Dream You – You Before Me

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

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Well, let's get to work today.

We are in a series called Dream You.

And if you missed last week, let me catch you up on where we've been.

We started this year by talking about how this year could be a dream year.

In fact, our word for the year is dream.

I want you to dream big, God-sized, audacious kinds of dreams.

And so last month we started by talking about how do we discover God's dream for our life.

Then this month we're in a six-week series called Dream You.

And here's the principle.

If you're living God's dream for your life, and then secondly, we believe if you get your relationships and your finances thriving, you will think about your life like this is how you live the dream.

So we're starting this month by talking about our relationships.

Last week, Pastor Isaiah kicked us off with a beautiful message on friendship and how we can thrive in our friendships.

And today, I want to turn the dial a little bit to one of our most important relationships, the romantic part of our life, our marriage.

We'll get to that in just a moment.

To get us started today, an article came out this week in The Atlantic, and it studied the past 85 years.

Harvard University and several leading universities did a study over the last 85 years, and here was the headline of the article.

What is the what the longest study on human happiness found is the key to a good life?

So the question is really, what is it that makes us happy?

And if you were to think about that question, what do you think people said?

What makes us happy?

Having a lot of money, wouldn't that make us happy?

A lot of people say things like, well, you know, the love of money is the root of all evil, and so having money doesn't make you happy.

I'd like to try, wouldn't you?

Like, what?

Money.

Money's one.

Another one is um having good health.

Wouldn't that be great?

To have like great health.

Maybe that's the key to happiness.

It's not that.

Uh, what about good genetics?

Like your parents and grandparents lived in 95, 100, 105 years old.

Maybe that would make you happy.

And all those things are wonderful and probably contributors, but here's what the article found.

After 85 years of study, they said the key to human happiness is relationships.

That you become like the most important people in your life.

And so we have all kinds of relationships that matter to us.

It should be that God is our number one relationship.

But but I would actually argue this.

In theology, we say that God is pre-eminent.

That means he's actually before number one.

He's above all of it, right?

So if God is like pre-number one, I believe the number one relationship that has the greatest effect on your happiness, on your fulfillment, on your future, on your destiny, on your dreams is your marriage.

It is your husband and it is your wife.

And if this is the case, then I want to spend today just talking about this.

And here's what I know anytime you talk about something like marriage.

There's lots of people in the room who are married, and this is perfect for you.

There's lots of people in the room who are not married but someday will be, and this is the kind of message you can tuck away in the medicine cabinet of your life for a future day.

There's other people in this room who this message is going to hurt because, in some way, maybe you're after a marriage.

And this hurts a little bit, but here's what I believe God is our healer and our restorer.

And listen to me, you have no idea what God has in store for you.

So let's just get to work and let's make this for everybody, okay?

A few years ago, I was preaching on marriage, and I just gotta let you have a little insight to me.

I'm never more than about 75 or 80% ready to preach on any given Sunday.

This morning, Pastor Ryan said, Are you ready to go?

And I'm like, We'll find out.

And he goes, You just gotta leave room for the Holy Spirit.

And I said, He's got a lot of room today.

That's where I'm at, right?

So there was this one Sunday a couple years ago, I was preaching on love and romance and marriage, and I was talking about it, and it was super early, 6, 6.15, and I was already up and getting ready to go to church, and my wife was still asleep in bed because I'm way more spiritual than her.

And um, anyways, so I was getting myself ready to go, but I was still struggling with this.

Like, how do you define love?

How do you define love?

And for generations, people have argued what the definition of love is, from Aristotle to Socrates, from Bieber to Beyoncé.

We've wrestled with like, what is what does love mean?

And so for generations people have argued over what it is.

Is it a feeling?

Is it a choice?

What is it?

So I said to Liz, who's half asleep in bed, I said, babe, what is love?

This big esoteric question that people have argued with.

And from her half sleep, she literally just said this love is you before me.

And I was like, Hold off.

You're half asleep.

How smart are you when you're awake?

Like, what is this?

It's you before me.

And here's the problem with this.

I like this idea, but the real truth about me is this I'm really all about me.

