the Yoke of Marriage | Pastor Di Beals | Venture Church

Yeah, come on, I'm pretty excited about that. I'm not

gonna lie. I'm really excited for construction to be over.

I'm so grateful though. But if I haven't met you,

I am My name is Die. I'm part of the

team here at our Mill Creek campus and it's my

privilege to complete our two week marriage series. And I

don't know about you, but I felt very intimidated by

week two of a two week marriage series. What are

what do you? How do you summarize all the things

that you should say? And that is why we are

following this little series with our marriage conference in February.

And somebody asked me in the lobby after the first service,

what are you doing at the marriage conference? I said,

think of it like a home depot workshop where you

go and learn how to use the tools. That's pretty good, right,

all right, okay, so we hope that you will take

advantage of that for building strong marriage, which is lifelong work.

By the way, you don't get to a point where

you get to stop tending to the marriage or where

there is no need for maintenance for relationships.

So that's an important piece.

But where do you go for week two of a

two week marriage series. Well, today we're going to use

Ephesians five twenty one as our foundation. Before I read

that verse, I just want to note, if you've been

around at all for any length of time, you know

that we just completed a series through the Book of Ephesians.

We actually completed it in December, and our final message

in that series was preached by Pastor Morgan, and he

did an incredible job actually of painting the picture that

Ephesians five gives us for Christian marriages and households. And

I don't want to repreach that sermon. So this is

a good place for me to direct you there. Maybe

you need to listen to it again, or if you

haven't heard it, I would encourage you to go and

listen to that message.

So I'm going to.

Use Ephesians five twenty one as the foundation without repreaching

Morgan's message.

So Ephesians five.

Twenty one says, quite plainly, submit to one another out

of reverence for Christ. Submit to one another out of

reverence for Christ. And now we need to pray. So

please join me. Lord, we see in your word right

there something that is really hard for us to do.

So God, you know what season each person in this

room and watching online and listening even in the weeks

to come. You know which season we're in. You know

where we're at and how this verse is difficult for us.

And so Lord, we want to learn. That's why we

come here. We want to grow, and we want to

be challenged, and also Lord, we want to be encouraged.

So I pray God that you would be the one

who speaks to us, that you would speak challenge, but

you would also speak truth through me, and that you

would bring encouragement. It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

All right, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

That the different translations all say it almost exactly the same.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Where the different translations of the Bible differ is.

Where they put that verse.

And if you have a paper Bible, and sometimes digital

bibles will have this too, where they have a subheading

inside of a chapter. Well, the paper Bible that I

happen to have with me today has a subheading in

chapter five that says living by the Spirit's Power, but

it doesn't put this verse in that subheading. It saves

it for the next little subheading, which is Spirit guided relationships,

or your Bible might say husbands and wives or husband.

And one life relationships.

And I think it's really important to note that the

different translations move this verse around. But what Bible scholars

would agree on is that this verse is an important

bridge between those two sections. So it's a bridge between

this section about living by the Spirit's power or what

does it look like to have a spirit filled life,

and then the next section, which is how do we

live in relationship spirit filled relationship with each other, specifically

husbands and wives. So you have these qualities of a

spirit filled life, and this verse Ephesians five twenty one

is like the summary of that list of qualities of

a spirit filled life.

It's as if Paul is saying, if.

You live a spirit, if you're filled with Jesus, if

you're filled with the Spirit, you will come to a

point where you will lay down your selfishness and lay

down your pride, and in humility you will I'll submit

to the people around you. You will submit in a

manner to serve them. In other words, spirit filled submission

is the foundation for marriage with me. So far, that's hard.

I mean, chew on that just for a second. Let me,

Let me sink. Let that sink in spirit filled submission

being the foundation for marriage. Submitting to each other is

a critical foundational piece. Okay, So let me just hit

this from another angle. I want to talk for a

second about the word submission. So Paul is writing this

in Greek. Greek was the predominant language of his day

and age. But Paul is writing in ancient Near East

history for us, So he's he's writing in Greek, but

he's writing to a region that has Greek speaking people

and Hebrew speaking people, and it is a Hebrew culture

that he has grown up in because he is Jewish. Okay,

So Paul, a Jewish guy who grew up speaking Hebrew,

is now writing this in Greek, but he writes from

that Hebrew style. Another way to say that is Hebraic.

So he has a Hebraic style. What does that mean?

A Hebraic style is what can we use as a

word or an explanation that draws an image or an

illustration to the reader or the hearer's mind. Anyone visual

in this place super visual. So if a visual illustration

is used, that usually helps me.

