Marriage: Quality Time

Father thank you so much for the opportunity to come once again

To worship you to give these moments to you

Lord also just

Enjoy fellowshipping with other believers

Lord

Church isn't the most important thing that we do, but it's important. I

Thank you for every single person who made the time and effort to come out this morning

And God I pray that you would bless them for that effort and Lord that you would speak to them today in a special way

But more importantly they would be ready to receive

What you have for them

Jesus I pray that you would

Let your spirit be felt and known in a very special way

God that you would be present here

And we pray for your presence to be at our camp as well with Tammy and the other youth who were there and

God we just pray that you would speak and work and move there and you also do it here because you are more than able

Father we thank you for the opportunity to come in prayer, and we we pray for people like Miss Tammy Scruggs who's

Still just struggling with her foot guy, and we just pray that you would touch her and be with her today

Lord it's not just a physical burden. It's an emotional. It's a spiritual burden

God I pray that you would touch her

Lord pray for Brandon and his family is his grandma's not doing well and in the hospital and

the struggle that that brings for them to be there and

give her the attention she needs while also taking care of the rest of life God just be with them today and

give them peace and

Help them, but also be with his grandmother and give her peace today as well

Well we pray for Pastor Greg if he has not been feeling well since his trip to Africa Lord

Thank you for bringing him home safely

But God we pray that you would touch him today

Help him to feel better

Or to be restrained

Or we we give you this time

And we just ask that you would work and move in a powerful way

And we just want to say how much we love you how much we appreciate

The sacrifice that you made for us the blood that you poured out on your cross for us

Thank you for that. We love you, and we ask all this in Jesus precious and holy name all God's people said

Amen you may be seated

You

Anybody else

Well as usual if you feel led to say something, please do I

Believe the Lord works and speaks through us all not just me

One last announcement, I'll try to get this right without messing it up royally like I did the last one

The women are going on a retreat to the beach this coming fall

sign ups and

win

Tomorrow and they got about five spots left

So if you're a woman who would like to go and fellowship with some of the ladies goes a trip to the beach

Have a good time. Please. See miss Brandy. She's right there on the aisle going to it

She's waving at you and she will get you signed up and help with that

We are in week four of our marriage series

And I just I want to repeatedly say

As we talk about this if you have been to a divorce if you have someone in your family who's been through divorce

And that's affected you personally

None of this is meant to shame anyone in any way

All right

we're talking about something that our culture is dealing with that that 50% of marriages end in divorce and so that just needs to be

Something that we address and we talk about

Because we don't want to just keep repeating the problem. We want to make sure that we

Set our children and our grandchildren up for the opportunity

To get married and to enjoy marriage and let that be a blessing in their life rather than a curse or a burden

So this is for us who are married

This is for your kids and grandkids who are thinking about getting married or are getting married and this is for

Even for you out there who single like this is this is information. It's a scripture

We need to be passing on to other people and today we're talking about quality time

Okay, and I just want to confess something to you this morning. Okay, can I do that? I like using scripture

I love using it to kind of reinforce what we're talking about

But there's not a lot of passages of scripture that talk about spending quality time with your spouse

Yeah, I just say that. Alright, so we're gonna read some passages here in a second that can be applied

But there's nothing to just reinforce this concept

This is something that we talk about with every couple that we do premarital counseling with we talked about this with pastor

Nina and Dan this past week about understanding the concept of spending quality time together

And what that means and what that means to each spouse

And just kind of deciphering that and we say that because if you don't spend quality time together

You will not know each other

You won't know who the other person is and it's amazing that you can live in your home

With your spouse and people do this for decades. They'll live under the same roof. They'll sleep in the same beds

They will even be intimate with one another

They'll raise kids together and 20 and 30 years down the road. They'll wake up one day and say I don't even know who they are

And we talked about last week how that we just don't love each other anymore

And we should be surprised by that if we can do that with our God

And we use that passage from Revelation last week to the message to the church in Ephesus