In fact, my whole life, it's about me.

I wake up in the morning and I go take a shower, and in the shower is my shampoo.

It's for me.

It's one of those like seven-in-one things that washes your hair, washes your beard, degreases your engine, like it does everything.

But that that's that's for that's for me.

And I've got all kinds of stuff to help me try to like make something good out of what God gave me, all these supplies, tools, lotions, hair stuff, it's all for, it's all for me.

And I'm not a coffee drinker, but if you're a coffee drinker, you can go to your coffee machine, you can get a cake up, and you make a you can make a cup of coffee just for you.

You can go to Starbucks or you can go to Concord.

And you can get them to make the perfect cup of coffee just for for you.

And then, and then later in the day, you you've got some free time, and so you pull up YouTube or Spotify or Netflix.

And and because the world revolves around you, there's this little title that says Recommendations Just for Me.

It's all about me.

I I can I can literally have anything I want when I go to a restaurant because my life revolves around me.

And then to make it even weirder, a couple years ago, my wife and I bought a bed called a sleep number bed, so that I can make my side of the bed feel perfectly firm or soft or anything in between, and I can set it at my number just for just for me.

We've never lived in a time where it's harder to love because the whole world screams it's all about you.

And if we're not careful, we will buy into the lie that it's all about me.

But here's what I came today to say for us to have the kind of intimacy that God desires, we have to move from me to we.

It has to be you before me.

It has to be about us, it has to be about serving, it has to be about blessing, it has to be about meeting needs.

And so today I want to talk to all of you who are married, who are going to be married, who are dreaming of being married again someday.

I want to talk to you about what it means to have a God-honoring kind of marriage.

And to do this, I want to invite you, if you have a Bible, turn with me to Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

We'll get there in just a moment, but before I do, let me set up what's happening.

Two chapters earlier, Mark chapter 8, Jesus does this incredible miracle where he feeds 4,000 people.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Just this incredible, crazy miracle.

And after the miracle is done, some of the Pharisees, these religious leaders, they try to trap Jesus.

They ask him these difficult questions in order to try to trap him, to get him to stumble over his word so they can accuse him and really kind of discredit the fact that he is the Son of God.

So two chapters later, they're still after him.

They've crossed the Jordan River again, and here they are.

Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

We'll start with verse 2.

It says this.

Some Pharisees came and tested him, Jesus, by asking this question.

The question that they're going to ask is actually rooted in Deuteronomy chapter 4.

Deuteronomy 4 · chapter mention

The question is, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?

Now just pause here for just a moment.

In Deuteronomy chapter 4, Moses lays out some laws, some rules for reasons that a husband could choose to divorce his wife.

Deuteronomy 4 · chapter mention

And there's two different schools of thought.

In Jesus' day, people read it and they read it through their own interpretation, through their old world view.

On one hand, some people say like there are legitimate reasons only, but then there was a whole other school of thought that believed that what Moses meant in Deuteronomy chapter 4 was if you were just tired of your wife, I don't know if she like burned your toast or didn't bring you breakfast in bed seven days in a row like you expect her to, that you could just divorce her on a whim.

Deuteronomy 4 · chapter mention

So they're asking Jesus this question so that they can trap him.

No matter what he says, there is no correct answer.

And they ask the question, and then Jesus does what Jesus does, and he Jesuses them.

When he jukes them with this, he says, Well, what did Moses command you to do?

If you ask Jesus a question, he always responds with a question.

It's so funny.

And so the people go on.

They said, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.

And I want you to see how Jesus responds.

He says, It was because your hearts were hard.

It's because your hearts had gone from soft and loving to hard.

That Moses wrote you this law, Jesus replied.

And we can pause here for just a moment.

The reason I read all that stuff and I set up the whole backstory is because a lot of us came in today with hearts that are hardened towards marriage.

Maybe you're in a marriage and it just feels like a dead end.

Maybe you came today thinking I'm giving him 28 more days, I'm giving him the rest of this month.

Maybe you came today thinking like it's never was intended to be this way.

I've poured my heart and soul into this, and this is where we're at.

