God Wants To Help You Have A Great Marriage

Good morning.

Good morning.

Is this a great morning or what?

And I've uh I've said this before, but when we're worshiping together like this, I mean there's something that happens inside of me that I guess I just don't really get any other way.

And I'm just so thankful for it.

Um well welcome.

It's good to all be back together.

If you're here for the first time, um we're really glad you're here.

Hope you can tell you can just relax and and be yourself.

If you have any questions about anything, you can probably just ask someone next to you.

Um but for sure the info desk will have uh answers to those.

Got a few quick announcements.

We've talked about being a Red Cross shelter, and so if there's uh really one or two mega shelters for Cherokee County, if there's a natural disaster or any other kind of need, we're gonna be ready to help.

And that training is this Saturday, it's from 10 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

Um there's no charge for it, it's for 18 years and of age and older.

And you can if you haven't already, you can sign up in the lobby um for that.

Been asked about uh groups and classes when we're getting started again on Wednesday nights, and uh that'll be the week of September 1st.

And we'll go every Wednesday night in September, every Wednesday night in October.

We got a great lineup uh this fall.

We'll talk more about that as we get closer.

If you ever have any questions about um what's going on, you can always check the website, which is hishandschurch.com, and the calendar's there, and I think uh the announcements from each week.

And finally, just a reminder about giving it's such an important thing in our personal relationship with God, and uh it also allows us to do what God has us doing um together, and we can do that back at the um giving stations in the back and also online.

So thank you for that.

Well, we've been taking 11 weeks, and we're talking about uh uh God's wisdom in this little book of uh Proverbs, and it's really life-changing wisdom, and it's because it's not conventional wisdom, so much of it is different than what we uh would hear or experience in our culture, it's it's God's wisdom, and it really is life-changing stuff.

And last week we talked about choosing to have a great marriage, and we talked about three things from the book of Proverbs, and the and the first was to choose wisely, and the second was to be faithful and stay faithful, and then the third was to really go for intimacy.

And if you were here last week, you'd probably tell I wasn't filming very well, especially if you're sitting up close.

Um I I mentioned it, but but because of that, when we got to the last one, which was really, I think, maybe the most important one, I really uh didn't share what I wanted to share, or even probably what needed to be shared.

And so Susan and I were talking about that afterwards.

Hey.

You've been there the whole time?

Listening carefully.

Okay.

And so Susan and I were talking um afterwards, and we really want to help uh any of us that are struggling with uh with our marriages.

And and that kind of help doesn't just come from God's wisdom, it comes from a combination of the Holy Spirit and God's wisdom.

And so we're gonna take a couple weeks and talk about what it uh how we can get to that great intimate type of uh relationship.

And you'll be glad to know and perhaps can tell that uh Susan's gonna share this morning, and then she and I are gonna uh um share some things together next week.

But although we'll be talking about marriage, I mean the con in the context of a great marriage, uh we're talking about principles that's gonna apply to each of us, to students, to those of us that aren't married, to those of us that are, to all of us.

And so I'm really excited about it.

And uh let's pray.

So, Father, we just praise you.

Thank you for being such a great, good and loving God.

Um, and not just great, that that you're our father, and that we can call you daddy father, Abba Father, and we just praise you for adopting us each as your very own children.

And Holy Spirit, thank you for being our teacher and counselor, and just please teach each of us today that we would all leave knowing we got something just directly from you for us.

And also just please uh flow through Susan this morning.

In Jesus, we praise you, and thank you for being our Savior and our friend.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Hello, you got tripped.

Thought you were gonna have calm.

I'm not gonna use that stool to sit on.

It's my bar, it's my personal bar, that's what I use it for.

Well, um, I hope you're not disappointed because I remember years ago I got up to share somewhere and they said, Oh man, I don't want to hear the worship leader talk, okay?

And then they said they regretted that because I shared some weird stuff and they got something out of it somehow, somehow.

But and then the guys on the worship team, they found out this morning I was gonna talk, and they're like, Are you doing a redo of Steve's message last week?

Like, did you go home and say, Man, you missed this and I'm like, no, what do y'all think about me?

That's terrible.

That is not how that happened.

I just want you to all know that.

What happened is he felt like he didn't cover all the stuff because he was so sick, and so we were talking about it, and then God somehow gave me a message.

So think what you want, but anyway.

Um, so so I actually did listen to, you know, when your wife or your husband's listening to you talk about marriage, they're listening to every word, I'm telling you.