To understand it. That's what Paul's doing.

We just miss it in the fact that it's been

translated to English.

Okay.

So the Greek words here for submit in one another,

because that's what it says, submit to one another. The

Greek words for those two words are associated with a

Hebrew picture of something that was very common in that

day and age in the culture, and that was a yoke,

a yoke. Okay, So we have an illustration for you.

This is not for you to cue the ball and

chain jokes of a marriage, okay, because I know somebody

thought that.

A yoke I mean.

Quite obviously links together to animals at this time period,

usually to oxen, and from a Hebraic mindset, mutual submission. Okay,

that's what we're talking about here, submitting to one another.

Mutual submission can't be about hierarchy, it can't be about power,

and it can't be about control. It's about the shared

responsibility or the shared commitment or the shared covenant of

this yoke. They share it, They share the covenant, and

they share the yoke, and it's a responsibility before God

to fulfill the commitment that comes with that yoke. So

the Hebrew word for that kind of commitment, that kind

of covenant is the word has said, and it is

actually descriptive of the covenantal love of God who is

unendingly faithful and will never leave us. Okay, so all

of those things that I just said build this picture

of what a marriage, relationship and commitment is all about.

It is a covenantal love that is committed to faithful,

unending faithfulness.

And hard work.

Now picture with me, or look at the picture if

you're not a visual person.

Two oxen under one yoke. Got it.

We can see that they're together, they're side by side.

There's not one out in front of the other. There's

not one trailing along behind the yoke. And I didn't

know this until I did a little bit of research.

But the yoke that is linking them is chosen specifically

for the two animals that it's linking. So, in other words,

if you have big animals, you choose a heavier yoke

and it's wider. If you have smaller animals, you choose

a smaller yoke and it's not as heavy. So it's

tailored to their size, their temperament, their weight. The yolk

rests equally on both of their shoulders. That feels obvious,

but it's an important piece, and neither ox can choose

the direction on their own. They must work together to

choose the direction that they will walk in time together.

In progress happens as they move together. It only works,

it only works if they both submit to the yoke. Okay,

you're probably totally making all the correlations already in your mind.

But before you do that, I want to walk this

yolk piece out just a little bit longer. So hang

with me throughout the ancient Near East. Okay, so we're

talking going back in time throughout the ancient Near East.

The yolk was actually a technological advancement.

Okay.

So this was a piece of technology that you could

use this device to connect two animals, because two are

better than one. They can carry your heavier loads. They

can pull a heavier plow, so they can flow up

ground that is harder to plow. They can haul more

things more weight, they can do more threshing of wheat together.

So yolks were incredibly important economically.

Okay.

If you are a farmer and your livelihood and feeding

your family are dependent on what you can produce in

a field, then the yolk is really important because you

can produce more, not only to feed your family, but

to sell as your livelihood. The law, yes, or the

breaking of a yoke was an incredible economic setback. Breaking

this device or the loss of this device was a

serious economic setback.

Okay, let's talk.

Biblically for just a second too, because yolkes have a

lot of biblical usage and biblical symbolism. If you did

a quick study through the Old Testament of your Bible

at some point, and you looked for all the places

that a yoke is used in scripture, you're going to

find that it often symbolizes political subjugation or oppression. It

often symbolizes God's divine authority, and it often symbolizes God's discipline.

Why well, if Israel was under the yoke of another nation,

that's a way of saying that they're oppressed by another nation.

And here's the thing. This is because, and this is

so important for us to catch. This is because the

struggled to remain yoked to God.

First.

Israel's responsibility was first to be yoked to God, to

be in time, walking in time, and in rhythm with God.

Now we can look at this picture and we see

they're not free.

And so let me be very clear about this.

It can look like these animals would be free if

they weren't yoked together. But an animal that is not

yoked as a part of a team that is doing

work that is producing, is actually an animal that is idle,

and that idleness leads to poverty. Now, I'm not trying

to compare you and I to animals, but I think

we can see the correlation there that when we're not

working in teamwork first with God, but then with our partner.

If you are married, or in a dating or engaged relationship,

or even in friendship.

Relationships, these rules to apply.

When we are not working together in partnership with God,

subject to God, submitted to God, underneath a yoke, we

tend towards idleness, and that is not good for us.

It's an important spiritual point. The goal of a marriage

relationship is to be yoked together together, pulling towards Jesus. Okay,

Jesus underscores just one other piece of this, and then

we're like, what are we going to do with it?