I stood at an altar and I said, till death do us part, and it's really, it's gonna be till death do us part because honestly, I don't think I can live another day in a relationship like this.

Maybe you're here and you're single.

And your life hasn't gone the way you expected it to go.

And you thought when you were a little girl, six years old, and you took your pillowcase and you put it over your head, and you took some flowers and walked in front of a mirror to see what you would look like someday as you walk the aisle, you thought it should never take this long.

And over time your hope has turned into bitterness, your joy has turned into resentment, and you feel like your heart is hard.

Today's for you.

Then Jesus goes on, and he quotes all the way back to Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, and Jesus says this but at the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.

Genesis 2:18

I'm not gonna spend time in this verse, but this is out of the lips of Jesus.

These are Jesus' words, and in an American culture that currently recognizes 2,000 different genders, Jesus in one sentence puts an end to it.

He created them male and female for this reason.

A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife.

Remember this word.

We're gonna come back to the word united, and the two will become one flesh.

So they are no longer two but one flesh.

Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.

And I want you to pay attention to this last word.

He says, Let no one separate.

Now I want to start with this.

Jesus said this.

God creates the man and woman, male and female, and they are to leave their mother and father.

We'll come back to that word leave in just a moment, and they are to be united.

Now, this word in Hebrew is a fascinating word.

It is the strongest idea of two becoming one.

It's it's the words that we would use in English to say, imagine two different chemicals forming as one together.

Two different chemicals creating a completely new compound.

It's it is N-A-C-L, sodium chloride becoming table salt.

It is H and 2O.

It is hydrogen and two oxygen becoming water.

It's literally what God says happens when a husband and wife get married, is their hearts are united, literally meaning that two, in a miraculous turn of events, becomes one.

This is the reason at a lot of wedding ceremonies, you'll have two unique candles that are burning representing the two individual lives.

And they put the candles together to form a new fire together.

And what's supposed to happen is you're supposed to extinguish the other candles.

I did a wedding one time where they forgot to blow out the two candles.

Those like two become three, that's weird, and sin actually, whatever.

But it's supposed to be that two become one, and you blow them out, and here's the principle when you have joined those two fires into one, you can never go back and take back the original flame.

You can't.

It's because God made them one.

So here's Jesus' words.

Again, he's quoting back to Genesis 2, verse 18, and he says, What God joins together, what's united together by God, let no one separate.

Genesis 2:18

And I was thinking about that this week.

And I thought, how do we get all separated in our marriage?

In a culture, crossfit, in a culture, in a culture, ooh, in a culture where something like half of marriages end in divorce, how is it that we get separated?

He says, let no one separate.

I came today to say this to somebody.

Sometimes we're the one.

Sometimes we're the one who separates us.

And so what happens is we get married, and what we should do because we love each other, is we should be building a bridge towards each other, a bridge to love each other.

But the truth is, instead of building a bridge often, we build a wall.

And it separates us.

So what are the walls that we build that separate us?

Well, I came today with some ideas that many of us, when we get married, we don't realize it.

But on our wedding day, we we come walking down the aisle full of hope, full of dreams.

But we're also carrying a wheelbarrow full of bricks.

For some of us, it's a dump truck full of bricks.

And we have hopes.

I hope we'll make it.

I hope this will be till death do us part.

I hope that we will die madly in love.

I hope we have amazing kids.

I hope she takes care of me.

I hope he provides for me.

I hope she's an incredible cook.

I hope he makes mashed potatoes the way his mom made mashed potatoes.

I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope.

But then we get married, we exchange rings, we exchange vows, we kiss and we turn and we walk out.

And what we don't understand that we unintentionally did when we get married is when we walk down the aisle with hopes and dreams, when we exchange rings, we exchange weights on each other, and our hopes become expectations.

And expectations are in relationship, like cancer is to a body.

Slowly dissolves hope, the future of a marriage from the inside out.

So, what are some ways that we separate, we build a wall?

The first one is this is unrealistic expectations.

And here's what unrealistic expectations tend to look like.