You do not love me as you once did if we can fall out of love with God

You can rest assured that you can also fall out of love with your spouse

And so we need to make sure that we're very intentional

About being with our spouse about spending quality time with one another

Knowing who they are because you cannot love someone that you do not know

You can't

And scripture says that one day we'll stand before God and there will be people who stand before God and say lord

I prophesied in your name. We perform miracles in your name

We cast out demons in your name and they're going to feel like they know who Jesus is and Jesus is going to say them

Depart from me for I do not know you

And so there might be a spouse in here today where you feel like man, I I really know my spouse

But your spouse is sitting here beside you and say well, I don't know who you are

It's very possible

If we can do that with God

We can most certainly do it with another human being especially the one that we're supposed to be

More connected with than anyone else in this world. We have a tendency to take for granted. What's always there

We will neglect the things closest to us because we just assume that it's going to be there when we come back

And a lot of times we just neglect it and neglect it and neglect it

And then one day we realize there's nothing to come back to because they've already gone

And we want to stop this

from happening

So our first passage this morning is ecclesiastes 9 9 we're just going to read a couple verses

The first verse says live happily

With the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that god has given you under the sun

The wife god gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil

Second passage proverbs 31 verses 10 through 12

Proverbs 31:10–12

Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?

She is more precious than rubies

Her husband can trust her and she will greatly enrich his life

She brings him good not harm all the days of her life

And then finally colossians 3 verse 19

Colossians 3:19

Husbands love your wives

And never treat them harshly

Now let's talk about something today before we get into the points

Up until about the past 100 years

And we just have to take this into context for understanding as we read scripture

The world has been a male dominated world since the beginning

So when you read scripture when you read the bible

Most of the scripture that you're going to read is directed primarily towards men

Because it has always been male dominated societies and cultures all throughout time

You and I live in a very unique realm of life today that the world has never experienced before you need to understand that

What we live in america is not the norm

It's not the norm across the earth today. It's just a very new thing. It's normal to us

So as we read scripture today, there's a lot more scripture that's going to refer to the men

And

How they need to to act and treat and the way that we should handle ourselves and love our wives

And there's going to be very few things

That's really kind of directed to the women and as we talk about this today women don't take offense to that

Because here's the truth as we talk about spending quality time together today

The men are going to stink at this a lot more than you will

You will naturally

Want to spend quality time with your husband because that's something that that most women and when we're talking about

Today it there's a lot of generalizations. This may not be every single one of you this morning

Okay, this may not blanket cover every person in this room

But for the most part women want to spend quality time with their husbands and men

We get a little lazy in marriage

We quit trying

Okay, we we think that once we

We do the dating we pay for the ring

We put the time and effort and work in and then they say I do it's like the work's over now

We can get comfortable and we can get lazy

And that happens a lot

So today's message is going to be picking on the men a lot more. I figured ladies be okay with that

There'll be a few things for the ladies. We'll talk about all this stuff

Y'all y'all give her that and before we start to have your permission to speak a little candidly this morning

Like to just say things and be honest

So if you got little ears in here, you may not want to hear everything

It's not going to be terrible, but you know i'm just saying some of you are pickier than others

Point one

Define quality time

As spouses it's really important for us to sit down with one another

and to lay out and define what quality time is

And i'll give you an example of that as soon as I said quality time

There's probably a lot of men in this room who's like, all right. We're probably going to talk about six this morning

And that's not what quality time is

for women

Quality time for men

Is going to look very different than the quality time for women and you need to understand that this goes back to this whole concept about

Um the love languages knowing what love language you speak

Where we talk with a lot of couples about knowing your currency knowing what your your spouse what currency they deal in

What you need to give to them and what they're giving to you

constantly depositing into this thing

Because here's the truth. Let's just go through it for men

Men are so easy ladies

They really are

Quality time for a man that the amount the time that a man is going to spend with you

Most men will be satisfied with simply just having sex. That's quality time for a man

The the connection to spiritual connection and natural desire that a man has in having sex with his wife

Is very special

We don't talk about that enough

We don't like clearly lay that out a lot of times we just talk about like carnal desire and yes, it can just be a carnal desire

Most of the time in our world, it's usually a sinful desire

But within the context of marriage, it is a very unique and special gift that god is given

For both of you to enjoy

We don't say that enough and for a man that can be quality time

He can be perfectly satisfied and feel very connected with you in that moment and even after that moment

And that's quality time for him

Not necessarily for the ladies

Okay

It can be most of the time. That's not what they would consider quality time

for a guy

To have him primed and ready for that moment

It doesn't take a whole lot

You know, most women need somewhere between

10 to 12 some studies say 14 touches

Physical touches that are non-sexual

To get them to the point where they're ready to have that moment

With their spouse. Do you know that?

