Thriving Marriage // Ephesians 5 // John Wilson

Welcome to the Movement Church podcast. We want you to know that God is

for you and so are we. You're about to hear a sermon from one

of our weekend services in Palmer Lake, Colorado. We pray that your faith

is provoked, your mind is renewed, and your heart is awakened as you

engage the Word of God. Stay tuned. That's the message for ways to

get connected with us. God bless you. Thanks for tuning in. Hey,

my name is John Wilson. I'm one of the Mini John's in this

congregation and it's exciting to be with you this morning. This is just,

to be quite honest with you, my first time in ten years to preach.

So just hang in there with me as we get started this morning.

As I really appreciate the opportunity with Pastor Fight to learn and apprentice under him,

and Jeff has been very instrumental in my growth as well. But i

just wanted to share a little bit about myself and I've got ed one of

our elders up here. He's going to read with us here just a moment.

But my wife and I've been attending this congregation for about a year and

we've had the unique opportunity to baptize one of our kids in this congregation in

the troth, if you will, that John brings which we appreciate very much.

Ed. Yeah, our son Luke gave his life to Jesus and had

the opportunity to baptize him into this congregation, and we're thankful for that.

I'm married to my better half, Christine, who's walking with my youngest right

here. She is beautiful. Of course, I see delights in my life

and I get the opportunity to being married to her. And since we're talking

about marriage this morning, what more appropriate passage to read this morning. So

I would love for Ed to just take it away with us and read this

particular passage for us. I have a tradition when I read the scripture,

really a joy standing in the honor of God's words. Would mind just standing

with me now? Ed can read this passage with us this morning. Phesians

five, verse twenty one, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the

head of the Church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

Now as the Church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their

husbands and everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the Church

and gave himself up for her, to make her holy cleansing, holy cleansing

her by the washing and with water through the word, and to present to

her to himself as radiant as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or

any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands

ought to love their wives as their own body. Who loves his wife loves

himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body. And they

feed and care for their body just as Christ does the Church, for we

are members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his

father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become

one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about the

Christ and the Church. However, each one of you also must love his

wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. This

is the word of the Lord. Amen, you can be seated. Thank

you all very much, and thank you Ed for reading that with us this

morning. I want to just spend just a moment pray I'm just just say

right now, let's just spend just a moment praying as we get started together.

Lord Jesus, thank you for the opportunity to be in your word this

morning. Thank you for these amazing people that have come to hear your word

and Jesus to worship you together in this place and to wrestle with this passage

together as we discuss thrive marriage. We are grateful in Jesus' name. Amen.

So we continue in our Ephesian series this morning, and I kind of

sent out a few text messages and did some perusing to kind of see what

different people have to say about marriage in particular. This is a very i

would say, important relationship in your life. And who better to speak into

that particular relationship than Will Ferrell of course, right, like really an expert

when you say on marriage, but he says the great way to begin your

marriage. He says, before you marry a person, you should first make

them use a computer with slow internet to see who they really are. You

have to know why. I love this. I worked with technology consumer technology,

and I see this all the time. People are like, why is

this so slow? So you really get to see the best and maybe sometimes

the worst out of people. We have a family member on my wife's side

of the family that likes to say this, when you marry the right person,

there's nothing like it, And when you marry the wrong person, well

there's nothing like that either. I just really think that's hilarious. My father

in law, Bill told me that one. That's good. But this one's

from Joyce Brother. She says, my husband and I have never considered divorce.

Murders sometimes, but never divorce. She's a therapist anyway, I believe

it or not. Here's the one from the letters to Juliet. Husbands are

like wine. They take a long time to mature. You'd better heard this

one before we do. I even said that to my wife last night.

And then finally from Mickey Rooney. Anybody knows old stars here always get married

in the morning. That way, if it doesn't work out, you haven't

wasted the whole day. Oh John, good luck at lunch, my friend.

So there's obviously some culture beliefs in marriage that I want to talk through

a little bit with you today. One is that marriage could be seen as

a last resort in our culture. I'm going to tell you a story,

right before Christina and I got married, I joined the company that I'm in

now, and I remember, right before I'm married, I told one of

my coworkers that we weren't living together quite yet, and he said to me,

are you kidding me? And I said, yeah, no, we're

waiting. You know, we want to as I live with some friends of

theirs. You know, we'll get married and then we'll move in together.

