It’s Complicated – Married God’s Way

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Acte Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit actus.tv.

Well, I'm really excited you came to church today.

Today, I'm starting a new series of messages that I'm really excited about.

The series is called It's Complicated.

And what we're going to talk about for these next few weeks is we're going to talk about our relationships, because relationships, in my opinion, are the predictor of how good or bad, how happy or sad your life will feel.

Like I learned a lot of things early in life.

Like if home life is good, if my marriage is good, if my family is good, everything around me can feel bad, but as long as that's good, I'm good.

Now here's the funny thing.

Before the first service this morning, I was about to walk out and preach, and Liz whispered to me, I'm telling you, like right before I walked out, she goes, Um, you're not gonna tell any like bad stories about our marriage, are you?

I said, I don't know.

Let's see, let's see how it goes.

And so let's see how it goes.

Today, I want to talk to you about the most important relationship in your life, your marriage.

And here's what I want you to hear up front.

It's really easy to hear a topic like this and to think, well, this doesn't apply to me.

Maybe you find yourself in high school or in college and you're not yet married.

Listen to me.

The principles apply to all of your relationships, but do me a favor and just get this in your heart, put it in the medicine cabinet of your life.

You have no idea how God will use this to help you in your future.

Some of you are married, and this is gonna be right up your alley.

Some of you are gonna be looking back at a season in your life when you were married and it's gonna elicit some emotions.

The principles apply to all of us.

Here's the thing I need you to know right up front.

Um, whenever I preach on a topic, I know that I'm going to deal with it that week.

That's just how it works.

Like, like if I'm preaching on marriage for whatever reason, Liz and I always seem to have one of the craziest fights we've ever had, craziest arguments you've ever had.

So whenever I talk about something, I deal with it.

That's why this is only gonna be a one-week series, and next week I'm gonna teach a series called How to Be a Handsome, humble billionaire, because I want that.

Okay.

Told you whenever I preach on something, we deal with it.

This week on Friday, I don't even know what happened, but Liz and I had one of those arguments, that intense fellowship, those good kinds of like arguing, dealing with it.

And it wasn't like a little passing thing, it was one of those multi-hour kind of conversations, you know what I'm talking about.

And it was bad.

It was an awkward, it was just we were at it with each other, and it was funny because we kind of resolved it, but then you know, like you you've been fighting, and then the fight ends, and you're still just kind of like upset about it, you're still kind of just dealing with it.

And then and then yesterday happened.

And yesterday, I had a moment that reset everything for me.

Yesterday, I went to the hospital to visit a dear friend, a person who's been a friend for over 20 years.

He'd been a member of our church for years, one of the most encouraging people I've ever known, which is sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet man.

And he went into the hospital a couple weeks ago.

Most people didn't know he was sick.

For the last two weeks, I visited it several times.

And yesterday I went to the hospital and prayed with him as he was in palliative care.

Prayed with him about an hour before he stepped out of this eternity and took his first breath in the presence of Jesus in all of eternity in heaven.

I don't know if you've ever had a moment like this.

Maybe it's sitting at a funeral, maybe it's when you find out someone you love passed away.

But it's funny because how in the light of eternity the problems that we face here seem small, isn't it?

Like when you realize how short this life is.

The book of James compares life to a vapor.

It's like here for a moment, it's like a mist, and then it just dissipates, then it's it's gone.

And it's funny because it's like I was looking at that moment, I was in the room with this guy right before he passed away, and it's like I came home, and whatever we were arguing about, just it didn't really matter.

The reason I tell you that story is this.

Number one, I need you to hear this that if you find yourself walking through some marriage challenges, I need you to know you're you're not alone in this.

Marriage, it's complicated because it's challenging, because it's two lives becoming one, but it's not just two lives, it's two egos, it's two personalities, it's two opinions, it's two different people becoming one.

But the other reason marriage is challenging and it's complicated is because many of us have a wrong picture of it.

