheritance and leave, because it's going to be my way. And so some of you leave, but some of you stay like the other son, and you guard your heart by putting up a wall, so you're close, but no one gets in. Genesis 2.22, foundational scripture says this, The Lord God made a man from the rib that he had taken out of the man. Made woman from the rib he had taken out, and he, God, brought her to the man. Eyes up. My question is, who brought Eve to Adam? God did. So some of you are sitting there looking for your partner when you need to be looking for God. Who's looking out for you and wants to bring the right person to you. But you're looking for love in all the wrong places. And if we would fix our eyes on Jesus, He's both the author and the finisher, and He will start and finish and sustain what He wants for your life. This is why we sing the song, Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to. Yeah, we need to see Jesus, and we need to see ourselves the way God sees us. Can I tell you, the healthiest relationship is where you see your partner the way God sees them. It's where you see your children through the eyes and lens of heaven. Not through their mistakes, not through their past, not through their problems, but through the eyes of Jesus, the eyes of redemption. And that's our prayer. In verse 23, it says this, Then the man said, This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. You'll be called woman.

Now, she's made in the image of God. My question is, if you're looking through the eyes of God, instead of seeing flaws, you will see it as a feature. What's in them is different than what's in you, but it's actually the different parts coming together. Difference actually creates completion. This is why you need the keyboards and the drums and the bass, different instruments, but together create a harmonious sound. And when we start to see that our difference isn't deviant, but our differences are divine, then we're starting to see through the eyes of heaven. Amen? All right, let's keep reading. So the good news of the gospel is this, that we were half, sin came in, broke the relationship with God, and Colossians 2.10 says now that you are no longer half outside of God, but you are now complete. Shout it out, you are complete. A loud church is an alive church. Are we having a live church here this morning? All right, the louder you shout, the quicker I preach. Are you alive? Wow, I feel offended right there, but let's keep going. Genesis 24 continues, That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one flesh. Partnership, unity, purpose, equality. We spoke about this last week, but the whole goal is that we'd be whole and complete, not in ourselves, but in Christ and live from the overflow.

And then verse 18 says this, The Lord God said it's not good for a man to be alone. I will make for him a suitable helper. We've mistakenly think that because God created Eve for Adam, that Adam was somehow a half. No, no, he wasn't, he was a whole person. And the best way to fix a relationship is not trying to take the camera out and zoom in on their flaws. No, no, no, God says, turn it around, allow me to fix you. So a lot of us want to fix our partner, but God's saying, if you allow me to fix you, it'll fix the relationship, amen? All right, so this is where now we get into week two. And I'm speaking to you from this thought, write this down. Naked and unashamed. Naked and unashamed. Here's the scripture. Genesis 2, 25 says this, Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. Here's a question for you. If you were standing up here naked, would you be unashamed? Can you be naked, take the mask off and stop pretending to be someone else and show the real you and can you do that and feel no shame? And my prayer is by the end of this message that God would do that for you, that you'd be allowed to be naked, bear the true you, your true soul. I'm talking like spiritually and emotionally,

show who you really are. This is God's design for very good relationships. And here's my big idea. You cannot build healthy relationships while you're living with unhealed wounds. You can't build a healthy relationships while you're living with unhealed wounds. Let me start the message by asking this question. Who was here December 21st last year when we had our Christmas services at History Makers Church? Hands up, hands up, okay. Who was not here? Wow, there's a few that weren't here. Well, I'll tell you. Can I tell you, there are moments where you preach a message and you just know when you land that plane. People get to the destination Jesus, people meet Jesus, change. fall, fear, bows, and Jesus turns up. And can I tell you, when I preached Christmas, it was one of those messages. Now, here's a picture of Christmas last year. I remember there was one moment where we had the three wise men, and I talked about how these men brought gifts. They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And those gifts represented something. And I said, like, those gifts were brought to Jesus.

