James Greer: 00:00 Good Morning Journey Church. Let’s welcome the Alexandria campus. Oh yeah, man. They are over there rocking the house, too. I’m telling you, Hey, part three of raising kids without raising your blood pressure, which is impossible to do, but we’re going to get some new insights. Hey, the truth about raising your kids without raising your blood pressure. If we learn this one principle today that applies to our kids and applies to our marriage, the kids will probably turn out okay. This principle is very simple to hear, but it’s going to be very hard to apply. I’ve been studying raising kids probably 45 years, still learning. There’s one thing I learned. Listen to this is, it’s only when you get to the point that you don’t know that you don’t know, that you can start learning what you need to know. It’s only when you get to the point that you know that you don’t know, that you can really start learning what you need to know. Because there are so many times we think we know and so we can’t learn what we need to know. And so, so many times people go through life thinking they really know. So, they really don’t learn what they need to know. And so they do what they’ve always done. So, they always get what they always got. And then they always say, what’s going on in my life? So what we want to do is change the pattern. Amen?

James Greer: 01:35 You don’t have to wait till you’re 66 years old. God, I hate to even say that. No, no on the outside, but not on the inside. But you don’t have to wait that long, you can start saying right now, there’s so many things I don’t know that I want to start learning where I can know and I can start applying it. In other words, if you would really simply be teachable, it’d be unbelievable that you could reach most of your goals. You just have to ask yourself, am I really teachable? The biblical word would be, am I humble. And it’s the humble that hear from God. Philippians 2:4 puts it this way, 2 to 3, I mean. It says, don’t do anything from selfish ambition or vain conceit. Instead be humble. And then it starts talking about being humble. How do you be humble? Give more honor to the others than you do yourself. So you do. You really honor other people more than you do yourself.

James Greer: 02:36 If you ask your mate, you said, hey honey do I honor you more than I do myself? Hey kids, what do you think? I really honor you more than I do myself. I mean, when you really understand what being humble really is, you want the best for the other person more than you want it yourself. You say you want the best for your wife. You want the best for your kids even before yourself. You’re no longer worried about what other people think of you because you want what’s best for them. When I come to preach, I promise you, I don’t start saying, what am I going to get for me, from the people. I do like you to say Amen.

James Greer: 03:13 That’s what I get. And everybody said, Whoa, I like that. But, every Sunday when I come, I’m saying, God, what can I give to the people? When I walk into the room, I said, what can I give? And see what that’s the difference when you’re really humble, when you come into a room, when you come into a class, when you come home, you’re saying, what can I give? What can I impart to my family? Not what they could give me. In your marriage if you just start saying, what can I give for my wife? What can I give for my husband? Instead of saying, what can I always get from them? It’ll radically change every relationship in your life. See, humble people build other people up. Great people make people feel great. It’s only the little people that belittle people.

James Greer: 03:59 The Bible says, listen, be humble. Give more honor to others than yourself. Did you know if we just did that? And I said Amen, and we left, but I’m not. But, if I did and you would really practice at one point, it would change every relationship in your life. If you walked in it, it’s the greatest principle you can learn. I used to have to go places and I used to have to go to meetings. I was always worried. How do I look? What am I going to say? I don’t care. Because I say, it’s not about me. I’m only there if I had the opportunity to help somebody else. It changes the whole thing. I don’t worry about if they’d like my shoes or not. Because I’ll get another pair tomorrow. I do like shoes, but I don’t care if I like them. So no longer, it just takes the pressure off because they’re not about you anymore.

James Greer: 05:00 If they going to school, if you going to job, wherever you’re going. You see how it can change the worries and the pressure in your life. Wherever you go, all of a sudden, it’s not about me. Can I honor them? Can I bring something to them? Can I help them? Alright, so what’s the one thing, besides that you could learn, that will help you in your relationship be better? Your kids would probably turn out okay.

James Greer: 05:32 Let me give you a hint. The same word applies to every area in your life to your marriage, to your work, to your job. If you learn this one thing, it would be unbelievable how it could change your children. How it could change your marriage. Let me tell you what, it doesn’t have anything to do with where you live. I used to think it did. They use to bus me to Capashree. Capashree was the nicer school sometimes. And sometimes I would go home with the other kids and I’ll say, holy Moses, I didn’t know you all had houses like that.