We say things like, Well, I shouldn't have to work at my marriage.

Because I'm in love.

I feel in love.

I love him, I love her, I love it.

I shouldn't have to work at my marriage.

Here's another one.

Um, this is funny.

I should always feel like I'm in love.

I should feel it.

I should feel like I'm in love.

Um, here's a funny observation.

I've done a lot of premarital counseling over the years.

I don't do it a lot anymore, but I've done it over the years.

And I've had people say things to me, like, I'll ask the question, how do you know that you're in love?

Like, how do you know that this is the person you should spend the rest of your life with?

And it's so funny to me how many people say things like, I don't I can explain it.

I just I just feel I just feel something.

It's like um every time he walks into the room, I get butterflies in my stomach.

So I looked up, what is the average life expectancy of a butterfly?

Two to four weeks, everybody.

Two to four weeks, right?

Another, another unrealistic expectation that we have in marriage is we um we think that the problems that we face are something that we could be able to solve.

A brilliant author, Dr.

John Gorman, said 69% of the problems in a marriage are actually unsolvable.

I feel like I should end the message right there and pray for you.

God bless you, everybody.

Good luck with that.

But 69% of the problems that you have in marriage are things like in-laws and stress, differences in personalities, differences in sex drives.

And here's the thing: those things don't necessarily change over time.

So when we live with unrealistic expectations, we build a wall and it separates us.

Let me tell you what expectations do in a marriage.

Expectations create what I would call a debt and a detour relationship.

Let me explain it to you.

When you think your spouse owes you something, if she or he continually delivers on your expectation, all they've ever done is gotten back to even with you.

Okay, so say like I lent you$100, and in a week you come back and you give me a hundred dollar bill.

I'm not freaking out.

I'm not like, oh, it's a miracle, it's the best day of my whole life ever, no.

Because you owed it to me.

All you did was get back to even with me.

So let's tease it out, okay?

Men, let me talk to you for a moment.

Imagine that you grew up in a home where your mom cooked all the time, and so your expectation of your spouse is that seven nights a week you will come home to a hot, gourmet, home-cooked meal.

And what if every single day she delivers it for you and it's amazing, and then one day, for whatever reason, she's not feeling good, the kids were crazy, something happens, and she doesn't quite deliver on it.

All of a sudden, now there's a debt that's owed in the relationship.

Can I teach you something?

Here's what expectations say.

Expectations say that you owe me.

But this is the opposite of love.

Love says you before me.

Another way I can say it is expectation leads to pressure, and pressure crushes intimacy.

A way I can say it is if you have a debt and a debtor relationship, you rob your spouse of the potential to bless you.

You rob them of the potential to bless you.

Okay, so um, so I was at Walgreens and I was looking at Valentine's cards.

This is fun.

And I pulled some out because the language in our Valentine's cards is so romantic, it's so gooey.

Some of it feels like if we turn these into song lyrics, they could be songs about God.

Listen to them.

You hold my heart.

I always have.

Come on, let's worship.

Doesn't it feel like that?

How about this one?

It's got a big heart and an XO.

This one says it's pretty simple, really, but oh, it's so true.

I love you with all of my heart.

Jesus.

Here's another one.

My heart is wherever you are.

I'm so in love with you.

Doesn't it feel like it should just say, Waymaker, miracle?

Like, and the problem with those so many of these things is all of this language is beautiful and gooey.

Can I tell you the most romantic card you could get your spouse this Valentine's Day?

It would just say, You owe me nothing.

It doesn't sound that romantic.

It's not like Hallmark is like, oh, perfect.

It's not that.

But you owe me nothing.

Can I tell you what happens when you treat your spouse as if they owe you nothing?

Everything they do to show you love blesses you.

Every time she cleans the house, every time she does your dishes, every time he comes in sweaty from mowing the yard, it's thank you, thank you, thank you.

You didn't have to do that for me.

It blessed me.

Okay, listen to me.

Stop treating your spouse like they owe you everything and start allowing everything they do to bless you, and watch as the wall that you started to build starts to get torn down.

Another thing that we do that unintentionally builds a wall is we live with underestimated differences.