So men there's like a little bit of effort into getting them ready for that moment that you greatly desire

But for a man, it's very easy very natural. He would consider that quality time

Another thing is working together

A man loves the fact of like just working together, you know

Some of the greatest bonds that you build with people in life as a man is literally working together

And so for example, we were over the house. We're rewiring a house right now

Hannah was running around on the floor. I was up in the attic for like six hours yesterday. I did not see her

But we talked because I was yelling at her the whole time. Hey, bring me this I need this

I need this and she brought me everything I need she had handed up through

A hole that we cut for a new light and all this stuff and she's handing me stuff and that was great

I had a great time yesterday. We spent six hours together. I never saw her. She brought me everything I needed. I was totally

Satisfied. Okay, that's not quality time for her

She enjoys being there. She enjoys doing that stuff with me. That's not quality time for her. I thought it was great

Okay watching tv and this is really confusing young men

This is something hannah and I struggle with early on our marriage because this blew my mind

Whenever you're dating someone what's one of the first things that you do with someone that you're dating?

Go to the movies

Did you know that watching a movie or tv with your spouse is not quality time?

I didn't know that

I thought it was perfectly

Awesome that we sit on the couch and we watch the show or a movie together and we were beside one another

We were holding hands and and hannah is a is a physical touch kind of person. So she's basically like laying on me

I'm like, this is great. We're spending quality time. She's like, okay. Now, what are we doing together?

I'm like, well, we just spent two hours together watching this movie. It's like this isn't quality time for me

Mind blown

But for her that's not quality time

And so for for most men sitting there in silence and doing something together

It's quality time, but for a lot of women it's not

Sitting beside each other and just not talking riding down riding down the road on a trip in a car

I'd be perfectly fine riding in that car and never saying a word

You know how many times me and my dad has been somewhere

And we've ridden somewhere together and never spoke to one another

Most times we do anything we just ride and we don't talk and we're together and that's good enough just to be together

We don't have to have a conversation

That's not the case

For my wife, maybe some y'all I don't know

But but but like just sitting in silence is not

quality time

A lot of men want their wives to go hunting or fishing with come do this with me

I love doing this and then when you get there you're sitting in a tree stand for hours. No talking

You go fishing. No talking you're gonna scare them away. No talking and even though you're together women say well

This isn't I hate this we're not doing anything. It's like no we're together for a guy's mindset being together is very simple

But it's not quality time for the woman. It's quality time for you. You're getting something out of it, but she is not

And even working on something like even if she doesn't help you

You know this goes back to that that kind of elementary stage of life

Where the guys are out on the field or on a court and they're playing a sport and then the girls are over on the side

And they're watching and they're cheering

And men get a lot from that they get a lot of someone just watching them and appreciating what they're doing and cheering them on

Even if they're not necessarily helping her do anything that that means a lot to us. That's quality time for us

So women it's a lot easier for you to to have quality time with us. We will be satisfied in that

In our context

But women are very different

So let's talk about some quality times for women and this is again generalizations not for everybody

One of the main things that women talk about is spending time together making eye contact

Looking at one another in the eye

It's not just riding down the road and even if you're riding down the road and she's talking your head off men

It's like having times where you're looking at one another and you're you're looking at each other and that

That is meaningful to most women to to to look at that where they know that you're actually listening to them

And you're connecting with them. That's very important

studies show

That to have a healthy conversation

With women you need to maintain about 80 percent eye contact for the time that you're speaking with them

If not, they do not feel like you've actually listened or heard what they've said

So

A lot of times guys will hear something and we immediately start

Like, you know, like you start looking up and you start thinking about something. They don't want you to think about it

They want you to look at them

They want you to listen to what they're saying

Participative conversations where they're not just talking because i'm i'm so guilty of this handle start talking

And i'm just listening and I don't say anything. She's like, are you listening to me?

