 Basically, in years past, the way that I've thought about this time together, is that it is a day, it has been for my wife and I, where we have an opportunity to mobilize ourselves to work on our marriage. And oftentimes, if you're like me, you get busy with work, you're busy raising the kids, busy doing things, and oftentimes throughout the year, many times we suffer because of neglect. A neglect of our marriage, a neglect of concentrating intentionally on our relationship. And so this time, every year, gives us an opportunity to do this. And the way that I've often looked at it in the past is just a yearly assessment. You know, we, it's interesting, since we first came to Cornerstone, and my wife and I, back in the day, just brand new baby Christians, if you will, coming to our first marriage conference, really hadn't heard anything like this, hadn't really applied any of the truths of the Bible to our marriage, really didn't know what to do, had no idea, no idea how to be a good husband, a good father, and no idea how to lead in our relationship, just had a lot to learn, and was biblically illiterate and didn't know a lot. And so each year, that first marriage conference was such a blessing, and such an eye-opener, that each year it's become a benchmark, if you will. We get to the next marriage conference, and we see how we're doing. You know, we take a lot from that, we get to the next one, see how we're doing. Take more from that each year, trying to apply more and more about what we learn. But now, in addition to that also, it's the body of Christ too, right? When we came into the church, and we first started coming here, and got to see how godly brothers and sisters conducted themselves in their marriages with their families, and we just learned a tremendous amount from seeing that. So it works like discipleship in a sense. Discipleship are many different spokes on a wheel, and all those spokes fit together to sanctify us, to grow us up in the Lord, so that we honor Him in the way that we conduct ourselves. We walk worthy of Him, as the Bible says. And so this marriage conference is a piece of that. It's a part of that. And so what I encourage you to do is that use that, use this marriage conference for that purpose. Each year just an opportunity to take a yearly assessment of where you're at. Hopefully you do it more than once a year, once we talk about some of these truths. But take what you can from the Lord, take what you can from God's Word, apply that. You're going to hear enough today, so much today, in fact, that you won't be able to apply all of it in 10 years, much less the next year. You're going to get a lot. However, just take this as an opportunity to take a look at your marriage, and then commit yourself to working on that together. I remember there were several subjects in that first marriage conference that we talked about, that my wife and I, being married couple, had never talked about before. Several things that were said, that were sort of shocking her eye-openers to both of us, and it enabled conversation that we just had either neglected or felt awkward having. And, man, if you can't talk to your wife about those things, who can you talk to? You need to be able to talk together. And so this hopefully also will generate some conversation. We'll hopefully generate some conviction where we fall short in some areas, and we'll generate some help for you as you try to serve the Lord in your marriage. So, with that in mind, my goal for this is to be just as intensely practical as we can be. Take the word of God, how the word of God applies to our marriages. Think of some things that we can put into practice immediately, some things that we can do to improve, to be more godly. And so that's what I hope for you today. I hope you'll take some notes. We began with that sermon last week from Pastor Rick on marriage and worldliness, which is extremely helpful. Pastor Marcos is going to preach tomorrow morning on marriage and unity, which will also be extremely helpful. So I pray you'll be taking some notes and listing some things that you can do right away. Let me start by saying this. In this room, we've got folks at many various levels in their marital relationship. If you're like my wife and I when we first came, we didn't know anything. We had a lot of difficulty. There were problems we had to work through, situations we need to work out, and that's what we're to do. We're to take the initiative and want to work those things out. There are others of you who have been at this a long time and have been seeking to honor the Lord in your marriage for many years now, maybe more matured in this area. No matter what your level, you're going to be able to take away something that's going to help you over the course of the next year as you work on your marriage. And so be listening and with that, if you were in the situation that I was in when I first came, let me encourage you not to be discouraged. If you're in your marriage situation right now, you've got great difficulty. It can be hard. It can be sometimes a cause of anger or frustration or aggravation or whatever other shun word you use can cause difficulty in your relationship. Don't be discouraged. We've talked to many folks over the years where sitting across the desk from a couple and a wife or husband says, you know what? This can't possibly be the person that the Lord has intended for me to be with. This can't possibly be the way that marriage should be the way God intended. There's no hope for this marriage. There's no hope for this to get any better. The best thing knowing that God wants us to live at peace would be just to dissolve this thing, to divorce and start over from scratch. Know that that's all stinking thinking. That's unbiblical way of looking at your relationship, an unbiblical way of looking at marriage. But it rises out of discouragement and sometimes despair just because you may not see or envision a way out doesn't mean that there's not one. The Lord God Almighty is sovereign over marriage and he intends to glorify himself through your marriage if you're a God honoring, if you're a Christian, you're living for the Lord. He intends to get glory from how you live in your marriage and so don't fall into despair. Sometimes you sit there, I like the analogy that I've heard from Brother Troy many times of the fishing line. You know, you've got, you've been fishing, you know, if you've got one of those big castor things which I messed up on one time and you cast it out and the whole thing just becomes a wad of messed up fishing line. Or if you think about it, if you take your fishing line and think about it maybe more biblically this way and that first knot comes up in your line and you don't stop to take the line off and take the knot apart and get it straight again and then it gets caught up in another knot, another knot, another knot and pretty soon you're standing there with a wad of fishing line in your hands and it's your responsibility and to you it seems hopeless just throw the whole mess away and start over but it's your responsibility to fix that thing and to untangle every single one of those knots and clean up that line. You can't fall into despair. The Lord gives us instruction from His Word that is unbelievable wisdom and so we're to follow that wisdom in learning from the Lord and how to fix those problems in our marriage. Don't fall into despair. The Lord will see you through it. Many times we are that way and fall into that difficulty because we've learned the world's wisdom so to speak. We