Every Christmas, we bring gifts and put them under a tree. And here was my big question. Why do we put up a Christmas tree? Does anyone remember why? We put up a Christmas tree because 2,000 years ago, on a tree, Jesus Christ died, so not that he would receive a gift, but he would give the gift, and gold, frankincense, and myrrh represents pardon for my past, peace for my today, and a promise for a great tomorrow. I'm telling you, that message, clap your hands, I feel good again. It was, whoo, I was on fire. Not only did I preach what I thought was a phenomenal, theologically-based, practically-based message, but the start of the whole service was this picture. This was my beautiful daughter, Israel. She opened, and she walked out of here, and all three of us, she sang, ♪ Oh, holy night ♪ Oh, I'm telling you, dad moment, proud moment, right there. I just, I loved it. And what started as such beauty, and such blessing, here's where it ended up, December 21st, here's where we ended up. Ended up at Urgent Care, because beautiful Izzy, while she was wearing the heels, singing up here, between the second and third service, she walked out to History Maker's kids,

and mommy said, hey, Izzy, don't wear those heels, you're not used to them. She goes over, and as she's walking, she rolls in her ankle, and it snaps it in two different places. Not only did she break her ankle, but watch this, she came back, and she did the third service. I'm like, come on, Izzy. We didn't know, we just thought it was a sprain, but she's like, daddy, no one else knows my part. I've gotta do it. I'm like, what a trooper, give Izzy a round of applause. Come on. And so that night, that ankle, then they had to put, wrap it up, and so the next day, we went, and we had to go to the doctor, and in fact, they put a brace on Izzy, and so for, since December 21st, almost like three months to date, she has been wearing this actual brace right here on her foot, and it was fantastic, because while the bones were healing on both sides, this protected her, this stabilized her, it strengthened her so that internal healing can happen, and what was interesting, we actually went to the doctor last week. I took her to the doctor, and I'm sitting there with the doctor, and she's sitting down on the edge, and the doctor's talking to her and saying,

hey, Izzy, okay, we can actually take the boot off now. You can walk without the boot, and she was smiling, and so the next second, she, it's like she's pondering and processing what the doctor's saying, and I watch her face go from excitement to fear, and she starts crying. I'm like, why is she crying? And what I realized, she started crying because when the doctor told her to take the boot off, she learned to live so long with the boot, she didn't know how to live without the boot, and in that moment, I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, Terrence, that's a picture of most of us when it comes to relationships, that each of us walked in this room with a boot on. It's a boot that protected you when you were hurt by the abuse, by mom and dad's divorce, by someone lying to you, someone hurting you. We've all experienced relationship pain, and if you haven't, just keep living, and I don't know exactly what it was, whether it was an absent parent, you know, it could be a parent went to heaven quicker than you believe they should have. It could've been an abandonment, but there's a wound we carry, a mother wound and a father wound, and watch this. Because of that hurt, we've put on a boot emotionally, physically, relationally, and listen, that boot actually once protected you,

but that boot that once protected you is now preventing you from healing the way God wants you to heal. And you've lived with that boot, you communicate with that boot, you process with that boot, and watch this. This is how Izzy walked when she had the boot. And she was limping around when God wanted her to leap. And here's my big thought for all of us. The boot that once helped you is now hindering you. And God's saying, whatever that boot is today, I want you to locate that boot. What boot are you wearing? Because God wants you to say, hey, it's time to take the boot off because I want to heal what's been hindering you. Amen? God says, today we're gonna take the boot off because He wants to heal. And my question to you, what brace, what boot? are you wearing that once helped you, but is now hindering you. God wants to heal you. In fact, today I wanna outline five, cinco relationship braces that we walked in here with, five relationship braces that God wants to heal you from because you're limping. And unless you take that boot off, the body will not heal properly, amen? Now, before I give you these five,

what I need to do is give you a little bit of theology. Someone say theology, before the practicality. And the theology is how we got hurt, why we're wearing the boot and why Jesus is asking us to take it off. I'll say that again. How we got hurt, what boot we're wearing and then why Jesus wants to take it off. So let me give you some theology. Proverbs four says this, above all, I want you to guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. Write this down. If your heart is wounded, your relationships will reflect it. If your heart is wounded, your relationship will reflect it. I know you've learned to cope, but can I tell you the pornography is not coping. The isolation is not coping. I don't know what that boot is for you, but the addiction and whatever you've used to cope is actually not helping you, it's harming you. And the theology is this, it's a three garden theology. Do you know, we know the garden of Eden. There was a garden where Jesus sweated tears of blood, which is called the garden of Gethsemane. Do you know there's a third garden in the Bible? Yeah, there's a third garden, I wanna speak about that. And there's a why, because when you understand what God did in the second and third garden,