In fact, I want you to think about our first pictures of marriage.

Think back to when you were a child, and I want you to think about your earliest memories of fairy tales, of beautiful stories.

How do they all start?

Once upon a time, and how do they end?

And they lived happily ever after.

And it's beautiful, and that's the stories we're told when we're little.

The problem is if you've been married for more than 37 seconds, you know this that somewhere between once upon a time and happily ever after, there's a lot of complicated moments, right?

There's some arguments, there's some little things like where are we gonna get dinner tonight?

And you can't agree on it, and then there's other arguments like should we have children, should we move, should we take this job?

There's all kinds of things in between once upon a time and happily ever after.

In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses this and he talks about love and he challenges us to mature up a little bit.

1 Corinthians 13 is what's called the love chapter, and at the towards the middle, Paul says this when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, and I thought as a child.

But when I became a man, when I grew up, I put away childish things.

Here's what I want to challenge you with today, whether you're married or not married, whether you're on the front end of your life and you're making decisions now that will affect your future, or you find yourself in a different season of life, I want us to move from immature love to a mature, responsible view of what love and marriage is.

And here's the question that really determines whether your love is selfish and self-centered or other's focused.

Here it is, ready?

What does love require of me?

What does love require of me?

And if you think love is a fairy tale and love is fun and it's all sunshine and roses, I've got good news and bad news is the good news is you're wrong, the bad news is you're wrong.

Like it's just how it is.

Like it's gonna require something of you.

An immature love is me centered, a mature love is others centered.

Now we live in a world that has a broken view of marriage.

We we just do.

According to the most recent statistics I can find, about 40% of marriages today end in divorce.

Like it's really easy to say this, that the way of the world obviously isn't working.

So, how does the way of the world view marriage?

It's really simply this the world views marriage as a contract.

It's a contract, it's a piece of paper.

It's like we sign our names on something and then we're married in the eyes of the government, we're married, it's a contract.

And think about a contract, okay?

In a contract, we protect our rights and we limit our responsibilities.

Let me try to explain it to you like this, okay?

You got a cell phone?

You have a cell phone contract.

So when you signed up with ATT or Verizon, you protect your rights.

You say, by signing this contract, the cell phone provider is gonna give me 99.9% cell phone coverage all the time.

That's my rights, and I'm gonna limit my responsibilities.

I'm only gonna pay$59 a month, that's all I'm gonna be responsible for.

That's how a contract works.

Now, in a contract, what's interesting is there's always buried in the fine print what's called a disillusion clause.

And a disillusion clause says this if one party needs to break the contract for any reason, we'll tear up the contract, but there's gonna be a fee.

You have to pay$199, and then we can go our separate ways.

This is how the world views marriage.

Pay attention the next time you walk past one of those tabloids, like the National Inquirer.

Read all the headlines.

This couple breaking up, they're splitting up, this person's getting the kids.

It's all contractual kind of language.

The way the world views marriage is as long as my needs are getting met and as long as you're keeping me happy, I'll stay married.

But the moment I'm no longer happy, we'll tear up the contract and we'll pay the fee and we'll move on.

What is the fee?

We'll split all of our assets, we'll figure out where the kids go for the weekend.

That's how the world views marriage.

And listen to me, friends, it is broken, it's messed up.

40% of marriages today end in divorce.

If I told you that if you go home the way you normally drive home, there's a 40% chance you would be in a fatal car accident.

Would you take that path?

Of course not.

And yet that's what the world does.

Listen to me, God's way is better.

God's way is the best way.

The world views marriage as a contract, but God views marriage as a covenant.

What is a covenant?

A covenant is a sacred relationship initiated by God, established by promise, and sustained by faithfulness.

A covenant is really not with each other, it's with God.

When you get married, you say to God, God, you've brought us together.

My promise is to you.

My solemn, sacred, holy commitment is to you and to you alone.

I commit to you that I will love her for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

And the only escape clause to your covenant is till death do us part.