And it's like i'm listening to everything you say. Well, you're not saying anything. I'm like, well, you're talking

I don't need to say anything. You're talking enough for the two of us

And understanding that in the midst of most conversations that when you have a conversation with your spouse

again generalization

Women will come and talk to to men about things their spouse

And they will present a problem

And our immediate reaction is to how can I solve this problem for her? How can I be a man?

And how can I solve this problem when most of the time they don't want you to solve the problem

I my personal theory in that is is that if you solve the problem, they don't have anything to talk about

So they just want you to listen to the problem. That's a joke probably shouldn't have said that either

but

They

They don't want you to solve the problem. They want you to listen

And so one of the things that that and I don't do a great job with this we're talking about things that

That henna and I are still struggling through in our marriage that we have days where we

We don't communicate well

We don't do these things well

But but it's easier to talk about them in in hopes that you are prepared in the moment when these situations arise

So most of our premarital counseling

Is getting couples ready to be able to have these conversations so that we don't we don't say the wrong things in the moment

that we're kind of ready to have the conversations or we have the conversations before a problem arises and so

Maybe one of the things that we need to say is is whenever our spouse if you're a man or you're a young man

And your your spouse or your girlfriend comes to you and they want to talk to you about something

You just go ahead and say, okay

I'm an idiot

I don't know what to do in this moment right now

Please tell me what you want me to do

Is this something you want me to solve or is this something you just want me to listen to and let them tell you

Because our first reaction is going to be solve

When a lot of times they just want us to listen sometimes they do want us to help them solve a problem

and so we need to know that we and we can't just assume things going into this because

versions of quality time

The language that you're speaking the currency that you're trading in as spouses is going to be very different from one another

and just having those conversations

And doing that women love to do activities together

You know, like when you when you get into marriage, most men would be fine staying at home

Like men become old men really fast

Stay at home

Don't do anything

Women still want to go on dates. They want to go on weekend getaways. They want to go on vacations

They want to do stuff where they can get you

This sounds negative. I don't mean it negative. They want to isolate you to themselves so that they can have you

They they they won't and and that should be something that we appreciate and enjoy as men that they actually still want to be with us

That's a good thing

But they want to get us alone so that they can spend time with us and have those intimate moments

Where they can look at us and now where we can have a conversation. I don't know about you guys

Every time hen and I try to talk right now

We have three kids that are immediately like they just start singing

like there's like there's no

Time for you to have a conversation because they need to be heard and so for hen and I to just to have that moment

where we can just have

Okay, like how are you actually doing? How am I actually doing like where we just have those you know

As a parent, you don't know this like your parents love you very much kids, but when you go to bed

It's like

Okay, like now we can like talk and see each other and hear one another

Women look forward to that. They they want to get you alone

They want to have that conversations with you that eye contact playing a game

Something simple going walking at the battlefield

You know, it's like for hen and I one of those things that that we figured out that we both enjoy doing is

To to sit across the table from her and to have that conversation

Because of my ADHD is sometimes painful. I like to be on the move. I like to

You know, I don't like to feel stuck and sitting there it almost makes me feel captive so we we would go walk at the battlefield

Three miles you got 45 minutes to an hour to just

Talk and you don't it's not awkward because then you're not having to look at each other and eye because you'll fall if you

Don't watch where you're going. So you don't have to make eye contact the whole time, but you still have that personal moment

Having those times together

The regular dates the weekend getaways the vacations it's so that there's no distractions

Women are very there's so much more intentional about just warning you and as a man, that should make you feel great

The fact that they they want to be with you

And rather than them trying to

You feel like they're trying to trap you or listening to your buddy say, oh, she's just trying to whip you