Because that is the most irresponsible thing I've ever heard of. And it was

weird because like I've been, you know, so accustomed to people lecturing me

the other direction, but he lectured me the other direction, said, you

haven't been responsible. You didn't move in with her first, to like understand

what she's really like before you get married. And what I learned from that

and for many other settings from neighbors and friends that we had, is that

marriage is kind of the final thing after a string of things, right,

Like, you go on a date, maybe sleep together, maybe you move

in together, maybe mix your finances, maybe even have child together, buy

a house together. Then maybe as a last resort, will get married.

There's a growing consensus kind of in our culture around this. The other idea

is that it's disposable, like, well, you know, if you set

it up just right, you have the option to get out of it if

you need to at some point in your life, and it could be set

to the side if it needs to be. And finally, I've heard this

from many of friends I work with. It's just unnecessary, like why get

married? What's the purpose? Why go through all of that. I've had

friends and many people that are close to me, It's been a very difficult

situation for them. So then they say, well, why should I even

go through it? So the question then really becomes how do we actually thrive

within this relationship? How do we go deeper in these in this particular relationship.

So it's actually something that we want to be part of, and that's

what this passage is really about. And so this passage I will just share

with you now can make some of you potentially bristle a little bit when you

hear some of this because it is very much contrary to like what our culture

teaches us. So I just want you to have open ears as we address

this together, as we unpack some of this, because I think there's some

really basic truths here for your marriage and in your life that you can walk

away with that will really give you what you need to thrive in You're marrige.

So let's go back to verse twenty one. This is really where I

think it kicks off this section about marriage really well. So she says to

submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And that's where, like

I would say that if we are going to thrive in our marriage, it's

about mutual submission. I think that both parties are in mind as we address

this particular subject of marriage. It's the husband and it's the wife, and

it's about respect for the other person. It's about a humble posture. It's

about a respectful response to the one that you love, and that that is

healthy submission to that person in this marriage. What it is not. Actually

texted this out to my small group or my growth group, and a lady

in my growth group responded with, well, I'll tell you what it's not.

Submission is not dominance, is not manipulation, and it's not control.

It's not something where you are trying to lord over another person in the relationship.

It's about respect. That's what he says in Ephesians a little bit earlier.

He says follow God's example. Therefore, as dearly loved children and walk

in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up

for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. See from this passage,

we know that there is a posture of humility, there is a respectful

response to the people that we love, and it really it comes down to

mutual submission to each other. And that's how he kicks off this whole section.

So as we address two different parties here, like moving into this passage,

I want to start with that is that we really begin from a place

of humility and respectfulness in this relationship. So let's dig in a little bit

further and read this particular passage again and kind of revisit. It says in

verse twenty two that wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to

the Lord, for the husband's the head of the wife, as Christ as

the head of the church, his body of which he is the savior.

And so the next piece of this not just mutual submission, but there is

an idea of orchestrated structure in the family that I want to walk through with

you toe stick forward in this passage is is really asking the question is this

oppressive in nature or is this reflective in nature? And see, I think

that God having a distinct order is not meant to be oppressive as sometimes we

may understand this to be, but it's reflective of a particular person. This

is tough because this is not what we're told in our society, right,

We're told something completely different, that this idea of structure is a way to

oppress women, just to be quite frank. And so with this, I

want to go a little bit deeper into just some of my thoughts around where

like God has set forward some structure like in our families that I think are

very healthy. So first, just from a place I think there is order

in the world. You know, when you look at just a process for

example of like water, like becoming rain and condensating and precipitating, there is

a clear process that God has put in place, and an order that's put

in place from the collection stage to the evaporation stage, to the condensation stage,

to the precipitation precipitation stage. God has put forward a process that is

clearly ordered, like in our world. We see that in space, right,

even the chaotic space that we're in. Like, we see this perfect

gravitational pool with all the planets within our solar system that have an order that

brings such harmony to a lot of areas of our lives. Now, all

of that, the tides rolling through the moon's phases, all of that stuff.

I mean, you can argue this from a structure standpoint. In the

world. We see that. But let's go back a little bit to Genesis

one, where God says, let us make mankind in our image, in

our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea,

and the birds in the sky, over the livestock, and over the wild

animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God

created mankind in his own image, in the image of God. He created

them male and female. He created them. So the question is is this

an oppressive statement or is this a reflective statement? And what I would argue

is that marriage itself is reflective of the person of Jesus. Any chosen by

chance, This is the Jesus, the Jesus from chosen. Very nice,

you know, probably not an exact representation, right, But I would argue

that marriage is meant to be, is meant to reflect God's perfect character.

