Sheryl Brady - Senseless Shifting

Just kind of nudge somebody and tell him, «Senseless shifting». You may be seated today in the presence of God. One of the most talked-about subjects, I don’t know if it’s necessarily new or if we’re just becoming more aware of it, but everywhere I turn today, I hear the subject of mental health. Everywhere we look, it is something that people are becoming more and more aware of every day, and the awareness of it is at an all-time high. I am grateful that people are becoming more conscious, aware, and intrigued to find solutions more than ever before because this is a real problem that is occurring in our world. Mental health issues are never limited to one person. We might think, «Well, that’s happening to them; it’s not happening to me,» but they’re never limited to one person. Just ask the families of those who were gunned down at that Milwaukee brewery this week, and they will tell you, «No, this is far-reaching.» Mental health is very far-reaching, and the truth of the matter is that a lot of mental health issues that people are struggling with today are a result of relational problems. So I think if we’re going to address the mental health issues, we have to directly address the relational issues in our lives. How many of you know that great relationships are built on trust? How many of you really know that? If I don’t trust you, we cannot truly have a genuine relationship. We might have a surface relationship, but if I’m going to genuinely trust you, then I have to know that relationships are built on trust, and there can be no trust if there is no truth. So, in order for us to have trust, we must be able to be true to one another. Ephesians 4:16 says to let our lives lovingly express the truth in all things—not just in some things, not just in a part of our lives, but in all things. Speak truly, deal truly, and love truly. Therefore, if we fail at being truthful, then there will be no trust, and where there is no trust, there will be no relationship. So today, I want to go back into the lives of the first family. I’m not talking about Donald and Melania; I’m talking about Adam and Eve. I want to delve into their lives because, to be quite frank, this is where it all started. This is where trouble began; this is where everything went downhill. If any couple should have made it and had a perfect relationship, Adam and Eve should have had it. They lived in the paradise of God; there was no other community to live in. They lived in the paradise of God. They had no kids, no waking up in the middle of the night with kids burning up with fevers, or feeding babies. They had no in-laws to worry about; they had no jobs that they had to get up and go to the next day, no house to clean, no interruptions in their lives. They had no laundry that had to be done; they had no dry cleaning to drop off and pick up. As a matter of fact, they had no clothes, period! They didn’t have to worry about whether something still fit or if they could get back into it. They lived in a perfect environment and should have had a perfect relationship. There was no sadness, no sickness, no sorrow—none of these things that plague our relationships. They didn’t have to deal with suffering, manipulation, dishonesty, or jealousy. None of the issues we face today were things they had to contend with, so they should have had a perfect relationship. But then sin happened; sin came into their environment. Sin changes everything. I said, «Sin changes everything,» and we’re about to see why. Satan comes to Eve and says to her, «Didn’t God say that you could eat from any tree in this garden?» Of course, he did not say that, but he’s insinuating that, as if what God really told her was that she could eat from every tree here except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He told them that everything else they needed in this garden was within their reach; the only thing he was telling them not to do was not to touch that tree because that tree was His. That one tree out of the whole garden belonged to God. That’s where tithing began. God said, «You can have everything else, but this portion right here belongs to Me.» So the enemy tells her, «If you eat of this tree, you can be like God.» What a lie that was! Eve was foolish enough to fall for it, for by eating that lie, Eve set out on a journey to become something she already was. Procrastination has messed up her whole life; she is now trying to become like God when the Bible said she was made in the likeness and image of God. Let me go a little further. In Genesis 3:6, we see that Eve ate some of the fruit. Then she also gave some to her husband Adam, who was with her, and he ate it. Immediately their eyes were…