You know, she's trying to control you. It's like no

As a spouse you committed yourself before god to her

Your friends are a great thing. Your buddies are an awesome thing

It's great to have other people that you can rely on but that's the person you made the covenant with before god

They should be prioritized. You should be sacrificing and dying to yourself so that they can live

Define what quality time is point number two

Speak their language and trade in their currency

You are their spouse

When we talk about spending quality time together

You cannot do that unless you know

What their love language is unless you know what currency they're trading in

And guys, you know this because when you go and you trade currencies, there's an exchange rate

You don't get another currency without losing a little bit of the money that you have in order to get your other currency

So you if you want to speak your life's language

You're going to lose a little bit of yourself to speak her language and women if you want to speak your man's language

You're going to lose a little bit of yourself to speak his language

It does not come without a cause or a sacrifice

But marriage doesn't come without a cause or a sacrifice and your relationship with christ does not come without a cause or a sacrifice

Anything worth having is worth working for is worth putting the time in and it's worth

sacrificing for. All good things come with work and time. Anything else you

should be weary of. Your spouse is worth sacrificing and speaking to. Men, this

morning if you really want to know what the desire of, again, not every woman but

most women is, I believe you can find about any answer in Scripture. You look

at Genesis 29 and you have the story when Jacob flees to his uncle, Laban, and

while he's there he notices Rachel and he loves Rachel. Rachel's beautiful. He

wants some marriage so he makes this deal with his uncle. Hey, I want to marry Rachel.

Uncle says sure. He tricks him. He swaps out Leah for Rachel and he ends up

married to Leah first and Jacob does not love Leah. I can't imagine any worse of a

situation to walk into and I'm sure many women around the world has felt this at

some point in their life where they go into marriage and they have this idea of

what marriage is going to be and they dream of it since they were a child and

they walk into this relationship or this marriage where they do not feel

loved and they pretty much know in their hearts they're not loved. Fascinating

story because when you follow this up until this point, Isaac, you know, this

whole covenant promise with God starts with Abraham. Abraham loves Sarah but

God kind of limits them to this one child they have with Isaac and then

when you have Isaac, him and Rebecca, they have a set of twins, Jacob and Esau,

but the bloodlines through Jacob and then Jacob and Leah is the first time

where God really opens up the floodgates for them to have children to where this

descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky can first can become a

possibility for the first time and it's done because God sees Leah in this

marriage and sees her pain because she is unloved and he gives her a blessing of

being able to have children in this moment. So I just want to challenge you

today. If you're in a relationship, you're in a marriage where you feel like you're

not loved or your spouse is not giving you what you would want or what you

feel like you deserve, know that God sees you, okay? Know that he sees you

and while you may not have the blessing of having a marriage where you're

getting everything you feel like you should get out of it, know that God

sees you and he will bless you in other ways if you will be patient and

obedient and what he's called you to do in honoring that covenant. I think that's

very important, but this goes to reveal to us kind of what a woman really

wants and desires and you see this through Leah because she's not loved in

this moment. So what is a woman who's not loved, won't? She has her first son

and she names him Reuben. You know what Reuben means? It means seen and some

translations will translate, she named him Reuben because God has seen me or

some translations say now my husband will see me, but her desire is to be seen. A

woman's greatest desire is to be seen. You think about this, think about how

much time and effort and money that women spend on looking good and

presentable so that men, a boy, or your husband will take notice of you and

see you. It's so important and for all of you young ladies out there for that

desire for you to be seen, there's nothing wrong with that, but don't present

yourself in a way to be seen in the wrong context because what they

see you for will determine what they give you. So you have to be very careful

in the way that you present yourself to these young men because the way

that they see you will be what they give you and you want to be given what

God has for you from a husband, not what some little boy just wants to give. Those

are two very different things. She has her second son, she names him Simeon,

which means to be heard. You know we talked about a lot for quality time,

most women just want to talk, they want to have meaningful conversation. Her desire

was to be seen and heard. Your wife wants you to see her, your wife wants you to hear

her. She has her third son, she names him Levi, which means attached or affection.