Here's what this looks like to me.

For so many of us, when we get married, we don't uh we don't really understand the differences that make us unique.

We don't understand the differences that make us special.

When I got married, I thought my wife could do absolutely no wrong whatsoever.

I thought she was an angel, and she is.

Holler at me, she is.

But like early on in marriage, we fought about the stupidest stuff.

Like, like we fought about um, we fought about the temperature in the house at night.

When we got married, My wife kept her house at 78 degrees during the day, and then at night she turned it to 80 degrees.

And one night we're fighting about the temperature because I'm hot.

I sweat at 78 degrees.

And one night she came out dressed in something that looked like she'd walked off the sedum little house on the prairie.

And she's like, Well, if you want it cold, this is what I wear.

It creates problems.

You understand this, right?

Okay, listen, we fought about toilet paper.

Toilet paper.

And I shouldn't talk about this at church, but she bought toilet paper that you could see through.

I want to pamper myself.

I want mine to be quilted.

I don't know what that means, but I want it, right?

We thought about milk.

We fought about milk.

She wanted skim milk.

In my family, we called that water, you know?

I didn't want skim milk.

I wanted whole milk.

I want to chew it.

You know what I like I love.

And we fight about these things, but we fight about all kinds of other things that recognize the fact that they're just we're just different.

Some of us are more structured, and others of us are unstructured.

Some of us are morning people, and others of us are night owls.

Some of us are introverts, some of us are extrovert.

And here's what happens: we get married, and those underestimated differences have this way of building a wall for us, don't they?

And they build a wall and then we start to buy into this weird lie.

We start to think to ourselves, I didn't have these problems before I was married.

So the problem must be him.

The problem must be her.

Tim Keller said this.

He said, marriage has a way of introducing you to yourself.

What if instead of us pointing the finger at our spouse because we're different, we celebrate the differences and we realize that we've got all kinds of issues.

Men, listen to me.

You slurp all of your cereal.

It's so loud to your wife, it sounds like it's in Dolby 3D surround sound.

When you sneeze, your neighbors complain about it.

And we act like we don't do anything wrong at all.

We just don't see the differences in us.

And if we're not careful, the difference is build a wall.

Here's another area that we struggle with.

We build a wall because we have unmet needs.

I want to be unbelievably clear about this.

You do have some needs.

There are some things that your spouse should rightfully do for you because no one else in the world can do it for you.

But I've got news for you.

In a God-honoring marriage, it's not a race to get your needs met.

In a God-honoring marriage, it's a race to outserve each other.

We live in a world that's all about like do whatever it takes, climb the corporate ladder, step on whoever you've got to get to get to the top of the heap, to get to the front of the line.

And a God-honoring marriage is actually a race to the back of the line.

It's who can outserve each other.

Here's another issue that many of us face that build a wall that we don't understand.

It's unresolved anger.

And we're hurt because of something that was done to us.

We're hurt because we grew up without a father in our life.

We're hurt because we were given promises, we were made commitments, and people walked out on us, they abused us, they hurt us.

And things that happened to us as childs, children, had this way of embedding itself in our heart.

And if we're not careful, what tends to happen to us is that unresolved anger becomes a problem that follows us throughout all of our life.

And let me tell you something about your anger.

The people who are closest to you and the safest in your life are the people that catch your anger.

So here's what happens.

Like nobody wants to stand close to an active volcano that could explode at any time.

And in the same way, when you're in a marriage, what tends to happen is that anger has this way of coming out and attacking your spouse.

Why?

Because you think to yourself, well, we're committed to each other.

This is just the real me.

This is how I actually feel in the moment.

And unresolved anger is toxic to your marriage.

Here's another one, and I'm gonna be honest, I didn't really want to do this one because it's hard.

But another area in our life that has a way of building a wall is unsafe environments.

Let me say this to you.

If you're in an abusive marriage, you do not deserve that.

If he hurts you, if he hits you, if his words diminish you, you do not deserve that.

I need you to know your church is here for you.

You are not alone in that.

I'm speaking primarily about men.