Now, what's interesting is that's a good definition of covenant.

The interesting word in Hebrew is the word bereith.

And berith, Lord for covenant, literally means this.

It means cut.

It is this idea.

Like think about the Old Testament if you've read the Bible.

One of the types of covenants is what's called a blood covenant, where people would slip their wrist and touch their blood together.

It was symbolically saying, My blood is now in you, and your blood is in me, and now that our blood is intermingled, we can now no longer get our individual atoms of blood back from each other.

It's a it's a forever kind of deal.

This was symbolic.

Um, in in ancient times, weddings were way more interesting than they are now, because they would take an animal, slice it in half, and place half on either side of the aisle.

And when a bride and groom were to walk down the aisle, they would walk through this severed carcass of an animal, and they would literally be saying to each other, We're making a covenant, and should we break this covenant, this cut, should this happen, may what happened to the animal happen to us.

Listen to me, I've done like 150 weddings.

Ain't nobody cut an animal in half at any of the weddings I've ever done.

Our weddings are soup sporing, everybody.

That's what they are.

Okay?

I want you to see this.

The world used marriage as a contract where we protect our rights and we limit our responsibilities.

God used marriage as a covenant, and in a covenant, we give up our rights and we pick up our responsibilities.

Today, what I want to do is I want to talk to you about the rights we give up and the responsibilities we pick up, and I want to see what God would say to us about how our marriages can serve as a beacon of light and hope to the world around us.

Let me give you one or two quick words of advice up front before I get into it.

The first one is this this is for you, not the person you're sitting next to.

Like, like a lot of people hear messages like this, and they they treat the words of God like a window that we look through at our spouse instead of a mirror that we look back at our souls.

I'm speaking to you, not your spouse.

Number two, the Holy Spirit is able to speak to us and your spouse, and you're not the Holy Spirit.

So, what does that mean?

Don't you dare elbow them and be like, mm-hmm, girl, write that down.

Don't do that, okay?

Genesis chapter one says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The Hebrew phrase is this phrase, ex nielho.

It literally means with the power of his voice, God speaks the world into existence.

He hangs the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Was anybody else fascinated by the Artemis II this week?

The these astronauts flying around the moon?

I mean, all of it screams of his grandeur and his majesty and his splendor.

And God creates the sun, the moon, and the stars.

He creates the earth and he fills the land with trees and plants and vegetation.

He fills the seas with fish and the sky with birds.

And at the end of his creation, he pushes some dirt together and breathes into the nostrils of this mound of dirt the breath of life.

And the first man is created named Adam.

Adam literally means ruddy or red, like the clay that was designed to be a man.

And God makes man, and Adam is in this place called the Garden of Eden.

Eden means pleasure and delight.

He's literally in this beautiful place enjoying all of it.

The whole world is his oyster.

He spends all day doing whatever he wants.

He hangs out with animals, he's naked.

I mean, honestly, the whole world is his toilet.

Is there any world other than that that a man might want?

Just peas wherever he wants to pee.

Just does what he wants to do.

And God notices something.

God notices that even though he made Adam for relationship with him and he's enjoying this life, there was a loneliness in him.

And God, I want you to see this, could have pushed some more dirt together and breathed in again and created woman, but I want you to notice how God does it.

Genesis chapter 2 says this.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep.

Probably not that hard.

And while he was sleeping, look what he does.

He took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh.

He cuts Adam.

Cut their wreath.

Covenant.

This is the first kind of covenant we see in Scripture.

God could have formed dirt to breathe into life the woman, but He He cuts, He makes a covenant with the man.

And Scripture goes on and says this.

Then the Lord made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man and he brought her to the man.

Pause here for just a moment.

You ever uh taken like a sleeping medication or had um the anesthesia at the hospital where they just knock you out?

You ever you ever had a nap so hard that you woke up and had no idea where you were?

Have you ever had this?