James Greer: 06:06 And I thought, man, just because of where they live in the way they looked. I thought, boy they had it made. But through the years, what I learned, some of the ones that got voted, my friend through high school. He got voted most likely to succeed. That dude was good looking and he was smart. They had their first reunion and he fell out of the car cause he was so stoned and ran over himself. Didn’t even make it. Never did hold down a job. So see, it wasn’t where you live. That’s not what it is.

James Greer: 06:35 It’s not even how you look. I think I got voted most likely to not succeed. I think that was mine. Everybody gets something. I’m glad they don’t do that anymore. It’s not where you live. It’s not how you look, it’s not how much money you have. It’s really not even what you drive. I still got a hang up with cars, but I know it. You know, I’m doing better on self-awareness. You know, when I went to high school, I thought everybody had a better car. Even today, I’ve a hang up on cars, but it doesn’t matter what you drive, that’s not going to help the thing that I’m talking about. The one thing, the one thing that will change every area of your life, if you really and truly understand is relationships. I use to say relationship.

James Greer: 07:25 I use to say, man, if you had your relationship right with God, everything else was right. But now I say, no, no, it’s relationships. It’s plural. You’ve got it. You’ve got to understand your relationship, in relationship with other people. Now, the older you get, it can change. It should change. But let me give you some insight. The numbers may not be just right. The ages may not be just right, but the principle applies and you better apply them. When a child is from zero to four, their parents relationship is mainly their view of God. Man, I mean, they’d love God. They can just see God everywhere that God created the world. God, no Mama, Daddy, I love. You know, cod is great. So their view of God is mainly their relationship with their parents.

James Greer: 08:12 But, when they start getting four to eight years old, friends start making a difference. It’s friends and God, friends and their parents begin to have their view of God. That’s why I listen. You’ve got to listen good. You better be careful who your kids are running around with, even at this young age. You have to listen, it’s like a radio. You had the opportunity to turn it up and turn it down. Yeah, you can say, Hey, I want to go over to Billy Joe’s. Well, not today. We’re going to go do something else. Uh, when they say, hey, you’re going, you’re doing the wrong thing. Well, but you can go to church. Yeah, so you have the opportunity. Who speaks into their lives and I’m going to tell you it’s a great influence. So even at six, seven, eight years old, be careful who their friends are. Be careful who’s in their lives.

James Greer: 09:07 And then when they get eight to 10, Oh man, you’d better really be careful. You’ve got to be careful what they listen to. You’d better be careful who they’re running around with, because then you can say, well, I know they love God. They do. But, their friends greatly influence them to. If their friends are right and their parents are right. Oh, praise God. They love God. But their friends are starting to get heavily now and after that, my goodness, when they, when they get to be 10, 12, 13, 14, hey man, I love it. The last time we just had our children’s retreat, when they came back. I was staring at the bus. All the friends are loving each other, hugging each other. Oh, they praise God. Oh, I love God because they love each other. Listen, when the youth got back, I can’t tell you the impact of big friends with each other had on their relationship with God. We had kids get saved. We got them today. They’re still on fire. They had a hundred plus kids in there Wednesday night. Praising God, man isn’t that great?

James Greer: 10:17 Whoa, but listen to me, if you’re not careful, those kids get in an argument and it can affect their relationship with God. They might not even come back to church. That’s how big an impact, that’s why it’s so important that we teach them that we learn, and we say, hey, your relationship, first of all, is with God, but the relationship with their other friends affects them. And if the parents don’t understand what’s going on in life, you really don’t understand what’s happening. You can’t let their friends destroy their relationship with God. You’ve got to be careful who they with, what they’re listening to, but you’ve got to understand what’s really happening, when it happens. And then it’s even worse when you get grown. When you get in the forties and 50 your relationship better be with God and then people, not people then God. In other words, I would rather be in my office in the morning by myself with God than I would with anybody.

James Greer: 11:11 And see, if you hadn’t grown to that point, you’re still immature. You’re still baby. You still got to be, I’ve got to be with all my friends and then I’m with God. I’ve got to be with a big group. That’s my rah rah session. No, no, no. At this point you’re mature, you want to be with God. You want to read God’s word. You want to talk to God, you want to speak with God. There is a level that you grow past the five, six teenager. Now you’re with God by yourself. Amen? So, you’ve got to learn relationships are important, but I’m teaching you something because you have kids and you need to understand what’s going on in their life. You need to understand to turn some things up, turn some things down. Help control where they go, help control who they’re with. You have that power. You’re the greatest influence in their life, use it. Amen?