it will help you know that God came to restore us back to his original plan, that first garden where they were able to be naked and ashamed. They had hurts, but they were able to take off that boot and find healing in Jesus' presence. So number one, the garden of Eden was healthy by design. Here's what it says in Genesis 2.25. They were naked and they felt what? So God's original design, spiritually, emotionally, relationally healthy, no shame, no hiding, no fear, no dysfunction. This is what it should look like. But sadly, this is not what our relationships look like. They should look like a garden, but they look like a jungle. The fall, when Adam and Eve ate from that tree God said not to eat from, is where the garden became a jungle. Creation was the garden, decreation, or you could say desecration is what turned the garden into a jungle. Watch this. Genesis 3.7 says this. Then the eyes of both of them were opened after they ate the fruit and they realized that they were what? Naked. And suddenly at that moment, they started to feel shame. And so the Bible says they sewed fig leaves together and they started to make coverings for themselves.

And I think a lot of us have gone in some relationships and made some mistakes. You've pushed the boundaries too far. You had sex before you were married. You did things. You're doing stuff in the marriage right now and you feel so ashamed. But instead of running to the father, we run and hide from the father. And we cover with fig leaves what only can be covered truly by the father and his sacrifice. And here's the big idea. What should have been a safety, safe place became a place of shame. I wonder what relationship challenge you're facing right now. You feel like a bad parent. You got angry at your kids. Something happened. You got fired from your job and what should have been a safe place now becomes a place of shame. Worse still, what should have become a safe place now actually becomes a place that you've been shut out and locked out from. That's what happened to Adam and Eve. They took from the tree and God had to shut them out from the garden. He puts angels with fiery swords to stop them coming back in from the garden

and you might think that's a mean God. No, that's a loving God. You know why? Because there were two trees in the garden, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. Tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life. And because they ate from the tree of knowledge, God says, if I allow them now to eat from the tree of eternal life, then the fallen state of shame, the fallen state of sin that they're in, they will stay like that for eternity. And so the whole Bible and the whole gospel has been how can we return them to this original garden because they had to be kicked out from the garden and God's plan was how do I get them back into the garden in their relationship with God, with me and their relationship with each other. And this is why this is important. Genesis 3, 17 says this, then Adam, he said, because you listened to your wife and you ate the fruit from the tree, which I commanded you, you must not eat from, cursed, someone say cursed, is the ground because of you through painful toil, you'll eat food from it all the days of your life. Anyone got a relationship where it feels like, man, this is not blessed, this is cursed.

When it comes to my job, I can't seem to get a promotion. It's not blessed, it's cursed. I don't know why I single, every relationship, Relationship just seems broken. Take the scales off their eyes, God. Why does no one notice me? It doesn't feel like a blessing. It feels like a curse. God wants to reverse the curse today. And so we can return to his original plan in Eden for very good relationships. Verse 18 says, the land will now produce for you not a beautiful garden with flowers and orchids, but rather it will produce thorns and thistles. This is, you gotta remember this because this is actually what the curse looks like. A garden has now become a jungle. What's the difference? In a garden, it grows what God wants it to grow. A jungle, anything grows. Anything the devil throws at you grows. Addiction, abuse, unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred grows in your relationship and love cannot grow in that jungle. And God has a plan for it. Let me give you a dating tip. When you're looking for your partner,