Okay, imagine Adam, he's knocked out cold, he's coming to, he's in kind of a haze, and he's like, Yeah, holy my rib hurts.

What happened to me?

And he looks up, and in all of the haze of this moment, he sees this person walking towards him.

And she's different than anything he's ever seen before.

And and and she's alluring and beautiful, and she's naked.

And he sees her, and his mind is blown.

And she's like him, but she's different.

She's similar, but there's differences.

Where he's strong, she's delicate.

Where there are chiseled lines on him, there are curves on her.

He sees her, and all of a sudden, Adam goes from being a bachelor, peeing all over the place wherever he wants, to being a poet.

Why?

Because, ladies, that's the power you have over a man.

We are idiots until we see you, and then we become poets.

That's what happens.

Next verse.

He sees her, and look, he becomes a poet.

The man said, ooh, this is now bone of my bones.

Flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman, for when I saw her, I was like, whoa, man.

That is the dumbest joke I tell.

And I love it so much.

I do it every time I read this verse, and no one ever laughs, and it's okay.

I do it for me.

Okay, it's for me.

She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of a man.

And then God does what God does, and he takes the story and he flips it and gives us a purpose and an intention to it.

It says this for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Pause here for just a moment, because here's what I want you to see.

One of the great killers in marriage, one of the great devastating assassins of marriage is people that don't understand this.

Like marriage, for this reason, marriage, a man will leave his father and mother.

This is important.

One of the decisions you make when you get married is that your relationship with your mom and dad shifts.

Are they still your mother and father?

Yes.

But the relationship shifts from them being in charge of you and from them being your immediate family to them being your cheerleaders, your supporters, your helpers, your friends.

But your spouse, when you get married, they become your immediate family.

When you get married, they become number one priority.

When you get married, you don't run to mommy and daddy every time things go bad.

You go to your spouse first.

Scripture says, and they were united and they became one flesh.

Let me get weird for just a moment.

The scripture tells us that they literally became one.

This is the reason that sex in the context of marriage is a gift from God.

Because it's a reminder of the covenant.

It's a reminder that two individual lives come together to become one.

In a sexual moment, two bodies are physically joined to each other.

It's a reason that after sex, there is this intimate, deep connection with each other because it's a reminder of the covenant we share with each other.

This is the reason, by the way, that God is not some angry, vindictive God who's like, don't have sex, don't do that at all.

It's the reason that sex is reserved for in the context and confines of marriage, because sex outside of marriage, it's a false representative of what the covenant actually is.

It's playing as if you're in a covenant, but you're not.

So you finish the act of sex, and then it's like you look around for the person your life is committed to, and there's nobody there.

That's why you feel broken afterwards.

It's representative of the oneness of the covenant.

The next verse is so powerful.

It says this.

It says, the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Why does this matter?

Because shame often feels like the narrative of our lives, doesn't it?

It says that Adam and Eve were both naked.

Now they were physically naked, but I believe this means they were vulnerable, exposed, fully known to each other, and there was no shame, there was nothing between them.

And this is a picture, in my opinion, of a godly marriage.

It's that there is this vulnerability.

There is this, I'm fully exposed, you fully know me, and you fully love me.

This is what marriage is.

So here's what I want to do for our last few minutes together.

If a covenant is about some rights we give up and some responsibilities we pick up, I want to talk about those for just a moment.

If you're going to have a God-honoring marriage that is a testimony to the world around you, there's some rights you got to give up.

The first right is this it's the right of priority.

Priority says you are number one in my life for the rest of my life.

And here's the funny thing, I think we think this, but then we get busy.

And there's work pressure and work deadlines, and there's things to do.

And a lot of people will drift towards work because they feel celebrated at work, but they don't feel celebrated at home.

Here's another place that we give up priority, it's it's with our kids.

And I love kids.

I've got the best kids in the world, and if you think you do, I'll fight you over it.

Like I love, I love my kids.

And I need you to hear this.

While I love my kids, they're not my number one priority.

My wife is.