And he underscores a piece of this when he says

in Matthew eleven twenty nine that we should take his

yoke upon us because his yoke is anyone know easy

or light? Maybe your translation says, when we yoke ourselves

to Jesus, we're putting ourselves in lockstep with Jesus, and

he doesn't put a heavy, overburdening yoke on us. That's

the thing is when Israel wouldn't obey God, it's like

he was saying, Okay, if you're we're not gonna be

yoked to me, I'm gonna let you be yoked to

someone who's gonna crush you. They're gonna put a weight

on you that is far too heavy for you. But

here we have Jesus saying, but if you'll be yoked

to me, if you'll be yoked to the Father, we're

gonna put the right size of a yoke on you,

and we're gonna carry the weight anyway. That is an

incredible spiritual principle for us. So Jesus bears the weight,

He adjusts the pace, and.

He helps us find the right direction to go.

And together, yoked with Jesus, we are productive and we

have purpose. So now let's do what your head already

was doing. Let's take the yoke into marriage. I love

this verse Amos three to three because I also think

it's hilarious.

It says, can two people.

Walk together without agreeing on the direction? I always want

to put duh. Can two people walk together but not

agree on where they're going? No, they're gonna end up

going in two different directions. Now, for those of you

that are listening right now, in this room or online,

who are married, you entered into and maybe you didn't

even know, but you entered into a covenant relationship before God.

You willingly took the yoke of marriage with your partner.

The two of you under one yoke, walking together, side

by side, not one of you in front, not one

of you trailing behind, neither of you off to one

side or the other. The yoke rests equally on both

of your shoulders. And this is how progress happens when

you carry the yoke together. It only works if both

of you submit to the yoke of marriage. And in

a marriage, the yoke is not negative. It's not a

ball and chain. It represents we're both committed, we both

share the work. We're in this together. It's teamwork. We're

going the same direction, we're following the Lord. Now, I

just want to pause because I mean, I can look

at your faces, and some of you I know, and

I know your stories, and I know that you might

be sitting here or you're watching and you're already discouraged

because you're thinking, I mean, I wish.

My marriage would have worked.

If you're not if you're not married, because divorce is

part of your story, and you're thinking, I mean, I'm

the one that tried, and I was married to somebody

who wasn't participating in this, or I wish I would

have known this, I would have done things differently. I

do carry a lot of the fault. Whatever your story is,

please hear me say this. This is not a message

of condemnation. The grace of the Lord is unfailing for

us and never ending for us.

So this is for us.

Who are married, or if you want to be married

or planned to be married in your future, maybe you're

engaged and you're working towards marriage. This is for us

to understand the commitment and the commitment level. We take

a yoke and work together. This is how we progress.

So really the yoke is unity and teamwork. So to

make sure we've got this, let me just summarize that

part Biblical design of marriage. What is the Bible's design,

God's design for our marriage is that two people first

submitted to God and then submitted or yoked together. That's

the picture that comes with this.

Guess with me so far? Okay?

Good, Now that was laid out for us from the beginning,

so let's use some other language to understand that. Now,

we did a series through the book of Genesis, so

if you've been around for any length of time, I

actually had the message where I used this verse in

Genesis chapter two that I'm in a reference now.

So maybe you've heard this before.

It's a good reminder, and it's good if you've never

heard it to understand this. In Genesis two eighteen, God

says it is not good for man to be alone,

so I'll make a helper who is just right for him.

A helper.

Your translation of the Bible might say help mate, and

I just despise. I despise that translation because I think

I grew up. I'm very visual, and I think I

grew up with this picture of God made man and

then he said, oh, you need a helper, So I'm

going to make this woman for you, and you patter

on the head a lot and say thanks for helping me,

that is actually entirely incorrect.

So if you look at the two.

Hebrew words that we translate into helper or help mate,

the words are etzer connecto, which means help opposition. And

you can imagine a translator trying to translate into English

went help opposition. What do I do with that? Maybe

that's not what they meant. Maybe what they meant was

help may or help er. But actually a help opposition

is entirely the point. And again you have to understand

that in Hebrew it's word pictures. It's illustrations that are

supposed to come to your mind. What's the illustration of

a help opposer? Well, it's a tent held up by

two poles.

Imagine the two poles.

To hold up a tent must be leaning equally against

each other. It's logical right. They must help each other

stay standing by equally opposing each other. If one opposes

too hard, the tent falls. They cannot stay standing. If

one does not do its job at all, or thinks

I don't have to try very hard, or doesn't submit,

this is the picture of submission.