James Greer: 12:07 Their ages may change a little different. The principles apply. It’s so important that you learn that. So, what do you do? You build equity as soon as you can. You build equity in your marriage, you build equity with your kids, you build equity with time and sacrifice. The same with your mate. If you and your mate get into argument, and if you’ve been building equity, the same argument is not so big. Let me give you an illustration, to build equity in a bank or in a home. If you have equity in your house, it’s because you’ve lived there so long and you’ve been paying the house off. So, you bought the house for $100,000, you live there for so long now you don’t owe but $50,000 and you’ve got $50,000 worth of equity. Amen? But, they didn’t just give it to you. You’ve been paying on it. It takes time. It takes sacrifice. But listen, okay. Are you all listening? Then answer, Amen? You need spiritual equity and physical equity.

James Greer: 13:05 Let me give you a dollar equity. If you put $25 in the bank every week, $1250 for spiritual equity, $1250 for personal equity. In the first year you’d have $1,300. The child’s only one year old and you’ve already got $1,300 equity and I’m giving you dollars where you can picture it in your mind. Now listen, by the time that child is five years old, you’ve got $6,500. The time the child is 10 years old, you’ve got $13,000. By the time the child is 13 years old, you’ve got $16,900. You need the equity when that child gets to be that old. When that child starts driving at 16, there is $20,800. You say, what does that have to do with it? I can tell you by the time they are 13 and the time they are 16, you need to have equity because that child’s going to do things and go places, and you need to be able to sit down and talk to them and draw some of your equity back out of it. This is the problem.

James Greer: 14:05 You don’t have any equity. You didn’t spend the spiritual time with them. You hadn’t poured into their lives. You said, yeah, you have. Yeah, I have. I’ve chased them around. I bought gone to the ball field. I’ve done everything. Oh, it’s physical and spiritual because I got to say, I don’t think you should go to those places. I don’t think you should do those things. And you know what God’s word says there. I really don’t think you should be sleeping around. You know, that’s not what God wants you to do. Now you’ve got spiritual equity. Talk to them about it. And instead of them saying, Hey, don’t talk to me about that. I don’t think you should be going this place. I don’t think you should dress like that. I don’t think, now you’ve got spiritual equity. I’d rather you go with us this time. You’ve got personal equity. And I’m going to tell you what, you don’t mind drawing it out. You’re so glad you put it in there. You’re not worried about the $20,000 you’d give it away on a second. Just to have the equity. You want to transform their lives. You want to see them go from that age that’s so dangerous up to the age of maturity. It’s all because of what you did from that time to that time. Please pour equity in, you’re going to need it.

James Greer: 15:27 It’s a word picture of how you get equity in your child through relationships, and it works with marriage to. Spend a little time with each child personally, privately, doing what they want to do, not just what you want to do. This is hard, but it’s a must. Sometimes you can only have an hour a week with each child privately doing what they want to do. Give them attention. Build equity and learning. Okay, you ready? The same is true in marriage. Build equity in your mate. You won’t have near the fights. Well, they won’t be as big. Everybody’s going to fight. I fight. You fight. And if you say, I’ve had people come up to me and say, I’ve been married 45 years, we’ve never fought. You’re lying. For you all to say that. When I give the invitation, you all come to the front and confess. It just doesn’t happen.

James Greer: 16:31 But what happens is when you have a disagreement and you don’t have any equity, the little things a big thing. But when you have a disagreement and it’s a big thing, but you’ve got a lot of equity, it becomes a little thing. Build equity before you address the problem. If you know you’ve got a problem, let’s, let’s, let’s wait. Let’s, if you have to, let’s say, hey, every Thursday night that’s when we’re going to handle the problem. And then you’ve got to build equity until then. You get every, hey men, men. Hello. Hey men. Have a date night every week. Every man. I want you to have a date night with your wife every week. Amen?

James Greer: 17:16 You are all a bunch of wooses, stand up. Don’t say you can’t afford it because you can. You can go the park if you have to. If you don’t, if you can’t afford a babysitter, swap with somebody. My wife told me the other day, she said, I can remember. She said, man, I hope, I wish one day we could go out to eat like other people. I said, honey, we went to McDonald’s. We always had a date night, and guess what? I really didn’t care where we went. I’d say, honey, where do you want to go? She said, oh, I don’t care. I said, let’s go eat Mexican. I don’t want to go there. I said, well honey, where do you want to go? I’d really don’t care you. You want to go to Piccadilly. I don’t really want to go there. I said, honey, I really don’t care. She said, well, how about that? That is great. Let’s go there. Gosh, you really don’t care do you? No On your date night, take them wherever they want to go. Amen? Have a date night. You’ve got little equity now. Amen?

