Marriage: Spouses First

I'm going to ask you guys if you'd be seated real quick and if Nikki would come forward.

If we have any ladies of the church who'd like to join Nikki in prayer, we're going to anoint

her this morning, according to the scripture in James 5.

Just pray for her grandmother as she's getting surgery tomorrow.

As you're coming, we'll begin praying.

Father in heaven, we just are so grateful and humble to be here today, for the opportunity

to come and to worship you in a way that so many people around the world don't get to.

So Father, as we come, we pray that you would speak into our hearts and that you would tune

the things that this world has.

I know we have a lot of distractions, a lot of responsibilities, a lot of things that weigh

on us in very heavy ways.

But Lord, you are the most important thing that we could ever have.

And I just pray, even in this moment, that we could focus on you, that we could give

our lives to you and trust you to know that what's done in your time and in your way is

better than anything that we could do.

So Father, this morning as we come and worship, we pray for our people of our church.

I pray for Bruce Fine today as his mom's getting ready to pass away.

He's at the hospital with her and God, we just pray that you would touch him and be

with his brother and his kids and family and God, that you will give them a peace.

Jesus, we ask that you be with Miss Edith as she's at the hospital right now.

The word I know may not be anything serious, but Lord, she's there.

So God, we just pray that your Holy Spirit would be with her and David right now.

God, that you would help them.

We would bring the cantaloupe.

She's lost her husband this weekend.

Touch her and her family.

And Lord, we pray for Miss Helen as she's getting ready to have surgery tomorrow.

And Lord, we come to you humbly today, according to your word.

And we anoint Nikki in the name of God the Father, who created all things and who created Helen.

And Lord, we put her in your hands as she goes to the hospital tomorrow and gets on that table.

We anoint her in the name of Jesus Christ, your one and only Son, whom you sent not only to show his power over the physical body,

but Lord, especially the spiritual.

That while you healed people and you raised them from the dead, Lord, you brought salvation and healing to our spirit that nothing else could do.

And Lord, we thank you for speaking to Miss Helen's life and saving her and letting her be your child.

And finally, we anoint her in the name of the Holy Spirit, whom you sent as our advocate.

That we would have direct access to you at any time.

And it is through him in which we pray this prayer right now that we call on your name.

And we ask that you would be with Helen tomorrow, that you would be with the doctors, that you would be with the nurses and everyone involved in this procedure.

And Lord, we put our trust and faith in you to know that you're in control.

We love you today. We thank you for the opportunity to just take some time away from the busyness of life and give this to you.

Thank you for the opportunity to pray and to anoint people.

And we ask that you speak deeply to our hearts this morning through prayer, through your word, and through the moving of your Holy Spirit.

For it's in Jesus' name that we pray, all God's people say.

Anybody else?

Anything you got to say is better than mine.

As always, if you feel led to say something, you have the freedom to interrupt me at any time.

But we have been talking about marriage, so we're in our second week today.

How many of you went home and argued last week after this?

How many of you thought it was your spouse's fault?

We did talk about cutting the covenant last week and the importance of the idea that when we stand at the altar and we get married, that the covenant we're making is not to our spouse, it's actually the covenant that we're making before God.

It's a covenant that we're going to stand before God and be held accountable for.

And we have to understand that. You missed it, you can catch it on Facebook, YouTube, or the podcast.

But in talking about that, just kind of add a little something onto that this week from last week.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, the covenant is to Him.

The covenant is to God, whom you will stand before.

So be very careful in whom you choose to marry, even in whom you choose to date.

Because if that person does not believe in God like you do, or trust and serve in Jesus like you do, they are not going to honor that covenant.

The same way you feel convicted in honoring that covenant.

We talked about that last week.

Marriage can be one of the most wonderful things in the world, it can be one of the most difficult things in the world.

And a lot of that starts with our decisions as we begin this process.

So today, we are talking about putting our spouses first.

Obviously, as Jay testified a while ago, God's got to be first, God's got to be number one.