If one does not submit to the other, does not

lean in, both holes fall. You guys with me on that.

Sometimes I hear people say, well, he's not doing his job,

so I'm not gonna do mine, Or she's not doing

her part, so I'm not gonna try either.

Both of you fall. You both fall.

Now, what's underneath the tent In Hebrew culture we're talking

ancient nearies history. Your family lives under the tent, and

what you are holding up is not just your marriage,

it's the life underneath your marriage as well. So it's

incredibly important that the tent remains standing. So in God's

original design, man and woman are teamed together, yoke together,

or help opposing each other. And then Sean mentioned last

week in his message that in Genesis two twenty four,

God says, when two come together, they're united into one

one unit, one team, yoke together, working together in unity

together to follow God. And this goes wrong in all

sorts of ways. And I don't even have to list

them all, but I mean under a literal yoke, I mean,

if we just talk about animals for a second, under

a literal yoke, if one pulls ahead, it twists the yoke,

which grinds into the back or the neck of the

other one.

If one pulls to the side.

Either the pair will come to a dead stop fighting

over which way they're going to go, or they'll just

come to a dead stop and not fight and not

go anywhere, so they cannot have forward motion. If one lags,

they both suffer in what they can produce or where

they're going because one is lagging. You can see the

correlations to marriage. What about if one partner is following

Jesus and one is not. And if you're living that,

you already know how much harder the work is for

the team when they're not in agreement of which direction

they're going to go. Now, some of you, maybe if

that's your scenario, you found Jesus after you're already married,

and you're like.

Well, I fall it or known.

But some of you made the choice to team yourself

with somebody that is going a different direction than you,

and you understand how much more work it is, how

much strain it is on the team. What if one

has shut down and refuses to try. What if one

is decided I don't really care what you do. I'm

going my own way. I'm taking care of me. I'm

going to do what I want to do. The work

of the team becomes incredibly difficult or not doable at all.

The team cannot go forward, the tent falls, and the

life that is under it is affected by that, and

a lot of times the humans we go back to

our human illustration. The humans start to believe this would

be a whole lot easier if I were teamed to

a different partner, if I had a different teammate. I

bet this wouldn't be hard at all. It's just that

I got a bad teammate. But the biblical mindset of

marriage teaches us that the goal is that we be

faithful to the shared calling.

What's the calling?

Pursue Jesus, be yoake to Jesus. So that means the

team works together to follow Jesus. But they work together

to help each other follow Jesus as well. And while

you cannot control your partner's faithfulness to that calling, you

can control yours.

Lots of caveats come here.

There's absolutely no place for abuse in a relationship. There's

absolutely there's just no way to work in that relationship.

It is really difficult to make a relationship a teamwork.

Team teamwork work if one person won't stay faithful to

the team. But this is not a message about the

outclauses for you. This is a message or a reminder

to those of you who are married, or instruction for

those of you who do desire to be married or

plan to be married, that the two of you have

reciprocal obligation. When becoming one, you both have responsibility to

the other.

When you are married.

You willingly accept the restrictions on your freedom. You willingly

accept the demands for adjustment so that you can walk

in time together. And you willingly accept the requirement for

humility in order to submit to each other for the

good of the team, for the good of the team,

for the good of the team. That's the mantra, for

the good of the team, for the good of the team.

If you don't know me very well, I'm married to Brandon,

the guy that was on the stage with the sling,

and we've been married for thirty three years and there

have been times in our marriage that were hard. Just

like for you, we are not like oh your pastors.

Marriage is easy. No marriage takes work, and there have

been times that it has been incredibly difficult to navigate.

There are times I know, if you know us, you'll

be really surprised to know that two very strong willed

people who both think that they know the right way

to go have a hard time both going the same direction.

I'm right, No, there have been times that we have

forgotten that we are not each other's enemy, that we're

actually a team, and that for the good of the team,

I might have to lay down what I want in

order that the team benefits and we can both continue

fulfilling our calling, which is following Jesus. There have been

times where it's especially hard, and the temptation is to

push the other person away or to just stop trying,

or to fight the yolke that's on us. And we

came up with something years ago that we still use

and I will offer it to you. You can use

it as well if it helps you. And that is

when we are particularly fighting the yoak, we stop and

look at each other and one of us will say, hey,

I'm team Beals like you and me.

We're a team. I'm for you, I'm with you.