I want you to ask yourself, does their life look like a garden or a jungle? If you're married, we don't put the camera on them. We turn on ourselves and ask, does my heart, does my life look like a garden or a jungle? By the sweat off your brow, you will eat your food and return. So the curse actually turned work, which was a blessing from God to work the garden, to multiply what was in the garden of Eden to the rest of the earth. He turned what should have been a blessing into a curse because of sin. That's what sin did. And God today, I believe he's gonna restore. Some of you are in your job and you feel like it's the worst thing God ever did for you, give you that job. It's hard, it's difficult. There's no favor, there's no promotion. God's about to reverse that curse and in working relationships, you're gonna start to find joy. So because of sin, here's what came into the garden. Shame, hiding, blame. It was the woman you gave me that did this. Fear, sweat, thorns and thistles. Sin turned a garden into a jungle and this is what the jungle looks like. So without God healing us

and returning us to that actual garden, worse still, a garden that became a jungle can actually become a desert, a very dry place, a very dry place. Worse still, I don't know if we have that line, but gardens can become jungles, jungles become deserts. But if you don't let the rivers of living water, which is what baptism is, where we allow ourselves to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, then that desert will turn into a graveyard, a graveyard. So when wounds are not healed, hearts go numb, relationships feel empty and people feel disconnected. Is this what your relationship feels like right now? Here are the four things, we'll pop them on the screen. A garden should be healthy. A jungle is chaotic. A desert is where you have become numb, but worse, a graveyard is where death happens. And I don't know if you wanna diagnose your relationship right now, but if you keep walking with that brace in your relationship, you'll never heal. And what should be a garden in your life will turn into a graveyard. But are you grateful that we serve a God? You turn graves into gardens. Yeah, you didn't know what to do there, did you? Air guitar or air keyboard,

God turns graves into gardens. I wanna show you how he does that here today. And let me give you the five. First, you gotta identify where you are. So let me give you, so you can diagnose five braces that we bring into relationships that are not helping, they're hindering. They're turning our gardens into graveyards. Watch this, number one, the first brace is your guarded heart. And here's what you say, I'm not gonna let anyone get close, but if I let them get close, they're not gonna get all the way in. You keep people at a distance in your life. And this happens because you've had some betrayal or disappointment in your life. You keep people at a distance and what you actually end up carrying, watch this, is what we call the orphan spirit. The orphan spirit actually is not what God wanted because when he created Adam and Eve, that was God's son and God's daughter. The orphan spirit comes upon us when we have this guarded heart and we keep people at a distance. And here's what happened with the prodigal son. The prodigal son had such an orphan spirit, he would take his father's inheritance and leave because it's gonna be my way.

And so some of you leave, but some of you stay like the other son and you guard your heart by putting up a wall so you're close, but no one gets in. I wonder where you are today. And here's what it looks like. It looks like you've got walls up. Surface level relationships, you will not be vulnerable with anyone. It's like you're a vault and who can recognize himself in that? Here's what the proverb says, an offended brother is more unyielding than a fortified city. And it's interesting, as you think of Joseph in the Bible, Joseph had a relationship that started as a garden. Joseph was one of 12 brothers. And he was the favorite. His parents loved him, gave him a coat of many colors. He was the man. You know, the favorite child. Like you, Izzy. Don't tell anyone. You're my favorite seven-year-old daughter. Oh, you're nine? Dang. You're my favorite nine-year-old. I got four of them, shut up, okay? It's hard to keep track.

But Joseph, his parents couldn't keep track. There was 12 of them, but Joseph was the favorite. They knew everything about Joseph. It was a garden, but watch this. Then the snake slithers into the relationship and what should have been a garden, he got wounded by the snake. And he had a choice where, watch this, sin enters in, jealousy comes in. His brothers are jealous of him. There's betrayal, there's abandonment, false accusation. And so a garden quickly becomes a jungle of competition and jealousy in the family. And that jungle now becomes a desert because they throw him into a pit. Then Pharaoh's wife lies on him and puts him in a prison where he's forgotten. It's no longer a jungle, this is a desert. And watch this. Some of you are in a relationship desert right now. It's dry, you're about to give up. You feel the love has gone. There is no hope for this relationship. And you've got two choices as we look at Joseph. You can either, like Joseph, heal the hurt or you can harbor the hurt. And some of you are holding onto the offense. Some of you are holding onto the bitterness. And he had every reason to. His brothers, my own flesh and blood