My kids are awesome, but they're gonna grow up and leave someday.

The one of the highest rates of divorce is in people's 50s.

It's called a gray divorce.

It's when kids leave home and mom and dad realize they centered their whole life around their kids, but now the kids are gone and they don't know what to do because they they've not prioritized their marriage to each other.

Some years ago, I had a couple come in and sat down with me, and the husband says, Pastor, tell her she's wrong.

And I'm like, Okay, about what?

And he goes, Well, we got married, we have kind of a blended family, and I have kids, and then I married her, but like I tell my daughters they're my priority, not your new mom.

And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Like that's not how it works.

When you get married, your spouse is your priority.

Can I show you another place we mess this up?

Have you ever been with somebody, but you're not with them?

You ever been with someone in the whole time?

Can you repeat that?

And we do this all the time.

Your spouse is your priority forever.

Second right we give up is the right of ownership.

Ownership is this belief that everything we have is co-owned and co-administered.

What is it?

What does it mean?

Let's talk about money first, okay?

Uh, early in our marriage, my wife and I had kids pretty early in marriage, and pretty early in marriage, we made this decision that I was gonna work outside of the home and Liz was gonna work inside of the home, and she'd be a stay-at-home mom and she'd raise our kids.

Now, let me be very clear.

I was working and she was working.

It wasn't like one wasn't working.

We just, I, my job had a paycheck, hers had something beautiful and rewarding, but no paycheck.

There was never a point in that season when I said, How dare you make a decision about money?

I earn all of our money.

Why?

Because everything we own is co-owned and co-administered.

It means every decision we make financially, it's both of us making the decision together.

Can I say something that's weird to me?

I don't have a Bible verse for this.

This is my opinion, so don't like quote me on this, but here's my opinion.

I find it really, really dumb and silly that couples will marry each other, say, I give you the rest of my life, I give you my heart, I give you my body, I give you all of me, but let's keep separate bank accounts.

It's never made sense to me.

It's like, let's be one, except in this area.

It's like you're planning in advance for the marriage to not work.

Doesn't it make sense?

In a marriage, a godly marriage, everything is co-owned and co administered.

Uh, can I um can I can I take it another step farther?

Let me get all up in your business for a second.

I'm gonna make it not sexy and then I'll make it a little sexy.

How does that sound?

First Corinthians chapter 7, Paul is teaching, and he says this to the wife's body does not belong to her alone, but also to her husband.

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

In the same way, the husband's body does.

Not belong to him alone, but also to his wife.

And I'm like, girl, you can have it anytime you want, right?

Never know where the line is.

Alright, well, let's talk to the men for a second.

Men, it's Master's Tournament Weekend.

Is Rory gonna pull it out?

I don't know, we'll see.

But if today you are planted on your couch watching your game, forgive me in advance, and your wife needs help moving something, and you keep saying, baby, just a minute, just a minute, if you keep putting her off, I've got bad news for you.

Your body doesn't belong to you, it belongs to her.

So help her.

Offer your strength to her, give your body to her.

Ladies, let me talk to you for a moment.

Your body doesn't belong to you as well.

Here's an interesting thing, and this is not always universally applicable, but I talk to so many couples over the years that have come in and complained, well, we have mismatched sex drives, and what do we do?

He wants it more or she wants it more than me.

What do we do with this?

Here's the answer, regardless of who wants it more than the other person.

Use your bodies to serve each other because it no longer belongs to you.

When you start to understand this, that marriage is a contest to see who can outserve each other, that doesn't sound awesome.

But there are times when, especially in the bedroom, when you make this decision, I'm gonna use my life and I'm gonna use my words to build you up, and I'm gonna use my body to serve you, it gets so fun.

We give up the right of priority, we give up the right of ownership, and here's one more.

We give up the right of privacy.

That means everything in my life she has full access to, and vice versa.

I don't want there to be anything between us.

I want to do this now.

There's some rights we give up, but there's some responsibilities we pick up.