Where you're going is where I'm going, and together we

can do anything. I mean, there have been times Brandon's

had to look at me and say, look, I'm team

Beals and together you and me, babe, we can do anything.

There is so much power.

In uniting and mutually submitting in order that you can

continue to move forward. That is mine and Brandon's way

of saying, I'm laying.

Down me for we.

We is more important, and then me, I'll lay down

me so that I can have we for the good

of the team. That is not easier if we were

married to somebody else. By the way, that's not like, oh, well,

you guys are just naturally good at marriage because of

your profession.

No, it's not easier.

It's just simply work that is put in and selfishness that.

Is crucified regularly.

This kind of mutual submission says, I'll put your needs first,

wolf putting someone else's needs first. I mean maybe an

infant like okay, well you know, once you're seven, take

care of yourself, kid. I don't want to have to

put you first. I want to eat hot food and

take a shower. I do truly believe, though, that if

one person will start the i'll put your needs first action,

the other will eventually follow. It's not a one hundred

percent it's not a magical formula. But I do truly

believe and have seen that that works.

Over time.

Now we're going to quickly look at a picture. This

is from the book Love and Respect. If you've read

this book, it is this is not my idea. This

comes from the book. This is called the crazy cycle,

and it has he and she pronouns, but really this

could be either him or her in a relationship. But

it does play out this way pretty often. So you

let's use the pronouns. He or somebody wants love but

doesn't get it so reacts by not giving respect. And

then the other partner, who feels disrespected, says, well, I'm

not going to show you love because you're not giving

me respect. And so then person number one feels unloved

and won't show respect, and you can see it's an

unbreak broken circle. It just continues on for eternity. And

tell someone says, I'll break the crazy cycle. I'll be

the one that will show the love. I'll be the

one that will show the respect rather than holding out

because I'm not getting what I need. This is me

laying down me in order to benefit we. If you're

here and you're hoping or planning to be married, scripture

adds one more really critical piece for us here.

And Paul says it.

He says, don't be yoked together with unbelievers. And you've

maybe heard that, if you've grown up in church, you've

heard don't be yoked to an unbeliever.

Like, what does that actually mean? Well, now we have

a picture for it.

And what happens when we're yoked with an unbeliever is

just imagine you have two mismatched animals. You're not an animal,

but two mismatched animals. You have a big animal and

a smaller animal, and the yoke is too heavy for

one and.

Too light for the other, and it sits crooked.

On them, and one is going one direction and one's

going another, and so they're just having a difficult time

gaining ground. Now, you're an adult with free choice. You

can choose who you want to choose. But when you

choose to mismatch yourself in a team, the work is

just much more difficult to do. The last piece to

consider before we just tie this up and bring it

home is a question, And the question is why why

submit to each other?

Why do that?

I mean, besides the ineritive benefit of being matched with

someone who is going the same direction as you and

is in the same space, in life or wants the

same things like besides just that picture of a yoke

and how important it is, and besides the fact that

you know that's how God set it up and it's

his design.

It's right there in the verse the why.

So Ephesians five twenty one again submit to one another

out of reverence for Christ. When we submit to each other,

we honor Jesus. When we lay down our own wants

or our own selfishness for the good of the team,

that honors Jesus. When we say, Okay, I'm not going

to give up on this and stop working because you're

not doing what I think you should be doing, we

honor Jesus, and honoring Jesus is what we want. I've

heard it said that a healthy Christian marriage is the

sermon you preach to the world, and I will add

it is the best gift you can give your children.

And I hear.

People say things like, well, you know, we don't really

get along, or we have this issue or that issue,

but we're staying together for the kids.

That's not helping.

Honoring Jesus is our goal, and being a we not

a me takes an incredible amount of maturity and humility,

and that's what Jesus is asking of us. Will you

lay down yourself for the good of the team, and

the team if you have children, includes them. They're underneath

that tent with you. I want to talk for just

one second to the singles in the room. If you're

in this room and you are single, maybe you've never

been married, maybe you've come out of a difficult relationship.

Maybe it's your deepest desire that God would would give

you someone to share your life with, and maybe you

feel like you've waited a really long time for that.

Can I first say thank you for letting us do

a two week series two married people. It's incredibly important

for the health of our community and the health of

our church and the health of our kids.

That's important.

I also deeply hope that you are taking notes and

learning so that you will take a healthy you into

that relationship. And I want to put my faith with

yours and believe that God will bring an answer to

your prayers. If you desire to spend your life with someone,

that He will bring someone. So I'm going to include

you in that prayer that I'm going to pray in

just a moment, But to the married people. I want

to say to you, can we actually do something here?