I know it happens both directions, but statistically the odds are forever skewed towards men being the aggressors in a marriage.

But if you're unsafe, intimacy can never thrive in that environment.

And God's desire was for you to have intimacy.

Here's another one.

I've been trying to do this like alliteration where everything starts with an un.

I couldn't figure out how to do it, so I came up with this.

Ready?

Here's another area that builds a brick.

Unleft parents.

I thought about saying uncut umbilical cords, but but here's the point.

Jesus reaches back to Genesis chapter 2 and he says, For this reason, marriage, a man and woman leave their mother and father.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

The word leave in Hebrew literally means to cut away.

Whatever it takes to cut away at it so that they can leave.

Can I tell you something about leaving?

You only leave when you're stepping into something better.

That's what marriage is intended to be.

And if you constantly run back to mommy and daddy when something goes wrong in your relationship, you are undercutting the foundation of your marriage.

And a lot of us we don't understand this.

And so what happens is it's not just our parents, but it's like we'll run back to any place of security instead of stepping into and trusting that if God brought us together, nothing should be able to separate us.

The number one relationship in your life is not your mother and father.

Let me say something else that's strong.

The number one priority in your marriage is not your children.

I love your children.

That's wonderful.

I love my kids, I adore my kids.

They are not my number one relationship.

It is my wife, and so it is for you.

Here's another one, and this is one that I'm gonna be honest with you.

This is one I struggle with.

I'm a wall builder unintentionally.

Unrelenting criticism.

No one wants to be with someone who nags them.

No one wants to be in a marriage where they can never do anything right.

And one of the funny expectations that has this way of sneaking into our relationship is this expectation that our spouse has to be perfect.

They don't have to be perfect.

Marriage has this way of refining your soul.

So I'm gonna say it to you like this.

If there's rough parts of your spouse and it bothers you, it's actually indicative of what's actually happening in your heart.

If you're so driven by perfection and excellence, it robs your spouse of an opportunity to love you.

The book of Proverbs has two beautiful statements on it.

It says this, Proverbs 17, 9.

Love forgets mistakes.

Nagging about them parts the best of friends.

It's like saying nagging has this way of building a wall even higher and higher.

He goes on in Proverbs 27 to say this a nagging spouse is like the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet.

You can't turn it off and you can't get away from it.

Has nagging ever helped anything?

It doesn't.

Nagging pushes us away.

It becomes another brick in the wall of our life.

So what do we do?

One last one.

And this one's maybe the hardest.

One more brick in the wall that we build.

Unrepentant sin.

And I don't know what this means for you, but if there's parts of your life that are hidden, intimacy can't thrive.

Or there's secrets.

You just can't.

So look at me and listen to me.

If you're carrying on a relationship that's inappropriate, whether it's sexual or you just started joking with someone and you know that if your spouse found out about it, you would feel caught, you would feel ashamed.

This is sin, cut it out.

If you find yourself addicted to pornography, you are robbing your marriage of the potential for intimacy.

Some years ago I had this counseling session that went really bad.

I'm gonna be honest about that.

It went really bad.

And the husband and wife came in, and the wife said, Okay, so here's our biggest problem.

I want intimacy with my husband.

Not just sex, but I want sex, but I want I want intimacy with my husband.

And he comes home after a hard day of work, he cracks open a beer, and he sits down and he starts playing video games until the wee hours of the night.

I will beg him to come to bed with me.

I will beg him to be intimate with me, and he does nothing, he'd rather play video games.

So then the husband looks at me and he goes, So, so Jason, be honest, what do you think?

Your wife wants to have sex with you, and you're asking me, What do I think?

And then I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm not even gonna say what I said because it was so bad, but I called him a name.

It rhymes with bass hole.

Um, it was bad.

But like, you pursue each other.

You have to make this decision.

This is what intimacy looks like.

Intimacy looks like pursuit and passion for the rest of your life.

So here's the question.

If you find yourself today listening to this and you think about all the things in your life that maybe your spouse is doing, you're missing the point, here's the question: what are the bricks in your wall?