See if he created us male and female, he is demonstrating his full character

in the person of in the female role and in the male role of marriage.

See the picture is sacrifice, submission, leadership, humility. Our culture

teaches us that there is not a clear leader like in our family. However,

God in this passage teaches us that there is. And honestly, like,

I really get where this comes from. Right, Let's think about history

for a little bit. Women in history have been oppressed in many places.

And think of places in the world right now. There is women that we're

aware of in Afghanistan in particular, that have zero rights, no like,

have no real clear path to any sort of individuality at all, like in

their life, right, and I would call that oppressive. Right. But

the thing that God is saying in this particular passage is that there is something

that God really means for a healthy marriage, and that is where the leader.

That there is a clear leader in the family that does not oppress.

But there is a clear leader in the family that uplifts, that inspires,

that empowers, a great leadership like inspires their followers to actually go do and

fulfill what it is that God ultimately wants them to do. See, that's

what God wanted with this relationship is that we reflect the sacrificial love of Jesus

and that we uplift and inspire our family members to go make an amazing change

in the world or an amazing impact in the world. So I would argue

that God has orchestrated structure for a reason, not to oppress, but to

reflect the nature of God, and that your marriage could be that in your

life. So let's dig in a little bit deeper, Like we are going

to wives. I'm going to talk for just a minute, specifically to you

husband's your turn is coming. Don't worry. I promise your time's coming.

But let's go back to that passage again. It's a tough passage, like

to wrestle with this, and I think for many of us, for many

of you ladies, like the question is like, how do I really do

that? Do I just do what he says like always? And the truth

is, I think there is a healthy way to go about like this particular

submission that he's talking about, And I think a healthy, healthy boundaries breed

a thriving marriage. I had the opportunity to read a book recently. It

has anybody read the book Boundaries by doctor Cloud? Anybody? Very nice?

Some folks have read this. This book's an older book, right. It

took me a little while to kind of get into this particular book. But

doctor Cloud, in his teaching here, teaches that there are great ways to

navigate complex relationships in your life by respecting another person and taking responsibility for your

own responsibilities and not taking responsibility that is somebody else's. And so I'll illustrate

this briefly for you. For example, let's say, ladies, your husband's

responsibility is to take the trash out? Husband? Is this anybody's responsibility in

the house? Take the trash to the curve? Major? Thank you both

fabulous? So this might be his responsibility. I'll be honest with you.

I don't do well with this sometimes in my life. And a good example

of this would be, like a good boundary is not ladies taking out the

trash for him and resenting him for not doing it. That would be an

example of what not to do. And in this particular situation, right,

anybody ever felt that way before? It's okay, but the idea is here.

You don't want to do that, right? The idea is you want

to encourage, You want to communicate that you want him to take responsibility for

that or that the trash will continue to pile up until he does. And

so the part I want to illustrate with this is that your husband, your

husband has to take responsibility for the actions that he needs to take care of

and boundaries. In particular, this is true of your husband's leadership of the

home. You have to leave space for him to lead. You have to

give him the opportunity to step forward and do this particular work in your home.

So, for example, like if you aspire for your husband to disciple

you as an example, you have to talk about that with him and share

that that's something that you want him to do, and provide every opportunity for

your husband to do that. You see, like you can inspire him to

step forward by the space that you lead him to do that for the for

the responsibility that he has to lead in your home. I think it comes

to this too, is following him. It's taking the opportunity to yield even

when you don't entirely agree with him. But I think there's great truth in

that. Great ladies like yourself that are in this building. That are great

leaders that lead effectively. In other context, I think great leaders are great

followers. And in this context, if you follow well and have great boundaries

as you do that and give space to him to lead, I think there's

an amazing opportunity that your husband can then step forward and begin to lead in

the world that you want him to. So I'm an embarrass my wife for

just a moment here. Oh so I'm going in the wrong direction. My

wife is Christine. She's right here holding my youngest one. She promised that,

she made me promise I wouldn't leave her picture up here too long.

But this is Christine. We've been married for thirteen years and it's been an

amazing journey so far. So my wife is beautiful. She's wise. Every

time I see her in the room she catches my eye, of course,

but she also has an amazing foresight in business, has solid financial sense,

and is amazingly resourceful. Like she's one of those kind of people that if

you have absolutely zero food in the house for some way, dinner appears at

the table. I don't know if you have people like that in your life,

are like man, this is amazing that that happens. But she's like

that. And it's interesting when we decided, and I know many of you

went through this, when we decided to join the Movement Church and be part

of this body together, like that was a huge decision for our family,

and Christine did a great job of communicating and sharing like, Hey, this

is what I believe that God wants us to do like in our family.