James Greer: 18:18 Touch them. No, I’m not talking about sex, I’m talking just touch them. Hold their hand. Tell them you love them. Give them a small gift. Hey, if you can’t remember, my wife’s not here, if you can’t remember what it is, do this. I did, have you all done that marriage assessment yet? You can download it. You go to jameswgreer.com and you can download the assessment. All right. Before we took the test, I was at the table. I was asking her, what’s your favorite color, honey? Write it down. What size of shoe?. I wrote it down. Everything I wanted to know. I said, what’s your favorite snack? So what I did, I went and put it in my phone because I can’t remember it.

James Greer: 19:03 And one day, I won’t tell you what we did. But, one day when we went out of town, you know, and I went and got something special and I went and got lobsters and I went and got something, I am not going to tell you what that was. But then, I’ll tell you what I did do. I got four pieces of candy that I had written down, four pieces of candy and I thought, man, she’s going to go crazy. She’s going to like this lobster and these fancy drinks and all this stuff I got. I got home and you know what she said? Oh, love that candy. I can’t believe you got it. It was tic-tacs and something else. I said honey, I got 4 lobsters. She said, yeah, how’d you know I liked that candy?

James Greer: 19:40 Say dude, I could have bought 50 pieces of candy. Hey guys. Well, you know what I realized? It wasn’t the amount of money, it was the thought, I was building equity and all of a sudden everything else, all our problems weren’t that big. What I’m trying to tell you, the same is with your kids, it’s the same with your mate. You want to have better relationships, plural. Build equity with your kids, but the best thing you can do for your kids and we’ll be preaching on it next Sunday, is have a good marriage. I’m giving you free insights on how to build equity with your mates and you should do it.

James Greer: 20:43 Third, third, look we’ve got to get going here. Deep spiritual relationships over personal relationships. This is very hard to do. And if I was you all and I had kids and grand kids that I could teach, I would take this lesson right here and use it. Hebrews 13:5,6, let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have. I’m not talking about things you don’t have. For he himself has said, I’ll never leave you or forsake you. Who is he? Jesus. What did he say? I’ll never what? Leave you or forsake you. So you may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. The Lord is my helper. I will not fear what man can do to me. So this is what I want you to know. You need to teach your kids when they are young, people are going to come and go in their life. They are. They’re going to come. They’re going to go. Therefore you need, they need to know that Jesus will be with them. There’s going to be people, it’s going to happen. There’s people that are going to hurt you.

James Greer: 21:32 There are people that will come into your life that you liked. They’re going to leave your life. There’s going to be people at school that are going to hurt them. Jesus will help them. If you don’t start teaching this before it happens, it’s going to be sad. Teach them not to fear people. He’d say, don’t fear people. The Bible says the fear of people brings a snare. Don’t fear what they say. Don’t fear what you look like. Don’t fear that. But, whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe. So, what I’m trying to tell you, this is don’t fear what people say. Start teaching your kids that there is going to be people that leave you. There’s going to be people that hurt you, but Jesus is always there. Now that’s hard to teach. It’s very hard because they don’t want to do that. They want their friends to be there. But, what if we start teaching them early on, hey, people are going to leave you. People are going to hurt you. God, Jesus will never leave you and he’ll always help you. You ready? Teach them this, life’s not fair. Life is not fair. And don’t start telling your kids, that’s just not fair. So I’m going to go take care of it. No, that’s not true. Oh, I hear people say, I’m going to go up to the school because something happened and it’s just not fair. Life’s not fair. Jesus is always faithful.

James Greer: 22:58 Romans 8:28 I know all things work together for good and they’ll love God, and those who are called according to his purpose. Life is not fair. It never will be. But, God is always faithful. You see some guy breaks up with some girl, some girl breaks up with some guy, or some guy leaves some woman, or some woman leaves some guy, or they get some divorce and it’s not fair. You lose your job. Life is not fair. I see bad things happen to good people all the time, but you don’t see the end. Only God sees the end. You don’t really know what’s happening. God sees the end. We don’t see the end. Many times God has something bigger and something better, but what I’m telling you, like Joseph. Teach your kids Joseph in Bible. Joseph’s brothers, his own brothers sold him into slavery. He started getting promoted and they lied about him. They lied and said he was going to try to make a pass at the boss’s wife and he really didn’t and they lied about it. He got thrown into jail. He finally got out of jail, but you know I did. He went from prison to the palace. He got promoted to the second most powerful person in the world, but he understood that God is faithful, even though life was not fair.