would sell me into slavery. They would steal the inheritance. They would do me wrong. I don't know about you, but here's what Joseph said. He said, Genesis 50, 20, what you meant for evil when he saw his brothers. God meant for good. I'm wondering if you can say that here today. If you believe we serve a God who really can turn graves into gardens and what the enemy meant for evil. God can flip it and turn it around for good. Even with the partner or the relationship you have. Joseph didn't harbor it. He took off the boot so God could heal it. And I think we need to do the same here today. And how do you know you're healed? You stop rehearsing the pain and you start to see God's purpose in the pain. Can you see God's purpose through all the pain? My wife's story is a testimony of that. That what the enemy meant for evil, God has used for good. And I believe he can do it for you here this morning as well. Let me get through these braces a little bit quicker. Number two, you might be wearing the control brace where you're gonna control everything. And if I stay in control, then I'll never get hurt. And you wanna control.

And this happens because we come from chaos. There's been instability in our life. Maybe there was a divorce early and where's mom? And you go from dad's house to mom's house and they didn't mean it, but you're being caught in this chaotic wheel. Maybe it's a loss of your mom when you're a little girl like Pastor Emma. Maybe it's like me, you move from Australia to Jamaica to America and all these places in Australia. And there's just, there's never been instability in your life and you, if anything in your life, in relationships, you just gotta be in control. I mean, that was me. I remember, you know, my first girlfriend, do you know her name was actually Emma? But not this Emma. It was another Emma in high school. And one of my friends told me David Leach, his name was, he came up and said, hey, do you know Ems is gonna break up with you? So you know what I did? Yeah, I broke up with her first, which is so dumb because I had to control the relationship because I don't know what was, it was in me. Maybe there was so much instability that I needed to control things. And obviously, you know, God uses it for good because I found the right Emma in Jesus' name.

Praise the Lord. But it looks like micromanaging. It looks like anxiety when things are unpredictable. The control brace means you struggle to trust. God wants you to take that off here today. Number three, it's the performance brace. If I'm good enough, then I'll be loved. Now, this comes when there's conditional love in your family and there's been rejection in your family. And if you're good, if your room's clean enough, then I'll love you. If you're smart enough, then I'll love you. If you're holy enough, then I'll love you. No, no, no, God loves you with an unconditional love. And we can put on this performance and it looks like people-pleasing, overworking, fear of disappointment. I know I'm giving a lot of information today, but God's about to bring revelation if you will locate where you are. If I preach good enough, then they'll come back and love me. If I have enough followers on Instagram, you know? No, no, no, I'm gonna have kids because if I finally have kids, someone will love me with unconditional love. And that is way too much pressure to put on another life. And some of us are so trying to live through others and God says that brace needs to come off today. What about the avoidance brace? This is the brace where you say,

if I just ignore it, it won't hurt. And this comes so you've been through so much conflict and so much trauma and it's too hard. to face the pain, and so we fake it. Instead of facing it, we're gonna fake it and pretend, I'm good, I'm good, Daddy, I can wear, I can just use the brace, I'm good. No, no, no, you need to take that off because God will never heal what you keep hiding. God can't heal what you keep holding back from Him. Maybe for you, it's the avoidance brace. If I ignore it and it looks like shutting down, avoiding hard conversations, and there's an emotional distance, it's like, I just don't seem to ever be able to get close to you. Am I locating anyone here today? Like, if you allow God in, He will heal it. The last one is this, the offense brace. And it's like, man, they hurt me, and watch this, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. And I'll never let that happen. I will never let a man treat me like he treated my mother. And all men are dogs, and you've got this thing, you've been so offended, you're holding onto this offense, the keys can come, and it looks like you're easily triggered, you're defensive. You assume the worst, someone does something, and the punishment was a one, but you've gone to a 10.

Catastrophize everything. And you keep walls ups, and these walls, you needed these walls, because these walls protected you from the wrong people getting in. But those walls have now become a place that not only stop people coming in, but now you can't get out. And you can't go and experience a beautiful garden of relationships that God has for you, because your garden has turned into a jungle, your jungle has turned into a desert, and that desert has become a place of death. Can we go deeper, really quickly? Let me show you, some of you are single, because you're wearing a brace that you will not let go of. And here's the brace that singles wear. I don't need anyone. It's the independence mask. I can do it, I got this. Some of you, it's a fear of vulnerability. It's comparison, insecurity. You think it needs to be like that. No, no, no, God's got someone special for you. And if you will take that brace off, He will heal that independent spirit. And the truth is, you're not protecting your heart, you're actually preventing your heart from a divine connection. Let me speak to the married people for a moment.