And I could share equally, like this is what I believe that God wants

to do in our family. And she gave me the space to communicate that

to our children, communicate that to our leaders, and guide our family forward

as we do that. I think that's an example of what I'm talking about

here is reflective of God's character and leaving space for someone like myself or other

men in the room to lead in your family's lives. And so finally,

ladies, and then promise, I'll leave you alone. We'll move on to

the men. Here, of course, is the final point I would make

is around cherishing him, cherishing him, building him up, and being for

him. Another book I've read recently, it's by Gary Thomas. You know

Gary Thomas. Readers in the house, you know Gary Thomas. Sacred marriage.

Got some other great books out there is a newer one of his called

Cherish And the concept that he teaches in this is that that you have to

find the things about him that you love, ladies, and lift up,

lift those particular strengths up and encourage them, and and see that those strengths

that he has and encourage him in that. So I'm going to embarrass somebody

else in my life. Here. This is my mother in law, Terry

right here. She's over hereous, Well, thanks for coming today. So

her and Bill have been married, not to you know, embarrass Bill too

much either, but but they've been married for quite a long time now.

I won't share how many years, but quite a long time now. And

I just want to say Terry is very inspiring and that she she does this

really well. And let me illustrate that when usually I have something broken in

my house, the first person I call is Bill, because Bill knows how

to fix anything. He has a mechanical mind like I've never seen, like

literally can like visualize the problem with just about any electronic device, isolate it

and fix it whatever it is. So I just really appreciate that about him.

However, Terry highlights that in front of my children, in front of

his daughter, and in front of me, of how great he is at

those things. She builds up that strength in him and shares that with others,

and I think that encourages him to lead in their home. And I

think that's an amazing thing that she does. And ladies, a great way

I think in which you can respect and follow your husbands and cherish your husbands

and build up that relationship. All right, ladies, I'm done, I

promise, thank you so much for giving me that husband's let's talk to you.

Now. I'm a man, so I think this well. I will

be able to resonate with this very clearly. It says, husbands, love

your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,

and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without staying or

wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless, and to present her

to himself. Oh I already do that. Sorry, Oh I read it

early, didn't I pro So now let's move on, husbands. I want

to make the point that there is a different type of lead of leadership that

God is that Paul is specifically speaking to in this passage. There's a misunderstanding

in our culture. I think often that men need to show great power,

strength and control, like in leadership. And it's funny we were watching it.

I don't know I anybody's been watching football during this past weekend or not,

but Christina and I were joking about some of the head coaches this past

weekend. I don't know if you've seen some of the football. It got

a little wild this weekend, But those head coaches, they were intense.

Weren't they yelling at the team, grabbing their players doing they can. They

are showing a sense of strength, control and power. And I think often

like that's the type of leadership we think of when, especially a passage like

this says that men are the head in the household. However, the type

of leadership that he is speaking about is the leadership of Jesus. Let's think

about this for just a minute. How did Jesus actually lead talking about the

God of the universe, all powerful God himself who humbled himself and came to

the world right in the manger. Nonetheless, we're going into Christmas season now,

right. So think about this, he says in Matthew twenty twenty eight,

Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but

to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. See,

if you haven't heard this before, this is the greatest story ever told.

Right. It's that we do things wrong, We make mistakes, we make

terrible impacts on other people, sometimes small, sometimes large to beending what it

is. But God himself humbled himself and provided a way to give us forgiveness

for our wrongdoing. So see, it was in our greatest point of need,

our most vulnerable moment, that Jesus came and died to give us new

life. He says. Look at this passage I know we've heard many times,

but says for God to love the world, that he gave his one

and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal

life. For God to not send his son into the world to condemn the

world, but to save the world through him. See, Jesus did not

come to tell you how bad you are and all the awful things that you've

done in your life. He provided hope, He provided a path, He

provided life, a future forgiveness. Jesus came to stand in place of your

wrongdoings for free. He rose from the dead to victory over your sin,

and he gave you the right to become a child of God. That's why

he says in John one twelve. Yet to all who did receive him,

to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children

of God. My prayer is for you today that if you have not heard

this story, that the God himself in the form of Jesus came to die

for your wrongdoings and provide an opportunity for a real relationship with God himself,