But in this world, your spouse should be number one, no questions asked.

And we live in a society today that fails to do that.

We are very self-focused, we talk about self-health, we do a lot of things to invest in ourselves, we do a lot of things to invest in ourselves personally.

And then we live in a society where a lot of times the spouse can get kicked to the back burner very quickly.

And so we're going to read a couple passages of scripture today that you're not going to like.

I can go ahead and tell you, the good thing is, I didn't write it, it's not my opinion, it's what God wrote.

So you have to decide before we even get started today, do I believe in Jesus Christ?

Do I believe in the words that He gave us to live by?

And if you believe in that, then you have to open up your heart this morning and be receptive of what's going to be read and what's going to be talked about because it's not our choice.

We live in a society where half of marriage is failed, even inside the church.

And so we should not be looking at someone else to necessarily give us the example of what a marriage should be.

I think it's great that we have young men in our church who look at their parents and say, I want my marriage to look like that.

That's great. But also, know and understand this morning that whenever Matthew and Noah marry somebody, it's not going to be actually louder.

They're going to marry a totally different person.

And it can be similar, but it's not going to be the same. You with me?

It's going to be very different. Your marriage is going to look very different.

And so you need to make sure that we're putting our spouses first, that we're obeying Scripture, we're living our lives, and we're doing marriage the way that God created it to be done.

Understand this. God instituted marriage. He created it. It's His. It's not yours.

There is a way, just like He designed this life and everything that we do, He designed it to be done a certain way. He designed marriage to be done a certain way.

And so our goal as believers should be to do it the way He has called us to do it.

So I say that before we start reading Scripture this morning, people start getting, I don't like that.

So you're basically telling God that you don't like what He has to say about it or what He created or how He intended it to be.

So just prefacing that before we get started. Ephesians chapter five, verses 31 through 33.

Paul writes and says, as the Scripture says,

A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

Now that passage, he's quoting Jesus from the Gospels. And in verse 32 it says, this is a great mystery.

It's hard to explain. It's hard to understand. It's a mystery.

But it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.

So again, I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ouch.

Number one of what we don't like.

We're going to skip to another passage, but remember this one. We're coming back to this one later.

Galatians five, verses 13 through 15. Now this is Paul writing to the church in Galatia.

And he's talking about having freedom in Christ.

We have a lot of freedom in Christ, but all that freedom is not meant to serve ourselves.

The freedom is meant to serve others and do all the things that God created us to do.

So in verse 13 he says,

My brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature.

Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.

For the whole law can be summed up in this one command.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

If you're always biding and devouring one another, watch out.

Be aware of destroying one another.

And so this passage is written to the church, okay?

It's written to talk to Christians about how you should behave and interact with one another,

to love one another, to serve one another.

And how much more should we be serving one another within our marriage?

So point number one this morning is, serve one another.

When you're entering into marriage, we say this last week, it's a job.

It's not easy.

When you are signing up, when you stand at that altar and you commit yourself before God,

you are entering into something that you're saying, I'm going to work at this every day until the day one of us dies.

Like I'm putting my life into this thing.

It's work. And there's a calling in our lives to serve one another.

Not just as spouses, but as Christians in general.

In Matthew chapter 5 verse 44, Jesus is speaking in the Sermon on the Mount,

Matthew 5:44

and He tells the people of Israel, but I say, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

I guarantee you there's at least one relationship in this room, if not multiple,

where we are mistreating our spouse in some way.

Jesus said for us to love our enemies and to pray for them, to be kind to them, to do good deeds, to give them things,

so that when you do this, you pour burning coals on top of their head.

And if Jesus called us to do this to our enemies, why in the world would we not be willing to do this to our spouses?

And the truth is, is we have a lot of marriages today where nobody's serving one another.

It's a marriage where we're just serving ourselves.

We're making our list of demands, and whenever they're not being met, we're moving on.

We're parting ways, we're moving on if it's not, or we're just miserable inside of marriage,

and we just talk junk about each other to our friends and family.

We're called to love one another.