So I actually did hear the whole message last week, even though I was over there holding the Gramby.

I was listening.

But um actually, Steve does an awesome job when he talks about marriage, and here's why.

I think he mentioned this last week.

This is how you get awesome at something.

You're you're terrible.

I'm not, I'm not gonna cuss today.

I just want you to know.

Uh Steve even said a few of the words I was gonna use, they're not bad, but he's like, I don't think you should say that, so I'm gonna be really careful.

But anyway, but anyway, our marriage was truly awful.

I'm not gonna say anything else.

It was truly, truly awful, and that's why we can share on it now, if that makes any sense.

And I think I've shared that before, but the very worst things, sorry, honey, the very worst things you've experienced in your life is the very thing God can use the greatest in your life.

It's the truth, and and I'm living proof, and a lot of you are living proof, aren't you?

Okay, so so this year in August, it's our 29th anniversary.

And I know his joke, actually, Jeff Besch said I'd be disappointed if he didn't say every single year.

See, his joke this year was we've been happily married for wait, how do I can't even tell the joke right?

The first 28 and a half are the hardest.

That's it.

Okay, but every year it the number changes, okay?

So like next year it'll be the first 29 and a half are the hardest.

So it just never gets old.

Okay, but but um, but truly, the first 15 for us, and everybody's unique and different, and your relationships are unique and different.

The first 15 were miserable.

We don't know how we stayed married except for two things.

We both believed in God, and we both believed that He did not want us to get a divorce.

That is the only reason we stayed married, because we were both miserable.

And the weird thing is we actually thought it was the other one that was making us miserable.

We thought it was the other person who was ruining our life, and we both thought that.

So you've got double misery.

Actually, I've got a friend, no names.

I'm not gonna do names today because I get in trouble because I call people out, because I but anyway.

Um and um he's single and he said, I have experienced being miserable being single, and I have experienced being miserable being married, and the married takes the prize, okay?

Being miserable when you're married is the worst.

It's the worst.

And here's why.

I was trying to think about that because I know that's true.

I know that's true, and here's why.

I had to write it down because it's so long.

Because it's hard enough in life to make decisions on everything that we have to make decisions on in this life, including raising kids and dealing with all their problems, to work and deal with childcare, to figure out your finances, especially when there doesn't seem to be enough, to deal with outside family dynamics with people that don't even live in your house.

Any of this sound familiar?

To plan for your future and your kids as well, and then add to all this that you're not even in agreement with your spouse about these decisions, and you feel devalued, unloved, and not appreciated.

I'd rather be by myself than be miserable like that.

And here's what Steve and I experienced because we lived that what I just described, and guess what?

Fun for y'all.

Next week we're gonna actually give you specifics, personal examples.

And I have a funny feeling that if Steve and I literally we had the same fights over and over and over again for decades.

I'm not kidding.

That's how long we've been married.

We fought for decades, about the same, and you're almost like this.

Wait a minute, why are we having the same fight again?

This is like the 500th time we've had the same fight.

And here's the here's the truth it is a fight, but really it's an issue.

It's the same issue.

Boom, boom, boom.

And you just feel like there's no hope.

You're never gonna never gonna go over that.

So we have our top three, so we would like to share those with you next next week if you want to come back.

It should be entertaining for y'all and torture for us.

But hope you enjoy that.

But anyway, so Steve and I lived through all that being miserable, not agreeing on anything, feeling totally unappreciated by the other one.

And so in our household, emotionally, the tension level, the misery level, whatever you want to call it, we all know what we're talking about, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the absolute worst, we were an 11 all the time.

11.

So here's what I want to share with you.

And I'm watching this time because I have I have no tempo and I have no time, uh, you know, guide her, I don't.

But what I want to share with you today is what God walked both of us.

I'm but I'm gonna share from my own personal experience how He got me and Steve to most days on that scale, the misery scale, I should call it the happiness scale, but I'm just being truthful.

It was the misery scale.

Most days we are at like at a one to two.

If one is being awesome and ten is miserable, we lived in an 11 for 15 years, but now, because of what God has done, that's what I'm about to share with you, we're at a one to two most days where we are happy, we love each other, we don't fight that much, and I will be honest, occasionally there are four or five days, okay, where we're having it out, and it might be the same fight again, if you know what I'm talking about.

But um, but I just want to share that with you because here's the thing we are all individual and unique people, but we're not that different.