Can we? I don't know if you've heard the stats.

The stats say that there's just as many divorces in

the church as out of the church. And I just think,

you know, I'm not trying to equalize everything. I know

there's all kinds of outlying circumstances, and I just think,

what if Jesus did a work of healing in us

where we needed healing, and he kind of injected us

with some effort and some I'm going to fight for

this effort inside of us determination.

That would set us apart from what the world sees

that our kids here.

Adventure would see moms and dads who are fighting for

what matters, which is the good of the team.

I don't know where you need healing. I don't know where.

Maybe you have a thriving marriage and you're like, hey,

we're in this great we need you. There's lots of

couples that could use a great example, and we would

love for that. But also, you never get to be

done nurturing. You still got to nurture the thing. You're

in it thirty years, forty years, congratulations, keep working because

it is a thing that is alive, and things that

are alive continue to need to be nurtured. I'm going

to invite you to buy your heads because we're going

to close in prayer. And as you're doing that, I

realize maybe this has stirred something up for you. Maybe

you need a coach, maybe you need some advice, maybe

you need some encouragement, maybe you need all of those,

or maybe you have those things to offer. We want

to put you together. That's what the marriage conference is

also for. We want to put healthy marriages in a

position to coach marriages that could use some advice or

some direction. And also we want to ask the Lord

to bring healings. So would you join me as I pray?

Lord?

First, I just ask for our single friends.

And they're all over the spectrum.

Some are waiting, and they're waiting and they're wondering, God,

do you see me?

Do you remember me? Do you hear me?

I'm alone? I don't want to be alone. And Lord,

you have wired them with the desire to spend their

life with someone. And we come alongside of them and

say we're believing that in their patience, you're going to

show yourself to them. They're yoking themselves to you. But

also you're gonna bring the desire of their heart and

the answer to their prayer. Lord, For those who are

single and they don't want to be maybe they were

in a marriage that didn't make it, or maybe they've

lost their spouse and they desire to spend their life

with someone the remainder of their life. Lord, we're asking

for those people as well, that as they fix their

eyes on you and link themselves to you, yoke themselves

to you. First you will bring the right teammate for

them to share their life with.

And then God, for.

The marriages and the almost married relationships in our midst

We want to do this right.

Lord.

This is not we don't enter into a marriage and

it's practice.

We want, we want to be.

In a marriage that is a commitment, a covenant commitment

modeled after Your covenant, unending faithful love for us.

And so Lord, we need you help. Lord.

I'm asking for those that need healing or forgiveness.

We're asking for your healing.

And forgiveness Lord, for those that are bringing things into

their marriage that they should not be bringing into it. Lord,

I pray your conviction and then you would give us

the strength to bring health and to remove the things

that should not be brought. In Lord, for those who

are responding in anger and unkindness, we pray that as

we're filled with your spirit, we would be able to

submit to one another out of reverence for you. We

do this for you, Jesus, and you know it's not easy.

So we need your help.

And I'm asking that you would help us so that

our marriages can be healthy, so they can preach a

message to this world and be a safe place for

the kids of our families in this community.

It's in your name, we pray. Amen.

Well, hey, this morning, as we prepare to close, I

want to just remind you of a couple of things.

This is a great opportunity to just point you back

to that marriage conference that's coming out if you haven't

registered already, I really want to encourage you to be

part of that. My wife and myself will be there.

We'd love to have you there as well. So I

want to encourage you before you leave today just take

some take a minute and register for that invest in

your marriage by taking that little step today and also

last week, Pastor Sean gave us an opportunity to fill

out a survey on marriage. If you're sixteen or and

older and married, I want to I want to direct

you to this survey. It's on our What's Next page

right now, there's a link there. And ultimately, all this

is is just it helps you to see kind of

like where you're at. And we just believe that you

can't really figure out where you want to go until

you figure out where you are, and so it helps

just kind of navigate like, hey, where are you at

realistically in your marriage right now? And so I want

to point your attention there. Go to our What's Next page.

You'll see that link right there that you can fill

out on your way home. It takes about four minutes

to do, and we encourage you to do that. Why

don't you stand your feet with us all over this room.

I want to thank you so much for being here

with us at Venture Church. If this was your first

time here, make sure to swing by the welcome table.

We'd love to shake your hand and get to know

you before you leave. God bless you guys, and we'll

see you next week.