James Greer: 24:19 You’d better tell your kids to quit acting like this. If you keep running to try to defend every time life is not fair. Are you all listening. They are going to grow up believing that life should be fair. It’s not. It never will be. You can be doing the best you can and things can happen. Life’s not fair. God is always faithful. Last. Oh, you all ready? How many of you all have kids or grand kids? Whoa. Don’t you like to see their report card? Yes. No. Amen. I do. I first tell my kids now, I started when the report card coming home? Can I get online? Can I see them? Some of them I have their passwords to get on their portal where I can watch them when it’s going on. I just loved it, but guess what? We’re going to do. You all ready? Wisdom. Wisdom is a principle thing. Therefore, get wisdom. All that getting, get understanding. Would you like to understand your kids better? Amen? Yeah. Alright. We do this to get better, not bitter. Even our staff, we say hey man, we are going to get together. We’re going to talk about what was good, what was bad. When we talk about what’s bad, don’t get all upset because it is for a purpose. It’s for progress.

James Greer: 25:40 When you talk to your kids and they say it’s cool. Don’t you want to have a better relationship with your kids? Don’t you really? And you do it the right way and you do it honestly. And maybe they let you do the same thing and yes, son, daughter, you know, do you think I spent enough time with you? Yes or no? Hey, Would you give me an A, B, C, D, E, F. Not to be ugly, but just, I’m just trying to find out where I’m at in my relationship with you. Have I taught you about God? Have I taught you God, in a way that you’re closer to God now than you were before? Son or daughter, do you think I respect you?

James Greer: 26:19 Uh, we just learned being humbleness. You honor the other person, yes or no? Do you know this is, I grew up in a time that you didn’t ask that. I said, dad, why? He said, because I told you so. You don’t ask that again. We don’t live in that age right now. Them saying why today means they were trying to understand it. Do you feel I respect you? Do you feel I really love you? Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong or what I can do better, and can you tell her what I’m doing is right where I can do it more?

James Greer: 27:01 You Ready? You really want to grow your relationship? Yes or no? Ask Your mate the same thing. Sit down today and say this, you Ready? Let me do this. Hey honey, do you think I spend enough time with you? Don’t get in a fight. Don’t defend yourself. Just ask do you think I am. Guess what? Then you get to ask her the same thing. Honey, do you think I’m teaching you about God? Are you getting closer to God because of our relationship or further away? Do you feel like I respect you and honor you? You think I show you that I really love you by my actions, not just my words? Tell me one or two things I’m doing wrong, and can you tell me some things I’m doing right?

James Greer: 28:01 The question is see, are you matured to the point that you really want to grow your relationship and not just come to church? See at Journey Church, I think we try to give you hands on material. If you really want to grow, you can. Don’t just come and go home the same way you came every Sunday. That was not our goal and it never will be. We want you to mature in Christ and have a better relationship with God, your mate, your kids and your friends. And one day when you get to see God, he’ll say, well done my good and faithful servant. Enter into the house of the Lord. It’s all about relationships, period. Your relationship, right with God, your relationship, right with other people and you’ll be right. Okay? All right, let’s stand and let me pray for you.

James Greer: 29:01 God, you’re such a great God. I just thank you for all that you’re doing. I thank you for what you’re doing in our church. God, I thank you that our people are so teachable. I’ve never seen the time that they’re so receptive and they want to change. They want better relationships with you and their husbands and their wives and their kids. God, there are some questions that we’re going to ask at the closing. God, I pray our hearts are soft and I know that Satan comes when I’m teaching the word, he tries to snatch it away. He does every single Sunday, but not this Sunday. Hearts are going to be tender. Hearts are going to be soft. God, we’re going to receive your word. We’re going to respond, God, and we’re going to have better relationships. God, there’s some people that need to join the church, follow through in baptism, talk to their mates different, honor their kids, change their lives. God, help them to be teachable. Maybe they need to be followed through a baptism. Maybe they need to say, hey God, I really hadn’t been responding correctly in my home. God today’s the day I want to change. In Christ’s name I pray, Amen.

Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.