We're not that different, and so anything I can share with you, my testimony, you know, testimony that sounds very super uh spiritual and religious.

Your testimony is literally this what I've experienced with God.

Okay, and so that's that's pretty much I have the Bible, and I can share that with you, but the only thing I got that's worth sharing besides that is what I walked through with God.

So that's what I would like to share with you.

I'm gonna do like 500 words a minute to get it all in.

Okay, the very first thing that I had to learn, and this was a process, I'm gonna walk you through the process, was that I needed God's spirit in me to guide me each and every day.

And here's the thing, you need that whether you're married or single.

The Bible says, and this is so awesome when you think about it, that God knows us better than anyone, and here's the kicker, even better than we know ourselves.

Okay, I'm not gonna ask you to self-examine yourself, and please don't examine your spouse right now because you're gonna get that big elbow.

Okay, but look around, not in this room, look around at other people's lives, and you will see something that is the truth.

People do not know what's good for them.

Okay, now think about yourself.

We think we know what's good for us, but you can look around at how messed up other people's lives are, and you can see that a lot of times we don't truly, whoops, we don't truly know what is good for us.

Okay, when I look back at that 15 years, that was my problem.

I lived, I made my decisions, I basically steered my life in a way that I thought was good.

I tried to control my life and I was utterly miserable.

And Steve tried to steer and control and live my life.

You have to be married to get that joke.

And I was utterly miserable.

No, he did the same for himself, but he actually did me too in that regard.

And so it was just double misery.

And it was only when I gave my life to God for real, for real.

Not just this.

What I see, I grew up in church and I learned everything up here.

I had all the beliefs right.

I'm telling you, I knew everything.

I knew how to argue every verse from the Bible, and guess what?

Nothing in here.

And the worst part, nothing in here, you got nothing in here.

Guess what?

You got nothing in your life.

You just got a bunch of head knowledge and everybody thinks you're a jerk.

Okay.

All right.

Now I will say this about growing up in church and learning all the things in the Bible and all that.

I will, I'm glad that I that I learned all that stuff.

And here's why.

Because it did give me like a basic um rudder, guidance, whatever you want to call it, for things that are gonna mess your life up and things that are aren't gonna mess your life.

You know, the the good things and the bad things.

It gave me like a general idea of that.

But here is my problem.

Y'all may be a lot stronger than me and better people than me.

But at that time, here's how much self-control and strength I had in me.

A lot of it was because of my upbringing.

Zero.

I had zero strength.

I had zero self-control.

So I'd read all this stuff in the Bible and go to church, and people would tell me, you need to do this, you need to do that, you need to do this, you need to do that.

Don't kick over your water.

Okay.

Don't drink coffee in church.

No, I'm just kidding.

Um, all these do's and don'ts, and here's the problem.

That would have been good if I had well, it wouldn't have been good.

I'm glad now that I didn't, but I had no strength to make myself do those things.

I had no self-control to not make myself do the bad things.

So, so what am someone like me who's messed up gonna do?

But I know none of y'all are like that.

My problem was I did not have any real love inside me or good guidance other than those words in the Bible, and they seemed like empty words to me with no life in them.

I'm being honest with y'all.

Everybody anybody ever read the Bible and say there's this is just empty words?

I I went to church three times a week.

Because it was a sin if you didn't go to church.

When the doors are open, you better be there.

I truly was not connected with God Himself, other than as a belief in my mind.

The Bible says that if we are unspiritual, clearly I thought I was so spiritual, but I see now.

Woo! Unspiritual.

I was religious.

I thought I was spiritual, but I was religious.

The Bible says if we are unspiritual, we can't see spiritual things.

Here's why.

Because we have no capacity for understanding them.

In fact, the Bible says that we think that things from God, his wisdom is foolishness.

And that was me.

I'm gonna tell them myself once again, because that's what I like to do.

I had disdain for the book of Proverbs.

Even there's a little hint in that still.

I'm just being honest with you.

Disdain for the book of Proverbs and all that wisdom stuff in the Bible.

Because here's the thing remember how I told you how bad I was and I didn't have any strength and self-control and all that?

That book of Proverbs just wore me out.

It made me so discouraged and so tired.

Just another thing I can't live up to.

I suck.

Sorry, honey.

I'm serious.

It was like, it just made me feel bad about myself.

I remember the first time anybody ever gave me a book on the Proverbs 31 woman.

And I'm not gonna tell you, but it was Steve's mom who wrote that book.