She wants you to be attached to her, to show her affection. One of the greatest

desires that Leah had because she had a husband that she wasn't receiving that

from and you see what she's naming her children in this because these are the

things that she deserves so much and she's not getting. And then she has her

You know there's a lot of things that I could do for Hannah. You know

build her a house, do you know whatever, fix things, clean the house, you know

whatever it may be. I could do all these things I want to do for her. One of the

greatest things I can do her is see her, hear her, have a relationship with her

and praise her. Words of affirmation in one of her biggest love languages for

her to be assured and for her to know that I see her and see what she's doing

and appreciate her is huge in her life. I don't know about the rest of you women

or the rest of your wives but I know for my wife that's a big deal. I see

that in my wife. And men let me tell you something, you want to be honest this

morning? We're afraid to have daughters right? We're not afraid to have

daughters because we only want a son. We're afraid to have daughters because we

know how men really are. And we know how other men are going to see our daughter

one day, how they're going to treat her, the things they're going to try to get

from her. And I guarantee you that you need to be aware of this as a husband.

That there are men out there if you're not seeing your wife there are men out

there who see your wife. They're probably already looking at her. There are men out

there who will hear your wife and if you're not hearing her they will be

willing to listen. And there are men out there who will attach themselves to

your wife if you're not attached and giving her the affection that she needs.

And there are men out there who will praise her if you're not praising her

and giving her the affirmation that she needs. And they will do it for all of

the wrong reasons. But if we're not careful they will take our job and our

calling as husbands away from us. We need to be mindful of that and careful of

that in our lives as we serve the Lord and we serve our wives. Women, you want to

know what speaks to the man? Respect and affirmation. You want to speak his

language? You want to build those meaningful moments where you have those

eye contacts and those conversations and he actually enjoys spending time with

you. Respect him and admire him. This is so difficult to understand because life

is very different for men and women. But men live a life constantly filled

with criticism. From the time that you're a little boy you're thrown into

competitions and you're being compared in different ways whether it's grades or

sports or whatever it is that you're into it's it's always a competition. And

competitions can be really fun as long as you're winning and as long as you're

out doing everyone else but as soon as the tables turn and you start suffering

and you're not doing well it gets pretty brutal. Your ability to respect

and affirm your husband will go miles because as soon as you start

criticizing him he's gonna back away and then you're gonna be upset because you

tried to talk about what you wanted and needed from him and so he didn't give it

to you now you're even more mad and you criticize more and he backs away more.

And he pulls away and he pulls away and he pulls away because he's being

criticized everywhere else in his life. He's being criticized in the world he's

being criticized on the job everything's being critiqued he's being evaluated and