If Jesus said you're supposed to love your enemies and to serve them,

why in the world would we not be loving and serving our spouses?

And the truth is, we treat a lot of other people in our lives better than we do our spouses, men and women.

There are people that we serve at our jobs every day.

There are people that we work with.

There are people that we just interact strangers, complete strangers,

that we treat better than we treat our spouses a lot of times.

And I say that with great conviction, because I tell you guys a lot of times,

I preach about the things that I struggle with too.

So this is a struggle for me.

It's not like I'm natural, and I'm no professional, I'm no expert on this.

We're talking about this together.

But we're supposed to serve one another.

We've said many times, you know, when we do premarital counseling with a lot of our young couples,

we tell them, like, get the book to five love languages.

Like, this is super important.

Because as you are wanting to make your marriage work and you're living together,

you need to be able to speak the language that your partner speaks.

And so, like, for a love language, I'll use Culp and Brandy as an example.

Culp's love language may be very different from Brandy's love language,

but if Brandy tries to show Culp the love that she, the way she wants to be loved,

Culp may not receive it as love, it can be very annoying.

And vice versa.

For example, Hannah and I, she loves it when I do this.

It's been a few years now, but we're in the thick of marriage,

and I'm working, and I'm doing stuff around the house,

and I'm trying to help out around the house,

and I'm doing all this stuff that I really don't want to do.

And I can remember very vividly, like, this moment where she was like,

I don't care if you do that.

This is what I want.

And I'm just like, why have I been doing this for so long?

You know, it's like, you get so frustrated because I've been doing this for you.

And that wasn't what, that is not how she wanted to be loved.

And so, when we talk about serving one another today,

you have to be really careful that you're not serving someone

the way that you want to be served.

You're not loving them the way that you want to be loved.

You're loving them the way that they need to be loved.

And it takes great effort to do that,

because it's not going to come natural to you.

Men, you're not the same as women.

That's a good thing.

Women, vice versa, you're not the same as men.

That's a great thing.

You're not going to receive love the way that your partner

or your spouse is going to want to receive love,

and you've got to kind of figure that out.

That's part of serving one another in love.

It's speaking their love language.

Now, when we talk about it, I call it currency.

You know, one of the things is you're constantly depositing into the marriage account,

because one day you're going to have to make a withdrawal,

and you need to make sure you've got enough money in that account,

so when you need to make a withdrawal,

it doesn't put you in a bad situation and you're not overdrawing the account.

And you've got to have the right currency

whenever you're exchanging love with one another

and you're serving one another,

because if you're operating with the wrong currency,

they're not going to accept it.

I don't know about y'all, I like US dollars.

Don't give me a pesos or a yen or anything else.

I like dollars.

You've got to have the right currency.

You've got to speak the right language.

You've got to serve one another the way that we need to be served.

Now, let's go back to Ephesians 5.

There is a reason why God put in His Word

and commanded men love your wives.

There's a reason.

And there's a reason why He said,

women respect your husbands.

We'll come back to that again in a little bit.

I'm just priming you on this, okay?

I'm getting you ready, softening it up a little bit.

Point number two.

Your prized possession,

your spouse needs to be your prized possession.

This should be, if you're doing this the right way,

if you've been praying about this,

this is why we're talking about this,

because some of you may be in a marriage that's very difficult,

and your marriage is extremely hard,

and you've had to put a lot more work into it,

maybe even your spouse has had to even make it work.

But if you're doing it the way God intended it to be,

you should have been praying about this all along

as you're growing and aging and getting ready to be married.

And so when you meet your spouse, it should be an ant prayer.

There should be like praises and testimonies

for the one that God has prepared for you

and brought into your life.

And in the midst of that,

that should be your most prized thing that you have,

the most prized prayer that God has answered for you,

because once you get into marriage,

you realize it's like you can't control somebody.

Like you can't make them do anything that they don't want to do.

As bad as you want them to do it,

like you just cannot make it happen.