Some of you are wearing a brace where you keep score. You never buy me a gift, and I always do this, and duh, what emotional walls have gone up because they've disappointed you. Control or jealousy, fear of abandonment. And here's what Song of Solomon says, you better catch those little foxes, or they're gonna destroy your relationship harvest. And it's harvest time. So the problem is, isn't always the relationship, the problem is the brace you brought into it. And if you allow God to heal that brace, what is that brace for you? Is God speaking to you? This one looks, what about parents? Parents, can I tell you, the over-controlling, fear-based parenting, and I do it, emotional distance, some of you just can't connect with your children. I don't know what it is for you, but you've got two choices. You can pass down your wounds, or you can pass down your healing. And you better take that thing off here today because what walks in you will run in your children. Because we serve a God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And you can either have a generational blessing, or you can walk in that generational curse. And God wants to heal it today, and only a holy God can bring holiness.

And that's why we sing, ♪ Holy are You, Lord. ♪ Sing holy. ♪ Holy are You, Lord. ♪ You're holy, You're holy, Lord. ♪ Holy are You, Lord. ♪ Some of you got some friendships, and the truth is, not everyone is your enemy, but your wound might make it feel like everyone is your enemy. Blended families, can I tell you, it feels like, how is this blended family gonna work? Loyalty conflicts, comparison. It was better then and that, no, no, no, no, no. God's, listen, God's family right here is a picture of blended families, where God invites every tribe, every tongue, every nation, different people coming together and finding healing in Him. There's hope here today, no matter what. And here's what the Bible says, the practical steps for healing, I won't go into them, but I'll tell you what they are. It's A-I-R-R, that when God found Adam in the dirt, your relationship might be in the dirt right now, but we serve a God who reaches down into dirt. He finds dirt, He formed the dirt. He breathes into the dirt, and it says to the dirt, be fruitful and multiply. There is a breath, a fresh breath of fresh air. A-I-R-R, A-I-R-R, write this down.

First of all, we need to acknowledge and stop hiding. You will never remove a brace that you're unwilling to acknowledge. So first of all, you've got to acknowledge, I've got this wound because God cannot heal what you hide. Is it the controlling of everything? Is it the guarded heart? Is it a fear of being hurt again? I'm gonna shut, I'm not gonna open up to anyone. And God says, acknowledge it. It hurt, it's okay. You're carrying an offense, but God says you need to take off that boot. Number two, you gotta invite God in. Someone say, invite God. You see, at the wedding of Cana, I love it, I'm gonna preach about it at Easter. They ran out of wine, and it was a sign that the groom could not provide for the bride. It was a notch against his name. And I can imagine, come on, people like, look at that, posted on Instagram, what a loser. Couldn't even provide enough wine for her. And where's the wedding planner? Fire the wedding planner. And a lot of us, we love to go to the phone, instead of go to the throne. But here's what, Jesus' mother knew what to do. She didn't just inform everyone,

she involved Jesus. Can I tell you, you need to invite and involve Jesus, because he's the only one that can take this boot that you're carrying, you're walking around limping, and God says, you don't need to limp. I created your relationships to leap with joy, to shouts of joy. Number three, you gotta remove the brace, you actually have to give it to God. 1 Peter 5 says, cast your cares on him. But you don't wanna remove the brace because you have learned to walk in the brace. Three months you've been doing this. So when you take it off, it's tender. And it's like, well, I can't live without looking at the website, I can't live without flirting, I can't, no, no, no, take off the brace, because what you thought was helping you is actually harming you. What you thought was protecting you is actually preventing the healing touch from heaven, so you avoid it. Izzy was like, daddy, it's fine. Or like me, you might get a little bit angry. You would get a bit angry, or you might wanna control it, you might wanna, there was moments where Izzy started hiding from daddy, because she knew I'd say, take the brace off and practice walking again. And I wonder how many of you are hiding from your daddy,