he wants to find one place in the world where he is respect and admired by

someone. And your husband may fail miserably at many things in life but if

you can affirm him and encourage him it will make all the difference in the

world. Let me share you a story about how fragile our egos are as men. Ready for

this? In 2023 there's a professional baseball player named Trey Turner. He's

one of the best players in the league. He's doing phenomenal his contract

comes up he signs with the Philadelphia Phillies to move over there I forget

what it is it's over a hundred million dollars for a contract. As soon as he

goes to Philadelphia he's making a hundred and something million dollars for

several years he goes into a little slump and people are brutal. You know you

get paid a hundred million dollars all the fans who are paying the high ticket

prices they say look you're getting paid a hundred million dollars we expect

results we're paying for these tickets they start booing this guy. It gets so

bad. Baton average plummets strikeout skyrocket dude is tanking it. You're

talking about one of the best athletes in the world who was outperforming most

people in the league and he is stinking it up and they can't send him

back down because they're paying him a hundred and something million dollars so

he's just having to go out and walk up here in front of tens of thousands of

people every night playing a game and before he even gets up to the plate

boo you stink before he even gets to the plate before he even has a chance to

fail as he's walking up the entire stadium is booing this guy and he does

not get out of it until finally one day there's this random Phillies fan who

actually struggles with a little bit of mental health issues and stuff and he

kind of realized like man this is this is terrible like he understood what what

kind of what this guy was going to and how he needed support so he starts this

online thing on social media and says look we've got to stop this this has

to end we need to support this guy we've got to encourage him next time that he

comes up to bat we need to cheer him on we need to build him up so that he can

actually have success because what we're doing is not working so the very

next game this this goes viral very next game entire stadium stands up gives us

guys standing ovation they're cheering for him before he ever gets up there

clapping holler in his name totally different totally different environment

dude gets a hit breaks out of his slump has won the best second half of the

season that any other baseball player in the major leagues had all because one

guy said we need to support this guy you're talking about a professional

athlete who's been performing in front of people his whole life who has paid

hundreds of millions of dollars and the way that he was criticized versus how

he was affirmed made all the difference in the world into his performance

that's how fragile we are as men if you can affirm us and build us up it will

go so much further than criticizing and tearing down and you think well

they're a man you should be tough enough to handle it that's what the rest of the

world says and every other aspect of our life we need somebody to build us up

and affirm us and respect us Proverbs chapter 12 verse 4 says a worthy wife is

Proverbs 12:4

a crown for her husband women you have the ability to make your husband a king

and to be his crown like you have the ability to set him and present him as

royalty that's the power and the strength and the and the influence that

God has given you in his life but a disgraceful woman is like cancer in his

bones that's power I mean when you talking about somebody like Solomon who's

riding the wisest man on earth talking about how a wife has the ability to

crown her husband as a king and to be a part of his authority or to be the

cancer that eats him away from the inside out that's the power that you

have as women we have to know our spouse's love language we have to know

what speaks to them and speak it often even if they're not pouring into us do

you know that I think that's the hardest part about this in marriage because a lot

of times our spouses are doing what we want them to do but as Christians we're

called to love our enemies to pray for those who hurt us to give above and

beyond even to them and so if our spouse isn't giving us what we want or what

we need to still give to them in spite of them not giving to us that's the

calling that God has placed on our life to do it whether they're willing to do

it or not point three last one is pray together and this probably is not what

you were expecting for quality time and this is going to sound very cliche

because the pastor is up on stage and saying it but if you don't believe me you

go home today this afternoon and you look up the statistics you look up the

research and see if what I'm saying is not true there has been studies from

major Ivy League universities and other Christian entities that have studied

people study relationships and that couples who pray together who pray

together not just pray for one another but pray together have less than one

percent chance of divorce do you know you can go to church every single week

your entire marriage and it's not gonna make a difference 50% of the people who

are in church get divorced 50% of the people who are not in church get

divorced that's pretty scary you can read your Bible does not make a

difference on the statistics you can do so many that you can spend all the

quality time what you can go on every vacation you can have date night you can

do whatever it is you want to do does not make a difference prayer is the only

thing that they've seen so far that makes a difference and it's less than

1% that's powerful because prayer is God's language and prayer is God's

currency you know we've talked a lot about speaking each other's language and

trading in each other's currency and every time you speak in your partner's

language and you trade in their currency it cost you something you have to die to

yourself in order to do that for them but when you speak God's language and

you trade in his currency you only receive there's no there's no rates

there's there's nothing that takes away from you in doing that when you

speak God's language and you trade in his currency it only gives to you it

empowers you it changes you you know when you sit down and you pray with one

another and you pray out loud because you need to do it out loud so the other

person can hear you they can hear exactly what you're praying for them for

because that's important it's hard to be prideful when you're praying together

it's hard to be prideful and stubborn whenever you've been arguing about

something and you know deep down that you're wrong and you're just not willing

to admit it it's hard to be prideful whenever you're on your hands and knees

before the Lord and he's convicting the hound out of you and you feel guilty of

sin it's hard to do that there will be people in this room there will be

spouses who will resist this greatly because they know if I start praying

I'm gonna have to give I'm gonna have to change I'm gonna have to do this

because I know God's gonna speak to my heart but it's worth doing it together

because if you really want to be your spouse and honor that covenant the

greatest thing you can do to help your mayor just pray with one another it's

hard to hurt one another when you're praying together I don't know about you

guys I've done and said some things that Hannah she never deserved and it's

hard to do that whenever our relationship is good and we're praying together like