And so whoever God has prepared for you

and partnered you with should be one of the most amazing,

wonderful gifts that you've ever received in your life.

And that's what marriage should be.

And a lot of times it's not.

And so you should be praying for your kids and your grandkids

to be partnered with the person that God has prepared for them

and also prepared them for,

because you want your child to be a blessing to their spouse.

You don't want them to be a burden.

So we should be praying for that.

But they should be your prized possession.

Now many of you have probably seen an old man with his car.

You ever seen that before?

The old man who had those like really pristine classic cars

like they'll take this old car that was destined for the junkyard

and they'll completely redo it and it looks brand new

like it just rolled off the lot

and they put their blood, sweat and tears and time and money.

Every extra dollar of their paycheck goes into this thing.

They sit around and they polish it and they work on it

and they tweak it and they do all this stuff.

And a lot of times women will look at men,

because men are like that with a lot of different things,

it's just one example.

And a lot of times women will look at me and say,

I wonder if he loves me as much as he loves that car.

That's the question they're asking.

Does he care about me as much as he cares about that car

because he sure spends a lot more time on it.

He spends a lot more money on it.

He puts a lot more effort in it.

That's the question they're asking.

Now, Hannah and I, as we struggle through our marriage in different ways,

one of the funny things that Hannah likes to do

is whenever I'm sitting down and I watch TV

or I'm on my phone or something just real simple,

not a big deal to me.

As soon as I start doing that, her first question is,

do you care about me more than you care about that?

And she don't ask that,

but she'll come and she'll stand in front of me.

She'll stand like in between me and the TV

and she'll start talking to me.

And if I pause the TV, she gets mad.

But if I watch TV, she gets mad.

So I have to like, no, you know, like I can't pause the TV

or this conversation's not going to go well.

There's a desire in her life that she needs to know

that I care about her more than I care about that TV

or my phone or whatever it else is I'm doing

that she comes first.

There's nothing wrong with that.

She needs to know that.

That's the way God wired her to be.

She should be number one.

Your wife should be number one.

There should never be a question in your wife's mind

that you would love something or anything

more than you would ever love her.

Now, women, let's pick on you for a second.

I get self-conscious and childish sometimes too.

And I will look at Hannah because Hannah is a great mother,

like loves our kids to death.

A lot of times I'm like, she loves them kids more than me.

Like all the things that she does for them,

all the time that she spends with them,

there's things that she'll do for those kids

she'd never do for me.

That's probably a good thing since I'm 47 years old.

But, you know, we all get in our mind.

And a lot of times, and that's just one easy example,

that a lot of times husbands will sit back and say,

man, like, does she care about me

as much as she cares about those kids?

We all do it.

We all have this question in our mind of,

how much would they miss me if I was gone?

How much would they care?

Am I number one?

Am I the most important thing in their life?

And other than Jesus Christ, yes,

your spouse should be the most important thing

in this physical world.

This is the relationship.

And for you as a Christian this morning,

I want to just remind you of this.

Your testimony to Jesus Christ will be weak at best

if your marriage is not good.

Like, you cannot serve Jesus

into your full capacity

if your marriage is struggling and floundering.

Your marriage needs to be strong.

You need to be together with one another

in such a way that it is undeniable

that you look at one another.

And you may question it.

Every once in a while you may say,

you know, I'm not feeling number one right now.

I need you to remind me of this.

But there should be this understanding of that

we're number one, we ride and die together.

Like, no matter what, we're in this together.

That we said last week that you look at that person.

Did you look at that person you say you want to marry?

And you say, I'm willing to die before I break this covenant.

If they're not willing to say that,

you shouldn't get married to them.

Because we should be willing to die.

We have to be willing to die.

Ephesians 5 verse 21.

Ephesians 5:21

So this is a precursor verse.

When we talk about making sure that each other knows

that we're number one,

your husband or your wife knows you're number one.

Before the verse where it says,

husbands love your wives and wives respect your husbands.