not out of something that you earn, not something that you work really hard

toward. I want to invite you to make that decision to believe on Jesus,

to give your life to him today and become his child. And see,

I learned this recently in my life. I had probably for most of

my life, kind of operated with this in mind, that I needed to

earn God's forgiveness in my life. The truth is that that is not the

message that he preaches at all. In fact, he offers to us free

life. He offers this gift of salvation, a future, a path,

eternal life with him because of his sacrifice, not because of yours. Someone

invites you today to make that decision to say, I'm gonna give you a

little space later in this time for you to decide to follow him. I'm

gonna stand toward the back. You can talk to me in secret. You

don't have to do anything like in front of everybody at this point, but

just to say no, that's me, John. I've worked my entire life

trying to prove myself to God, and actually I'm ready to actually just receive

it from him freely and live that way with him. So this brings us

back, Husbands. This is the type of leadership that we're talking about.

It's sacrificial. It's not a way of dominance. It is a way to

assert control. It is sacrificial in nature. And honestly, like, this

can be really difficult, and because like who you're living with may not be

Let's just say what it is someone that you always enjoy being around, depending

on your circumstance, right, Like, let's just be real for a minute.

Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes there's situations in your life that it's like I

just am not sure like this is worth it, or like I can really

work through that. There's conflict, there's difficulty, And what he's asking us

to do is to reflect the way Jesus went about this is that he asks

you to humble yourself and as Fike says, lead on your knees, like

there's a way of leading your family and stepping forward together when you don't necessarily

agree, you don't necessarily like the person that you're talking with moment. But

when you look back at what Jesus did for us, that's exactly what he

did. We didn't want it, we didn't deserve it, but he did

it anyway, and he loves you anyway. And that's the type of relationship

that he asked for, is sacrificial love, even when it's really difficult to

do. And so that's my point with for you husbands today, is that

we lead through sacrifice, not through power, not through asserting control, but

showing the sacrificial love of Jesus. And so then he goes on, he

says, in the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their

own bodies, he who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no

one ever hated their own body but they feed and care for their body,

just as Christ does the church. So I've learned recently that healthy people tend

to take care of their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. And so

some examples of this is exercise. So I recently have learned about cycling.

TJ and Jason and I were talking about this morning. This was not me

until fairly recent running. You know, it would be another example of you

know, some healthy activity, maybe even swimming. So if you're a triathlon

person like myself, you know this might be a passion point for you.

But these areas, this is what healthy people do. They exercise, they

they take care of their bodies, They sleep, they do all these things.

And I'll just share I get this wrong, or I have got this

wrong. Most of my life, like, I did not understand the value

of taking care of yourself. So when I read a passage like this,

quite honestly, I don't resonate with it. I don't understand until recently really

how this works. But taking care of yourself like leads to a better life.

When I exercise, I feel better, When I eat healthy, I

have more energy. When I sleep, I'm rested. Well, I think

it's the same way in your marriage, just like it talks about here,

when you care for your wife, your marriage can actually thrive. Think about

some of the practical pieces of this, Like this means that, like you

stop what you're doing and you look in your wife's eyes and you listen to

what she's saying to you, like versus like, well, how can I

accomplish this particular situation in the most efficient path? Well, I'll do it

while she's talking to me and miss half of what she says. I think

that when you build up your bride, it leads to a marriage that can

really thrive. And so I want to say kind of at this point,

I recognize clearly that there are some abuses that can happen in marriage. So

when this talks about taking care of your wife as your own body, as

I did with my own body, I beat my body up for years,

And I just want to say this here and now, there is some abuse

that happens in these relationships, and I want to acknowledge that right now.

Either you've had that happen and you're out of that relationship, you're in the

middle of a relationship, marriage relationship or boyfriend girlfriend relationship, whatever role you're

in. I want to tell you that some of this will help. However,

like in many of those circumstances, without intervention, there's not a clear

path forward. And so if you need help and you're in that situation in

your life right now, our leaders are going to be toward the back a

little bit later as well. But I invite you to give your life to

Jesus. If that's you, I want you to tell me we want to

get you help, because if that's the situation you're in, you're gonna need

intervention as part of that. I don't want to invite you to that if

that's the situation that you're in. So let's move forward, and I'll finish

kind of with a few final thoughts here. But men, cherishing your wife

is the same concept here. It's building her up, it's being for her.