What are the areas in your life where you are the one building a wall that is separating you?

Jesus said this, we are to leave our mother and father and cleave or be united to one another.

That marriage should be the relationship that no one can separate.

And here's the question: what are the bricks in your wall?

If you find yourself listening, thinking like, mm-hmm, if he would just hear this, mm-hmm, and you think about all the examples of them, you miss it all together.

Let me say this to you bricks can be used to build, or bricks can be used to separate and destroy, and I don't want you to miss this topic.

I was talking to a friend this week and he said, You don't understand this.

The Great Wall of China in China, they found that there are whole massive sections of the Great Wall of China that are missing.

Some of it is due to natural causes, some of it is due to erosion, but a lot of it is because people came and they started tearing away at this wall that was created to divide and separate two unique cultures.

And people have taken bricks and they've started using it to build houses.

Bricks can be used to build cathedrals, or bricks can be used to smash stained glass windows.

It's all about its intended use.

And for so many of us, if we're honest, we've wheeled the wheelbarrow of our bricks down the aisle when we got married, and we've used it to separate and to destroy instead of to build a bridge towards each other.

So what do we do with it?

I don't want to end there, I want to end and land the plane quickly.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we call it the love chapter.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

And it's beautiful, it's this beautiful poetic chapter, but I don't think any of us know what it means.

At the end of 1 Corinthians 13, this is how Paul ends this chapter.

He says, When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

Then he says, When I became a man, I put away the ways of childhood, put it behind me.

What does every childhood love story look like?

Doesn't it start once upon a time?

How does every childhood love story end?

And they lived happily ever after.

But the gap between once upon a time and happily ever after is a really challenging road.

It just is.

And if we're not careful, what will happen is over time the love that we pursued and the love that we were passionate about gets replaced by a wall of separation.

So here is your homework today.

At the beginning of 1 Corinthians 13, Paul tells us what love is.

Love isn't a wall, love isn't expectations.

Here's what love is.

And as I read this, every time I say the word love, or when I say the word it referring to love, I want you to replace the word love with your name.

And I want you to ask the question, am I that?

Ready?

Love is patient.

Are you patient?

Are you impatient?

Love is kind.

Do your words edify and build up?

Or do they build a wall?

Love does not envy.

How you doing is that it does not boast.

It is not proud.

How you doing so far?

Keep going.

It does not dishonor others.

Honor adds worth and value.

Dishonored diminishes.

It pulls the spotlight off of someone.

It devalues them.

It is not self-seeking.

So it's not about you.

It's not easily angered because no one wants to be married to a volcano.

It keeps no record of wrongs.

When you argue, do you pull up stuff from many years ago?

According to Paul, that's not love.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.

Here's why love never fails.

So how are you doing with that?

If we're gonna be the kind of church that our marriages are a testimony to the world, in a world where more than half of American marriages end in divorce, I think one of the greatest testimonies to the world is a God-honoring marriage, a you before me kind of marriage.

And in a world where it's all about me and it's all self-seeking, and it's all about getting my needs met and making me happy, instead of building walls, what if we became the church that builds bridges towards each other?

And what if we use the bricks of our life that have this way of separating us to build a life together that is beautiful, that is founded on God's love and is evidence in the way that we treat each other.

You want a God-honoring marriage?

Start with you.

If you heard today's message and you're like, if my spouse would just no, no, you missed it.

You become the kind of spouse that you're hoping and believing and praying for, and you watch as God changes everything for you.

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

We pray for you.

So, God, give us courage today.

In a world that's so used to building walls, help us to be bridge builders.

God, for those of us who are here today and our marriage feels like it's hanging on by a thread, give us the courage to go home and do the right thing.

God, for every person in this room who dreams of being married or is married or hopes again to have that opportunity someday.

Give us the courage to be 1 Corinthians 13 kinds of people, to be patient, kind, to not boast, to not be self serving or self seeking.

God, give us courage in a world that's all about get your needs met or get out of the marriage.

Give us courage to be the kind of people who actively pursue you.

And in doing so, we find ourselves closer to our spouse.

Thank you for it, God.