In Ephesians 5 21 it says,

in further submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

So before we get all apprehensive in saying,

well, I just don't think it's very a modern idea

or approach or this is today's culture

that it's fitting for a woman to just be

expected to submit to her husband.

No, make sure you read the entire passage.

Don't get wrapped up in one verse.

Make sure you read in context.

Make sure you're getting everything that's being communicated

in the passage so you know what it's talking about.

And verse 21 tells us,

submit to one another out of reverence for love.

So yes, wives, there's a calling on your life to submit your husband,

but husbands, there's also a calling for you to submit to your wife.

That's going to look very differently because,

again, you're not the same.

God didn't create you to be the same.

That is a great thing.

So when we submit to one another,

it's not going to look the same,

but we are still called by God to submit to one another.

This is the most important person in your life.

It's the most important thing in this world

other than Jesus Christ is your spouse.

Submit to them.

There shouldn't be a question in that.

1 Corinthians 7, verse 4 says,

1 Corinthians 7:4

the wife gives authority over her body to her husband

and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.

There is this mutual understanding

that when you go into this relationship

and you are submitting yourself in the covenant of marriage before God

that you are also understanding that I'm submitting myself to my spouse.

It is what God has called me to do.

We're giving the authority of ourselves over to them

and we're submitting to them and vice versa.

It's not an argument.

It's not like battle of the sexes or anything like that.

It's just what God has called us to do.

And you need to understand today that somebody has to start it.

If you're in a marriage right now

and this has not been happening or you don't feel this way

somebody's got to begin.

Somebody's got to grow up

and put on their spiritual big boy or big girl pants

and say even though my spouse is not doing this for me

or giving me this or doing what I need

I'm going to do this because this is what God has called me to do.

Somebody's got to start it.

If you ever have the attitude

I'm not going to do this because they're not doing this for me

you might as well chalk it up and go ahead and sign the papers.

You got to be willing to put it in, put in the work

the effort and the sacrifice in order to make that happen.

Who's number one?

Point number three.

No trade-ins.

We live in a culture

where everything is disposable.

We throw everything away.

Most of us will live in multiple houses, drive multiple cars.

We take brand new clothes, clothes that we've never worn

and we'll go give them away in order to update our wardrobes and stuff like that.

And we've taken that same mindset and we've applied it to marriage.

That is like, oh if this don't work out we'll just sign the papers,

we'll get a divorce, we'll do it again.

Everybody in my family has got divorce.

You know, we just have this attitude of like, oh it's not that big of a deal anymore.

But as believers there's a need for us to understand and remind ourselves

this is meant to be forever for the entirety of our physical life.

And I said again today, this series is not to shame anyone.

If you've been through a divorce, if your parents have been divorced,

if there's been divorce in your family or whatever, however it's affected you,

this is not to shame us.

This is meant to keep us from just to get off the hamster wheel,

to stop running this circle of divorce over and over and over again

and to put an end to it.

How amazing would it be if in a generation from now there was no divorce?

How awesome would that be?

How much better would families and children and finances and everything be

if divorce stopped because we were willing to do marriage

the way that God had commanded us to do it?

And in Matthew 19 verses 4 through 11, as Jesus was teaching,

Matthew 19:4–11

and this is where Paul quoted the verse from a while ago,

he said, Haven't you read the scriptures? Jesus replied.

They record that from the beginning God made them male and female.

And he said, This explains why man leaves his father and mother

and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one.

And since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart

what God has joined together.

Then why didn't Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife

a written notice of divorce and send her away?

Because they were confused.

They had a generation of religious leaders who just like permitted divorce

as something as simple as if you burn the supper or something like that,

you could just say get mad and frustrated the man could just leave his wife and divorce her.

That's how easy it was to get divorced during New Testament times.

And they were confused.

Why did Moses give us concession for divorce then?

And Jesus replied, Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts.

But it was not what God had originally intended.

There's a lot of things that are done in our culture and society, in our world.

It was not originally how God intended it to be.

Sometimes we have to just scrub away what is and be okay to say,

God, show me what you want it to be.

Show me how you want it to be.