because the boot is the modern day fig leaf, where we try to cover with a fig leaf what can only be covered by the father. And God says, you gotta take that boot off because the father wants to heal you today. And then finally, you gotta replace the lies with the truth. Let me tell you the truth. I said there was not two gardens, there were three gardens. And why is this important? Here's why, here's the revelation for the information you've received. Eden was a place of hiding. Eden was a place of human effort. I'm gonna fix it in my own strength. Genesis says, they realized they were naked, so they sewed these fig leaves together. I was afraid, so I hid. So when you get hurt, when you feel exposed, when you feel ashamed, you and I do the same thing. We hide, we cover ourselves, and we run from God instead of running to the God who can actually heal us. But God says, there's a better way. So the second garden is this. The second garden is where the garden of Gethsemane, and here's what happened. In Luke 22, instead of my will, I'm gonna take this tree, fruit from a tree. Jesus says, God, I don't wanna take this cup. This cup that's gonna require my blood. This cup that's gonna require my body is too much for me.

Would you take it away from me? And then he says, God, not my will, but yours be done. And that moment in this second garden reversed what happened in the first, the curse of the first garden. And as we're gonna take communion today, I want you to understand that we can return to the garden because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In the second garden, Jesus didn't hide, he healed. Jesus didn't hide, but he handed his will to the father instead of doing his own will. I wanna contrast it really clearly. Watch this. In the first garden, there was hiding. In the second garden, there was healing because they processed with the father. But the third garden, so that's what happened in the first. The third garden was the garden tomb. What do you mean the garden tomb? Well, remember when Jesus' mother and they went looking for Jesus, here's what it says in John 20. When she went to the tomb, it was empty. And in John 20, 15, it says, she thought he was the gardener because it was a garden tomb. So what, Terrence? Watch this. First garden, hiding, second garden, honesty, third garden, not just hope, but healing.

Your broken relationship restored in the third garden. The price paid in the third garden when Jesus Christ got back up again and rose again so your relationships can return to what God wants. You can take off the boot. You can take off the offense. You can take off the guarded heart. You can take off if it's gonna be. You can take off the thing that's hindering you from healing, because God wants to heal your relationship here today. So right now, in the first garden, Adam hid, in the second garden, Jesus healed. The place where humanity will hide is where God wants to do healing here today. And I want you to know that unhealthy people will hide their pain, but healthy people will hand their pain to God. Are you gonna hide it, or are you gonna hand it to God? That's the question here today. The brace is the modern day fig leaf. It helped you cope, but now it's keeping you from healing. So right now, as we take communion, I wanna put this up here, because I want you to know exactly what you're doing, how God is restoring the relationship by the power of His blood in the second and third garden. So I want you to just take that communion cup. If you do need one, just wave your hands in the air and the host team will bring it to you.

Most of you would have received it on the way in. The top portion is where you get the bread. And I want you to see this as you take this today, that what we're eating to as we have communion, number one is that shame and blame was in the first garden. If this woman that you gave me, she's the one that did it to me. Can we pop it up on the screen, shame and blame? But in the second garden, there was ownership. Someone say ownership. What does this mean? That we can now come boldly to the throne room of grace, because where Adam hid behind Eve, and here's what he said, the woman you gave me, the woman you gave me, God did this. When Jesus was confronted with the opportunity to hide behind Peter and the disciples, when the guards came for him, he said, hey, no, no, no, don't cut off his ear. Pick it up, puts the ear back on and said, stand behind me. I am He, the one you're looking for. And he was able to process with the father his pain and say, God, this cup's too much. And you can process with the father and he will bring healing. Fig leaves are in the first garden. The father is in the second garden. That means you don't have to fake it anymore. You can face it. You need real relationships

and God has made a way for that. The last thing is this, because of sin, the garden didn't produce flowers. It was thorns and thistles. What does that mean? You got some work relationships. You can never get a promotion. You're trying to feed your family and look after your family. Your family dynamics are not a garden. It's a jungle of thorns and thistles. Can I ask you, when Jesus stood on the cross, he put a crown off, thorns. That means the curse, which was once on your life, Jesus took it on the cross and he reversed the curse. So what was a jungle now becomes a garden again in Jesus' name. So as we eat this morning, I want you to eat and say, thank you, Jesus, for turning my jungle into a garden. Thank you for healing my broken relationships in Jesus' name. Amen. That was high. That's what he does. Guess what? Listen to these lyrics. Pause, pause. There were dry bones in the valley of dry bones. And God said, prophesy to those dry bones.