Now you're starting to see.

You're starting to see.

You might hear some of that next week.

Okay, and it was almost like this.

Here, Susan, this was for you.

Now, now I'm being funny, but that is how I felt.

Now, now who had the problem?

I know it was me.

I'm being honest with you.

I think this can help some of y'all get past maybe not receiving God's wisdom.

Because guess what?

I would sit there and say, Oh, yeah, I want God's wisdom.

I want God's wisdom, I want to have a good life, but this is the truth.

I'm like this.

No more rules and regulations, please.

Thank you very much.

I'm fine.

All right.

It was only when I truly, in my heart, surrendered myself, my marriage, my heart, my mind to God that things changed for me.

I asked him to change me, to fill me up with his spirit and guide me and convict me every day, and that's when things started to change.

I had to make the decision.

He was there waiting, but I had to make the decision, and I figured it was a trade up from what I had because, sorry, honey, crappy marriage.

And he's saying, I can give you an awesome one.

I'm weighing.

Okay, crappy, awesome, crappy, awesome.

Okay, well, that is a trade-up.

Who would not go for that?

Me.

I did not go for that for 15 years.

And do you know why?

I'm about to read your verse.

Why?

Why I didn't go for that.

You ready?

It's from Ephesians 5, 17 through 18.

Don't act thoughtless.

That was me.

But try to understand what the Lord wants you to do.

Don't be drunk with wine because that will ruin your life.

Instead, let the Holy Spirit fill and control you.

Any control freaks out there?

Oh, when you've had a bad, and you know what, you think control freaks have it all together, but here's the truth.

A lot of times, I'm telling on all y'all because I know from my own personal experience, a lot of times the reason you're a control freak is because you didn't have any control growing up.

And that's a lot of times there's abusiveness, there's neglect, all kinds of things.

And so the thing is, dad gun it, nobody's gonna tell you what to do.

So when I walked into my marriage, at a youthful age, I might add, which isn't the best, no man was gonna tell me what to do.

My parents weren't gonna tell me what to do anymore.

No stranger in church was gonna tell me what to do anymore.

And God wasn't gonna tell me what to do either.

I didn't talk like that, but that is the truth of what was going inside of my heart and my mind.

Nobody wants to give up control because it's like controlling your life, all your decisions, your money.

Uh-oh, did I just say that out loud?

Nobody wants to let people in and do that because this is my life.

And there's truth in that.

God gave you your life.

You get to use it how you how you wish.

And I think that's a cool, neat gift.

I think more people need to understand that.

He lets you decide.

And that's cool.

But the only way to real life and a good marriage and a good life is to let God invite him in, take down the walls, let him come in and fill you and lead you and control you.

Don't raise your hand on this one.

Get people in trouble this way.

Anybody, don't raise your hand, seriously.

Anybody here got a crappy life?

Anybody here, don't raise your hand, please don't raise your hand.

Got a crappy marriage.

Anybody here got any crappy part of your life?

I just know everybody would raise their hand on this one.

I'll admit to that one.

I'm gonna let you in on some truth here.

If you have a crappy part of your life, or a crappy marriage, or crappy life in general, you might want to consider that you might not know what is truly good for you.

Steve was talking recently with somebody about wisdom, and they ask him, Do you think I'm walking in wisdom?

Do you think I have wisdom or don't have wisdom?

And I thought this is a very simple answer, but think about it, it's deep.

Here's what he said.

I see whether someone is walking in wisdom or not by simply looking at how their life is.

It's like very common sense by how their life is.

And this is the truth.

You might have wisdom in your personal relationships.

You might get along famously with all your family, your friends, your spouse, but for some reason you can't keep a job and you struggle financially for your entire life.

If it looks like that, Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.

You might not know what's truly good for you in that area of your life.

You might need wisdom in that area of your life.

If your workplace, you're number one sales guy, you got everything going.

Everybody's thinking, Woo, you are so awesome and great.

And your wife says, I want a divorce.

Guess what?

You might have total wisdom in the workplace and not have it in your personal relationships.

You might have both going all peach keen.

I know people like this.

Man, they they are great family people.

They are love their family, they have great relationships, they do great in the workplace.

Yet come one Monday morning, they keel over from a heart attack.

And they don't even get to enjoy the results of having wisdom in the workplace and with people.

And here's why.

Because the one area of their life they don't have wisdom in is managing stress.

There's room for improvement, not to make you feel bad about yourself.