And I think marriage is one of those things in our culture.

We need to be really careful not to be looking at anyone else

or anything else to try to figure out what my marriage should be.

But we should be crying out to God and praying and asking,

God, how do you want my marriage to be?

Know today that your marriage will end.

It will.

I don't know if you've ever thought about that before,

but the person that you said I do to,

one day you or them will pass away.

It will come to an end.

You know, people tell us all the time with the kids,

I'll cherish these moments.

Don't get mad, don't get frustrated.

They're going to be grown before long.

You're going to miss these days.

There's seasons and times that you're going to have with your spouse.

They're going to be miserable.

And as we said last time, like,

there'll be days where you think about killing them.

But in one day it will end.

And the goal should be for it to end when one of you do pass.

Because it's going to happen.

We have a short amount of time.

To be faithful in the little things and the big things that God has given us

and blessed us with.

Marriage is one of the most incredible things that God gives us

and we have but just a little amount of time to be faithful

and to do what he's called us to do and to honor that covenant

because one day it's going to be done

and we're not going to be able to honor it anymore.

And then we'll wish we had the opportunity to do it again.

To make sure that it counts because there shouldn't be any trade-ins.

Last but definitely not least,

probably your least favorite will be to know your role.

Know your role.

As we talk about this,

I understand that there are unique people and unique relationships

and not everybody is going to fall inside the bell curve

of every single thing that we may talk about.

But I think as believers in Christ to be obedient to Scripture

we need to be very careful in making sure we know

just the basic idea of what God has called us to be as husbands

and what God has called us to be as wives.

Now in verse 33 it said,

men, love your wives and wives respect your husband.

God understood because of the way that he created us

that men this morning you are going to have a difficult time

to truly love your wife the way that he intended for you to love her

and that's why you this morning are commanded to love her.

And love your wife is a pretty generic commandment

and I think that was purposefully and beautifully done by God

because how Ashley Lauder may receive love is very different

how Lee Bradley receives love or any other woman in here

and so each husband is going to be called to love their wife

in a very unique and beautiful and amazing way

that only you can do because God has paired you with them for a reason

and it's going to be your natural temptation not to love her

the way that she needs and wants to be loved

and you need to realize that today.

It will be one of the greatest temptations you have in your life

not to love her the way that God has called you to love her.

Women, there is a reason why God said respect your husbands.

God understands the way that he created men

and I guarantee you if you sit down and you had an honest conversation

with your man this morning and you said would you rather me love you

or respect you I guarantee you the answer is probably going to be

I would prefer respect over you loving me.

Because that's the way that God has created him and designed him to be

and so we can resist these things this morning

because we don't like the way they sound or the way they feel

or it goes against what we know today as culture

or we can do things the way that God intended them for them to be done

and possibly experience one of the greatest gifts that God has ever given us.