What we're doing is prophesying that Jesus paid the price. And I don't know what dry bones relate to this, and I don't know what dry bones relationships you have, but today we're gonna drink to a God who's able to heal that. And here's what we're drinking to. From the side God birthed Eve, when Jesus was pierced in the side, outside of him came blood and water. The blood was spilled on the ground, and this is what we're drinking and believing again. And from the sweat off your brow, you would have to work that first garden because of sin. And the Bible says in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sweat. You see the similarity? But this time he didn't just sweat sweat, he sweated tears, sweated blood. It's actually a medical condition where you have groaning so hard that the blood capillaries in your sweat glands burst. Jesus was broken so we can return to the healing. Let's drink and thank him right now in Jesus' name. Father, I thank you that your blood was shed, not just to restore the relationship with other people, but to restore relationship with you. And I thank you for it, God. And because of your blood, chains will fall, fear will bow as the King of kings takes the throne and my heart will sing.

Yes God. Holy are you Lord. Hey, the young lady next to your mom, I've forgotten your name, my amen corner. What's your name again? You know who I'm talking about. Shout it out. Ashley. Ashley. Hey, Ashley, the days of dryness are over. There's rivers of living water that God's pouring into your life. And this will be the year where God satisfy those desires of your heart. And there is a route that's gonna find another route and there's gonna be a great intertwining. And it's gonna be a match made in heaven. And that match made in heaven is gonna be something when the winds of life come, it won't knock this tree down because there's been a shore foundation. God's gonna birth a beautiful garden. It's gonna be an oak of righteousness. And I just see God just knitting you together and forming something that is really, really beautiful in Jesus name, in Jesus name. I want you guys to take off the brace. I don't know what brace you're wearing, but before we do, only Jesus can do it. He's the father and the physician.

He's the great physician. And some of you have a boot where you think, salvation's up to me, I'm gonna get to heaven. He says, no, no, no, let me do it. Would you take the brace off because I wanna bring healing here today. With every eye closed and every head bowed, if you've never accepted this healing touch from the father, the touch is here. The Bible says, if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, you shall be saved. So I'm gonna ask you here this morning that if you know you need this Jesus, not just to take the boot off, but to heal your heart and your spirit so you can spend eternity with him, this is called salvation. And if you would like me to include you in his salvation prayer, now please just hear me, no moving just for a moment. If you never met Jesus and you need to meet him right now, would you lift that hand and say, yep, Terrence, that's me. I need this Jesus that you've been talking about. Awesome, I see hands going up across this place. I see your hand in the middle. Anyone else, I see your hand over here on the right. Anyone, I see some hands at the back. One, two, three, four hands. Come on, lift those hands up high.

You're saying, yes, I need this Jesus. Awesome. If I didn't see your hand, I want you to know God sees both your hand and your heart. And let's say this together. Let's say, dear God. Come on, every person. Dear God. Thank you for sending Jesus to find me and forgive me. Today, I repent of going my own ways. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. Heal my spirit. Make me new. Today, I'm saved in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Amen. Hey, heaven is celebrating and we are celebrating with you. And we wanna walk this journey together. So if you prayed that prayer or you just wanna know more about Jesus, follow the prompts that are on the screen right now. We are so proud of you. And honestly, God's vision for you is to see you live that better story, epic and eternal. We say it like this, to see you holy, healthy, happy, and bring in heaven to earth.

And if you're watching and you wanna help others find Jesus like that, you can partner with us and together we can make that epic difference. Hey, giving details are coming up on the screen. And we just say, if God's blessed you, you can be a blessing to other people as well. And hey, if you're here in the South Florida area, we'd love to see you in person. Check out the description below for times and the location where you can come to a service. We would love to see you soon. This is History Makers Church, where friends truly become family. See you soon.