I'm about to tell you why.

I'm not trying to bust anybody here.

If I bust anybody, it's me.

I'm the worst of all y'all, I'm pretty sure.

This, I'm only telling you all this to help us really see ourselves, our lives right now, so that we can make a change, a real change, a lasting change for good.

And this is the truth that God had to show me that I why I could not receive wisdom from him, from the Bible, from even that book of Proverbs that was like the bane of my life.

And of course, I married someone who loves the book of Proverbs.

Like, here, just beat me over the head with it.

Make me feel worse about myself.

God had to give me a revelation.

When I started spending time with him, getting filled up with his spirit, feeling his love, he told me something.

And it's for you today.

And it is here again, it's simple, but it is deep.

It will change your life if you get a hold of this.

You're gonna be like, is that all she has to say when I say it?

But it trust me, listen.

God really wants you to have a great life.

John 10, 10, Jesus says this.

The thief, that's Satan.

We know that thief.

He wants to steal everything good from us, comes to steal and to kill and to destroy.

Jesus says, I have come so you might have life and have it more abundantly.

Other versions say, life to the fullest, more and better life than you ever dreamed of.

I shared this at the retreat.

He did not say, I came so you might have a more crappy life.

I did not come to make it harder for you.

I did not come to deprive you and take away all your fun.

No, he said, I came to give you real life.

A great life, you guys.

He came to give, it's not for the person sitting next to you, it's for you.

He came to give you a great life.

And I never really believed that.

Because everything was so hard and so unreachable for me.

I did not believe that.

That was a revelation that he wanted me to have a great life.

And here's why I didn't believe it.

Because I had never experienced it in my life, in my marriage, not in any way, shape, or form had I ever experienced a great life.

He's saying it, yet it's not true.

And here's what I realized: it was because I was not being led by him, which would imply listening and following.

Do you know what I mean?

Listening and following him.

Last week I read Psalm 139 during the um, I think it was during Lord's Supper or the worship time or something.

And I'm just gonna read the last few verses, and here's what it says Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Test me and know my every anxious thought.

Don't let me follow any evil way, but instead lead me, lead me along the path of everlasting and eternal life.

And here's the thing: for us to have real lasting change in our lives and our marriages, we have to be willing to allow God to do what these verses say, which is search my heart, test my thoughts, keep me from evil, and lead me along your path.

Not my path, your path of everlasting and eternal life.

Who needs more life in their life?

Who needs more life in their marriage?

I'm encouraging you to listen to what I have to say, not because I have anything that great to say, but because God gave me more life in my life.

God gave me way more life in my marriage.

Thank you, God.

But I had to be a part of it.

Because I was the one in it.

So God tells me, I want you to have a great life.

That's what I meant for you, Susan.

And here's right here another reason why I didn't believe it.

Because I was so unholy.

And all the badness inside of me, and all the evil thoughts, and all the evil deeds, I had all that going on.

Do you know what you know what we just did a few minutes ago?

The Lord's Supper?

Hello?

I'm gonna redo the Lord's Supper right now.

God had to show me this.

I never really got this.

This is like the whole core of like Christianity, the whole basis why we get together, what Jesus did on the cross.

Romans 5.

God put his love on the line for us by offering his son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

And now that we are set right with God by means of the sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way.

If when we were at our worst, that was me, I still am.

That's the cool thing, okay?

We were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his son.

Now that we're at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life.

Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plotting prose.

We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus the Messiah, but sin didn't and doesn't have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace.

Grace.

When it's sin versus grace, grace wins, hands down.

All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it.

Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life.

A life that goes on and on, world without end, that abundant life, that real life we're talking about.

When I really got, this is why the Lord's Supper is so important to me personally.

When I really got that grace would cover all my sin, all my screw-ups, all my badness, the past, the present, and all future, how can that even be?

And that I get to go to heaven no matter what, and that God would be with me for the rest of my life, even though I'm still screwed up.

I realized something.

If he was trying to give me wisdom through his word, including the book of Proverbs, he wasn't doing it that so I'd have more rules and regulations.

Because grace covers all the do's and don'ts.

He was trying to give me his wisdom.

Here's why.

So that I could have a great life.

It wasn't so I could try and please him.

I can't even believe how awesome God is.

When I sing, I'm amazed you love me.

Here's why he wanted to give me his wisdom.

And I was doing this.

He's so sweet.

It's so simple.

Here's why.

To help me.

So unselfish.