we should be and we're honoring God like we should be because God will hold us

accountable he will give us the ability to do that it's difficult not to be

united when you're praying for one another and for similar things a lot of

people will say man we're just not seeing out on finances we don't see out

on this we just we don't have anything in common it's amazing how prayer can

bring you together I said it for years you know the guys that I was in high

school with and played ball with I was really good friends with we're great

friends and I loved them incredibly it was amazing when I got saved and I kind

of lost contact with some of those guys and that hurt a lot but God provided new

friends friends that I had absolutely nothing in common with other than being

a believer in Jesus and what's funny is is that being a believer in Jesus was

more than enough it's amazing what just crying out to Christ together can

do and it can bring you to having similar ideas and meeting together meeting in the

middle it's hard to appreciate someone who's taking the time out of their life

to lift you up and pray for you it's hard not to appreciate the person you

can hear call out your name before Jesus Christ you know I have a lot of

people who tell me they're praying for me I greatly appreciate that I need

prayer it's a totally different thing whenever I hear someone actually

praying for me because I can hear it I can hear their heart I can hear how

much it means to them and it's super super encouraging and convicting in

those moments whenever I hear people do that it's different and the same thing

with your spouse it's not enough to just pray for them because you can sit

there and say hey I'm praying for you and that can be taken as very offensive

but for them to actually hear you call out their name and in the beg God on

your behalf for things that's different it's hard not to change when you're

praying together there's some of us that just we need to change and God

changes things prayer changes things it's hard to be selfish when you're praying

together because you're taking time out of your life to lift the other person up

rather than yourself it's hard not to be hopeful when you're praying together

you know a lot of marriages just get to the point where you just lose hope

people say I just don't know how we're gonna make this work I don't even see

how we fix this the awesome thing with God is through him all things are

possible everything is possible through Christ it's hard not to be in God's will

when we're praying together you know we always spend time with the people or

on the things that we prioritize the things that mean the most to us will

get the most of our attention and I know that you work jobs I know she have

different responsibilities I know she have kids but at some point whether you're a

man or you're a woman this morning we have to come to terms with if the

covenant that I made with my spouse is the most important thing I'm doing my

life they have to be next to my own relationship across they have to be

the second top priority in my life and I need to be speaking into their life

trading in their currency and most importantly praying with them there's no

reason why if you say that you're a believer in Jesus Christ and you're

married to someone who should also be a believer in Jesus Christ that you

should not be praying with one another it is the most bulletproof thing that

you can do to ensure that your marriage is going to make it until the

day that you stand before God and here's the last thing I'll share with

you men UK the greatest burden in this when we stand before God one day we will

give an account not just for our own personal lives but we will give an

account for the spiritual health of our wife our children and everybody that

God has placed us in charge of we will be held accountable we will answer for

that and so even if your wife does not feel comfortable with you sitting down

and praying with her she can at least hear you praying for her even if she

don't do it she can hear your voice praying for her somebody's got to start

it and somebody's got to be the leader somebody's got to be the one to say

I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure I honor the covenant I made before

God let's pray father thank you for another day another opportunity to be

together and thank you for your word and your love and your mercy in our

lives and God we live in a world where we are far from perfect because of our

Jesus I pray this morning that we would come humbly before you that we would be

willing to confess to our spouses and even to others maybe that we've messed

up we have not done this right we have not been putting in the effort we

haven't been putting in the time and we sure haven't been praying with one

another but Lord we can't change the past we can't do anything about what's

been done before but God we can change what happens from this point forward

through the help of you and your Holy Spirit and I pray that you would empower

us to leave this place and not just say that was that was good I think we

should think about that but Lord that you would put it on our hearts to say

Lord I'm willing and ready to do anything that I need to do to honor you and to

love and honor and cherish the spouse that you have gifted me because it was

meant to be a gift and it's meant to be a blessing and if it's not it's because

of both of us help us to submit to you and do what you've called us to do it's

in Jesus name that we pray amen thank you guys