I want to take you right to Scripture, and I want to read you one of the most difficult, misapplied verses in all of the Bible.

Ephesians chapter 5, verse 22.

Ephesians 5:22

Paul is gonna write three verses to women and nine verses to men.

Okay?

Three verses to women, nine to men.

I'm not saying that there's three times the responsibility for men, but there are three times the amount of verses.

Maybe we just are dumb and don't understand it.

Alright, here's the verses to learn.

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

This is one of the most misapplied, misquoted verses in the whole Bible.

Because what does submit mean?

I want you to think about high school or college for a moment.

You ever have like a big project or a paper that you had to write?

And you write the whole project, you get it all done, it's ready to go, and you come to your teacher and you just submit it.

Just means fully give.

At this point, control is out of my hands and it's entirely in your hands.

I submit this to you.

Biblical submission, ladies, means you understand that God has placed your husband in your life on purpose and for a purpose.

So it means you trust him, you support him, you cheer him on.

It means you don't cut his legs out underneath him every time he tries to start something or goes after a dream that's in his heart.

You don't do that.

And here's where it gets vulnerable.

It means you trust him with your heart, your soul, your emotions, your dreams.

Some of you have had a dream your whole life.

And the idea of sharing it with anybody feels vulnerable, you are to submit it to your husband.

It doesn't mean you're sacrificing it, it means you submit it to him.

He goes on and he says this, he says, 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 in what?

In everything.

Just be submitted to your husbands.

Three verses to the women.

Ready?

Nine verses to the men.

Boys, buckle in, it's gonna get a little bumpy for just a moment, okay?

He says, husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy.

Boys, how did Jesus love the church?

He laid his life down for it.

Do you think a wife would have a problem submitting to her husband if she knew that he would give his life just to make her dreams come true?

It's not a race to the top to get your needs met, it's a race to the back of the line to outserve each other.

He goes on cleansing her by the washing with the waters of the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

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, for we are members of his body.

And then he goes back and he quotes Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

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 Christ in the church.

Then he says, However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

I want you to see this.

Here's the crux of both passages we read.

Wives, submit to your husbands.

Husbands, love your wife as Christ love the church.

To me, it's complicated, but it's really that not that complicated.

For many years, I've pastored lots of people.

I've walked through lots of awesome marriages, and I've walked through a lot of difficult divorces.

And I've walked through lots of divorces for lots of different reasons, but I've never seen a couple model these things for each other that got divorced.

So here's the responsibilities we pick up.

Number one, I want you to love unconditionally.

Here's the problem.

All of our love has conditions, doesn't it?

It's like I'll love you if.

I'll love you if you make me happy, I'll love you if you meet my needs.

I'll love listen, kill the if.

I love you.

You get all of my love with as few conditions as I possibly can.

The only real condition should be till death to his heart.

So here's the here's the thing.

When I do a wedding, sometimes I'll pull a couple aside right before the wedding and I'll say, Let me make sure you're ready for this.

Will you choose each other?

Will you choose to forgive and choose to move past this if she was horribly dismembered in a car accident?

Will you choose to love unconditionally if you caught him in some horrendous addiction?

Will you choose love?

Things don't work out the way you expect them to go.

If he's not as kind and compassionate, if she's not as physical, like will you choose the path of love?

The second responsibility we pick up is we honor respectfully.

Honor, in my opinion, is life in a marriage.

It's you both making this decision to say, I I choose you.

I choose to honor you, I choose to respect you, I choose you.

So here's what this means.

It means you need to pay attention to the way you talk about each other.

Your words, according to the book of Proverbs, have the power of life and death in them.

What does it mean?

Ladies, if you talk trash about your husbands to your circle of girlfriends, in my opinion, you are using your words prophetically to create that kind of husband.

Amen.

Don't you dare talk about your relationship, your sex life, any of those things with anybody outside of your marriage because it's dishonoring and it's devastating to your marriage.