In Ephesians chapter 5 verses 22 through 25

Ephesians 5:22–25

remember in verse 21 it said submit to one another

okay submit to one another

and now verse 22 for wives

this means submit to your husband

as to the Lord for a husband is the head of his wife

as Christ is the head of the church

he is the savior of his body the church

think about what it is that you say you believe in this morning

if this is triggering to you

or if this rubs you the wrong way

I'm very sorry about that but this is the word of God

think about what it is you say you believe in this morning

and decide whether or not you will trust in God's word

along with the God you say that you trust in

in verse 24 it says as the church submits to Christ

you wives should submit to your husbands in everything

verse 25 for husbands this means love your wives

just as Christ loved the church he gave up his life for her

and so women I challenge you this morning

do not get caught up in this whole idea

of wanting to lead and wanting to respect

because here's what God has called the leadership

you husbands this morning

when we say love your wives when you step into marriage

God is calling you to die

as Christ gave up his life for the church

you husbands all show should give up your lives

that's not a figure thing that's a literal thing

when you stand at the altar and you say I do

you are literally putting to death who you are

to be joined as one and have one life together

and what we find is as we're doing premarital counseling

with a lot of our young couples is

is a lot of these young men

I use that loosely young men

come into this idea of marriage

they're ready they're old enough

they're working a job like they're providing for themselves

but they still want to play

they want to play video games

they want to go fishing they want to go hunting

they want to keep doing everything that they've been doing before

and then they want a wife to go along with it

and they want to keep who they are

but then add in this extra thing and the truth is

you can't

any mature man who's sitting in here today

will tell you like when you get married

you better be ready to die

part of you is supposed to die when you get married

because you're joining yourself to your wife

you're literally giving up your life for her

to love her

and to care for her

and that's what God's called you to do

and if you don't do it willingly

what's going to happen is

is like a lot of men hit their 40s and 50s

and they've been married and they've raised kids

and they wake up in one day and they realize

I'm not who I used to be

and my wife hasn't turned out like I thought it was going to

and then they have midlife crisis

and they're miserable and they're bitter

because they had to die

but they didn't do it willingly

you step into marriage part of you is going to die

whether you want it to or not

because you're joined as one

your life is one

there's part of yourself you're given to that person

you'll never get back no matter what

and as the leader of your home

you are called as young men this morning to die

so young men this morning

now I'm challenging you guys

I'm putting it on you to understand

what it is you're stepping into

the expectations that God has for you

to lead your family

and to provide

and to love your wives

and to sacrifice for her

and to love your children and lead them

it's a heavy burden

and you can't do it alone

if you don't have Christ living in you

you're not going to be able to do it

and you need to understand when you get married

it's a wonderful gift

and there's nothing that Christ has ever called me to do

that I haven't had to give something up

and even though it's hard to give it up

when I look back it was absolutely worth it

and following Christ and getting married is worth it

you will be scared

to die to yourself and give up things for your spouse

it is absolutely what God's called you to do

and it will absolutely be worth it

some of you ladies

will be very hesitant

and I absolutely understand why

because there's a lot of men and a lot of husbands

who aren't ready to lead

but you've got to be willing to let them lead

and you say, man, you don't know what's going to happen

if I let them lead, man, we'll end up in a ditch

we'll drown

we won't have no money, we won't have nothing

and I get it

I know of marriages where the men never paid a bill

had no idea what was going on

like wouldn't be able to take the kids to the doctor

don't even know their kid's middle name

but you'll never be able to respect your husband

as long as you're leading him

I really believe that

God's called you to respect him

he hasn't called you to lead him

God called him to lead

and you say, man, he's not able

he probably isn't

but you've got to let him lead

is he going to fail? Probably

I have failed many times

he's not the only man to ever fail

but you've got to let him lead

as long as you're mothering him

you'll never respect him

you'll never be able to do what God has called you to do

inside that marriage if you're trying to be his mom

and take care of him

he was called to lead

there will be things that you can share

there will be responsibilities that you can do

and you may be more gifted in

and that's okay if you have that understanding

but man, when you talk about what God created marriage to be

I think we have to be really careful

as we walk this path through life

and how we interact with our spouses

because there's a way that God called us to do it

and I truly believe it does not look the same for everybody

there's no cut or mold

but we should be praying and asking God to show us

and teach us on how to do this

and there's a reason why God said men love your wives

because he knew we were going to stink at that

and we do

and women respect your husbands

because they're going to mess up

you're going to see them fail more than anybody else in the world sees them fail

and the whole world may respect them and think they're amazing

but you see the worst of them

and yet you're called to respect them still

there's a reason why God commanded us to do that

and it's not easy

nothing that God has ever called us to do is easy

but it's absolutely worth it

let's pray and we'll ask the team to come

Father God, thank you for the opportunity to be here once again

Jesus, we ask that you would

work and move in our hearts

that you would speak powerfully

and Lord, as we struggle

to do all the things you've called us to

Lord, we pray that you would fill us with your spirit

and empower us to be obedient

to love you, to serve you

and to be willing to put our spouses first

and give them all that we are

because it's what you've called us to do

we love you and we ask in Jesus' name