To help me.

This is a revelation.

He wants to help me.

He wants me to have a great life, and he wants to help me have a great life and a great man.

How sweet is that?

And how he helps us is through his word.

And not surprisingly, he helps us by sending the helper, which is another name for God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

God's Spirit comes to live inside us, and here's just a few things the Bible says about him.

And not just that, but I've personally experienced all these.

I mean for real.

Now think about this in terms of your um marriage.

Think of this in terms of your marriage, since that's what we're talking about these few weeks.

He is the counselor.

He leads into all truth.

He convicts us individually of sin.

He fills us with power.

He fills us with God's love.

He guides us.

He leads us.

And he is God's very spirit living inside of us.

And he reveals to us what God is thinking.

Could that be helpful?

The helper.

Ezekiel 11, 19, God says this.

And I will give them, that's us, singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them.

I will take away their stony, stubborn heart.

Anybody got that in their marriage?

Whoa.

And he says, I will take away their stony, stubborn heart, and I will give them a tender, responsive heart.

Wow.

Two people being married with tender, responsive hearts.

Wow.

He says he will give this to you.

He's your dad.

God wants to give us all his spirit more and more every day.

And here's why.

To help you in your life, to help you make decisions, to help you in the hardest things we have to deal with, and that is marriage.

2 Corinthians 3, 16 and 17, here's what it says.

And when God is personally present, a living spirit, that old constricting legislation, the law codes, the rules and regulations, the do's and don'ts, is recognized as obsolete.

We're free of it.

All of us.

Nothing between us and God.

Our face is shining with the brightness of his face.

And so we are transfigured.

We are changed.

Much like the Messiah.

Our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful.

Our marriage is becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.

God wants to guide us.

He wants to speak to us for real, face to face, and change us into loving and wise people.

Because he wants us to have fulfilling, enjoyable, and impactful lives and marriages.

And it's not just for us.

He wants everybody around us that we are in contact with, that we love, that we care.

He wants them to have all that too.

Enjoyable marriages, fulfilling marriages, and impactful marriages.

God's Spirit guides us through the Bible, including the book of Proverbs.

And that book is inspired by him.

And through words from others, even when you go to these prayers on the side, that is godly counsel people.

Woo! Those people, and they're loving.

They're not just like gonna tell you what to do.

No, no, no, no, no.

They're loving, godly people.

You can get some godly counts around these parts.

I'm just telling you.

God gives us to that as gives that to us as a gift.

And then my favorite direct deposit.

God will speak to you.

His spirit, communing with your spirit, he will speak to you.

He is the counselor, he is the helper.

Woo! Okay, so next week the fun really begins.

Because Steve and I are gonna share all our stuff, all our issues, the broken record fights.

How can we be having this one again?

That stuff.

Okay, so aren't y'all excited about that?

But this week, I just couldn't go into that and share all of our stuff without laying the foundation.

Without laying the foundation for how better to open up and receive God's wisdom for our life.

I think all the stuff in the Bible, all those biblical principles and all that kind of stuff, here's the thing, they are awesome.

And they are beneficial, no doubt.

But without us understanding who God really is, and that is all-loving, all-forgiving, and all-powerful, without understanding that is really hard to receive.

And I was a perfect example of that.

And without acknowledging that we make a choice to let Him fill us and guide us and lead us in our everyday lives, in our marriages, then going through those marriage proverbs would not have the life-changing and transforming power they can have.

God wants to help us with our marriages, he wants to walk with us and talk with us every day.

He wants to walk with us and talk with us every day.

He wants a real relationship with us because he loves us.

So the worship team wants to come up.

We're gonna sing, we're gonna do the first song again that we did since half of y'all aren't here.

I'm just kidding.

And this is the truth.

Even what I'm sharing today, it all comes together.

And why?

Because the Holy Spirit is here, and this is the truth.

God is good, He wants good for your marriage.

He is great, He can do it, and He is love.

He loves you and He wants to help you.

So let's pray, and then we'll do one more song and hands in the Pile.

God, we just thank you for creating us.

We thank you for loving us and for wanting a real relationship with each of us.

Thank you for giving us our husbands and thank you for giving us our wives.

We thank you that we can stop trying so hard out of our own strength and just lean on you.

Fill us up with your spirit.

Lead us, guide us.

We invite you to come on in.

We relinquish control, and we ask you to lead us into your path that leads to real life.

And we love you, God.

We love you.

Amen.