Our words build or they destroy.

Choose to use your words to honor.

Let me offer you a quick thought on this.

I can only speak for men because I am one.

Men gravitate towards places of honor.

So if it feels like your husband would rather be on the golf course or at work than at home, maybe home is not a place where honor is thrown around.

We got to love unconditionally.

By the way, love means loving them the way they want to be loved.

Honor means building up, not tearing down.

Finally, number three is this we submit mutually.

What does this mean?

Submission is not women only to men.

The verse before the verse we read that started, verse 22 for wives, verse 21 says, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Like you could flip this upside down and say, Because you love Jesus, you better be submitted to one another.

What does that mean?

It means the world views love as me, me, me, selfish, self-centered.

As long as my needs are met, I'm good, I'm happy, I'm great.

But in a covenant, it's you before me.

Your needs before mine.

A God honoring marriage is who can outserve each other.

A God honoring marriage is I know where I stand.

You, my wife, you are my priority, no one else.

It's you.

A God honoring marriage isn't a race to the top to get your needs met, it's a race to the back of the line to see who can outserve each other.

Told you this, and I'll say it one more time.

I've walked through a lot of really difficult circumstances with people.

I have walked and navigated some of the most unbelievable challenges you could ever begin to imagine in marriage with people.

But I've never seen a marriage fall apart.

Where the couple realize we're in a covenant with each other.

What that means is we're gonna honor God, we're gonna honor each other.

I'm gonna love my wife really well and she's gonna respect me really well.

I've never seen a marriage like that fall apart.

So today I challenge you, Axis Church.

Would you view your marriage the way God intended it?

Not as a contract that we can rip up if we're not feeling it, but a covenant where it's promised to God till death do us part.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes all across this place?

God, would you give us courage in a world where divorce feels like the norm, where unhappiness seems to run rampant?

God, give us the courage to be the kind of people who view our marriage as a gift from you, a covenant with you, and as a beacon of hope to the world around us.

God, in a world where 40% of marriages end in a plane wreck, may our marriages be a beacon of hope and light, a testimony to the world around us.

God, I thank you that as we submit to each other, as we understand what it means to love and honor and cherish each other, God, would you take our marriages and would you bless them?

So, God, I just pray, as the pastor of this house, I pray for your blessing on every marriage in this church.

God, as young people, as they're in the pre-marriage stage, I pray for wisdom and maturity to flow through them.

And I pray that now they'll make decisions that will honor their marriage for the future.

God, we'll be careful to give you all the praise and glory for it.

Thank you for blessing the marriages in our church in Jesus' name.

Your head still bowed and eyes still closed.

Maybe you came to church today and you don't know if you're right with God.

Maybe this means you've never started following Jesus, or maybe you just feel like you've walked away.

But in either case, right now, today, you want to make the decision to say, Jesus, save me and change me, be my Lord and Savior.

Would you raise your hand right now if this is you?

Thank you.

Awesome, thank you.

This is so cool.

Thank you.

I love this.

Just raise your hand if you know that today's the day you need to make the decision to follow Jesus.

Come on, at all of our locations, if this is you, I want to invite you to let Jesus change your whole life right now.

If today you want to start following Jesus, or maybe you just feel like you've walked away from him and today you need to restart following him, I challenge you to pray this prayer out loud after me and mean it with your heart.

I want you to know I told you to pray it out loud, but we won't let you pray out loud by yourself.

Our whole church stands with you in this moment.

We're all gonna pray this out loud together.

Come on, everybody say this after me.

Say, Jesus, I give you my life.

I need you to save me, change me, make my life new.

Jesus, I believe that you're the Son of God.

I believe that you gave your life for me, and I believe that you rose again from the dead.

Because of your sacrifice, my sins can be forgiven.

So today, Jesus, save me, and from this day forward, I choose to follow you.

Jesus, I love you, and I give you my life for the rest of my life.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, church man, let's celebrate with those who just made that decision.