It's similar as you see in Song of Solomon where he says, you

have stolen my heart, my bride, you have stolen my heart with one

glance of your eyes, and the song of Song six. There's no one

like her on earth, never has been, never will be. She's a

woman beyond compare. My dove is perfection, pure and innocent. Is the

day she was born. Do you see the way he cherishes her? Like

it's like like the other passage here, It's like with one glance of her

eyes, she captures you like that, You literally see her as there's no

one else like her. You find the things about her that you love,

you praise her for those, and you're impassioned for that person. It's the

specific things that you love about that. I want to tell a quick story

about some pastor friends of mine. Pastor Tims Gaggs was my pastor in college,

and he shared that his marriage was really really struggling for many years.

And this therapist looked at him a one day and said, hey, have

you ever thought about trying to do some of the things that she does?

He said, what what do you mean? She said? He said,

well, you know, like going antiquing with her or something like that.

He's like, what do you kidding me? I don't like that. I

don't want to be part of that. And therapist said the same thing to

her. She said to Jamie said, hey, like, have you ever

thought about going hunting with him? She's like, hunting? Are you kidding

me? I've got to kill an animal and then I've got to clean the

thing, and then well we got to pack it in the freezer and hang

it on the wall, Like are you kidding me? Like that's ridiculous.

He's got his man cave for that, right, But the truth is they

decided, uh, let's try it. And Tim was telling me that he

went and teeking with her, had an open mind, and one of the

things that he fell in love with about it was the wheeling and dealing and

then like patching it up and then reselling it for more money afterwards. You

thought that was an awesome thing, right, Jamie like went hunting, got

in a tree stand, put on the camo and like had a blast with

that. Literally it took care and they actually know she got her first l

gould like just it. She fell in love with it, thought like,

wow, this is really interesting. Now most of y'all are thinking like,

Okay, I don't really want to do either one of those things. Fine,

but there might be something that your spouse does that you actually could do

together. Paddleboarding would be a great example for y'all. Thank you for the

example the other day. We're going to try that, by the way,

Like there's things like that you can do to get into each other's worlds,

so you can cherish that person in your life, build them up for the

things that they love, and be for them. So, husbands, we

want to lead through sacrifice wills in our home. So let's recap together.

Men, this is our call lead through sacrifice, not through power. Wives,

we want to respect and follow our humans and cherish him for who he

is. Can make the difference in your husband leading or not leading in your

home. I believe there's orchestrated structure that, despite what our culture tells of

that God has put structure in place not to oppress but to reflect the very

nature of God in the world and it and literally like for age does,

and to be behind her as she does that. And finally, I think

it comes to mutual submission. I think there is a place where each person

must hum have a humble posture and a respectful response to each other and their

significant relationships in their life. That deep respect will lead to a great place

in your marriage. So thank you again for the opportunity to kind of discuss

this this big topic together. And my hope is not to answer the question

today, but to begin a discussion amongst your family of how you can continue

to provide a great, healthy and thriving marriage in your life. So I

want to ask you to bow your heads for a minute here I'm going to

pray over us and ask our worship team to work their way back here.

I want to invite you if you're at a place in your marriage where it

is uh, you're not sure what to do and you need support. Like

with that, I want to encourage you to take some of the things today

and discuss them and see where they could go in your own marriage, but

also get help and support if you need to do that. Think about what

do you need to adjust, what do you need to change, like as

part of your life to encourage there to be great growth in your family and

your home. Also want to invite you, like if you have not had

the opportunity to respond to the grace of Jesus in your life. I've shared

the gospel with you this morning that nothing you could do could earn God's love,

and Jesus is calling you to be his son or daughter and wants you

to believe on him and be saved in Jesus' name. So I want to

invite you, if that's you as well, to give your life to Jesus.

Lord Jesus says, thank you so much for each person here. I

thank you for each relationship represented in this place. We pray in Jesus' name

for marriages that thrive, that reflect your character and great leadership within our homes

and God in our communities. Lord, would we reflect the sacrificial love of

Jesus that cost you everything and Jesus, will we respond to your offer of

forgiveness for taking on our wrongdoings and giving us a path forward. We are

grateful Lord Jesus for how you work and what you are doing in our lives.

We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. So what's God leading you

to do now? And how can we help? Would you send us an

email to info at Movementchurch dot co and tell us how we can pray for

you and help you take the next step in your spiritual journey. If you'd

like to contribute financially to our ministry, text the amount you like to give

to the number eight four three two one, or look us up online at

Movementchurch dot c. You can find the Movement Church on all social media platforms,

and we hope that you'll give us a follow God bless you, and

remember God is for you, and so are we