influenced by media, influenced by TV, by books, by our own flesh, by our own upbringing, our own environment, the people that we hang out with, the you know the things your girlfriends told you in high school, you know the way that your buddies acted in college, all of that influencing our flesh influencing the way that we think about marriage and we've been inundated, infiltrated with the world's perspective, with worldly wisdom. We have to constantly remind ourselves of God's wisdom when it comes to marriage and so that's why when Peter says, I stir you up by way of reminder, that's what this conference is about too, just every year reminding ourselves of the wisdom of God and how it pertains to our marriages so that we can live in a way that honors him. We have to put off the old man, put off the stinking thinking, we have to put off the world's wisdom, put off worldliness like we learned about last week and put on godliness when it comes to our marriages and that takes time and effort. I heard that explained a couple of different ways. The analogy that I think I like is barnacles on the bottom of your boat, right? If you've got a boat in the water, your boat's going to collect barnacles. If you pull a boat up and the boat is just caked and crusted over with barnacles on the bottom of that boat, boat's been sitting in the water a long time and it hasn't been cared for, right? And many of us, you can pull our boat, our marital boat so to speak, out of the water and we've got barnacles all over the bottom of our boat and what it's going to take is it's going to take painstaking hard work of sitting under that boat and scraping off every one of those barnacles and then sanding that thing down and painting it over making it look nice again. It's going to take a lot of hard work. The other analogy that I don't like as much if you think about it this way is you weigh your 200 pounds over weight, all right? Did you put on the 200 pounds overnight? No, you didn't. You know, by just not doing what you're supposed to do, you put on the 200 pounds over a long, long period of time. So what is it going to take to get yourself back down to that nice girlish figure that you want to have? That's going to take a lot of time, one pound at a time, just doing what you're supposed to do, right, until the weight comes off and you look more like me. But you know what I'm saying? It takes a long time. I've heard it said before that you can't just immediately expect the Lord to bless you out of circumstances that you've spent years sinning yourself into. Make sense? It's just going to take time. So it will take time and it will take effort. That in a lot of cases is the very thing on our flesh that we don't want to give. We don't want to allocate. We don't want to allocate the time and the effort and the energy that it's going to take. And most often our marriages suffer because of neglect. Just basic neglect. It's going to take time and it's going to take effort. It's going to take you to be patient with yourself, but most often it's not the patience with yourself. It's the problem. It's your patience with your spouse that's the problem. It's going to take a lot of patience with your spouse. So it will take time. It will take effort. It will take patience with you and your spouse, just like the barnacles on your boat. Today what I hope is that you'll recognize some barnacles that need some attention and that you'll go to work on scraping those off your boat, making your boat drive a little smoother over the next year. What we have to do in order for that to happen is we have to learn right principles from God's word and we have to implement those principles. You have to learn right principles from God's word and you have to implement those principles. Obey the Lord. Obey the Lord's commands. Apply the word of God to your life, to your marriage. And over time, with hard work, just like taking off that weight in the gym, over time, hard work, just like scraping barnacles off your boat, you're going to make progress toward your goal. And you're going to untangle that fishing line, right? All right. That also takes repentance of sin. We're going to be in this conference, we want to focus primarily on ways in which individuals in a marriage, or ways in which a couple too, undermine their marriage through destructive patterns of thinking or destructive behaviors. Minds, if you will, planted by the enemy. Things that you'll do that are self-destructive in your relationship, that'll hurt both you and your spouse, that you know in a lot of cases when we're talking about them, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know that those are problems, yet in our flesh, in our lack of patience, in our lack of love, or in our neglect, we do them anyway, even though we know they harm our marriage. So we want to concentrate on those things that undermine our marriage. And so we want to put biblical principles in place in light of those, shed God's word, His spotlight on those, identify them, and it's going to require in cases that you repent of sin, that you humble yourself in light of God's word and say, listen, I'm turning from this sin, I don't want to do this in my marriage, it is destructive, and that you do what you're supposed to do. You put off the old man, you put on the new man, and when you do that, when you repent of sin, you put off the old man, you scrape off the barnacles, you're going to see progress. You're going to see progress. All that said, and for whatever reason, this is so much easier said than done, you've got to commit to obeying the Lord. Many, many times, I know brothers and sisters in this room that have counseled before, many, many times you'll sit before a couple, or you'll be talking to someone, and they'll say, I know that's what the word of God says, but I just don't think it's right. Or I know that's what the word of God says, but I don't want to do it. Or they'll say, like the servant that told his master he would go into the field and then didn't. I know what the word of God says, I'll do that, and then they don't do it. They simply won't implement it that way. They won't apply what the Bible says. They won't obey the Lord. You have to commit yourself wholeheartedly, right now at this point, to saying whatever the word of God says for me to do in my marriage, that's what I'm going to do. And you have to commit yourself to that. If it's difficult, well, it's supposed to be difficult. That's what our sanctification is. Our sanctification is born out of adversity, born out of difficulty. It's difficult because of your flesh and your pride. And because you're prideful, because you're sinful, it's going to be difficult. You're going to have to humble yourself. Often our growth comes in the soil of difficulty. So you have to commit to obeying the Lord. And that comes with an understanding that the Lord's ways are always best. The Lord's ways are always best. No matter what you think, the Lord knows better. There's a way that seems right to man. That way goes to death. God's ways are always the best ways. If you're not committed wholeheartedly, that if this is what the word of God says, then I'm going to do that at whatever cost that comes. I'm going to obey God's word in this area. And you stop neglecting that area. Or you stop avoiding that area, or whatever the case may be, that you're going to obey the Lord in that area. You're going to make progress. If you don't commit to obey the Lord in that area, and right now, even in your mind, you're thinking of areas where you need to obey the Lord, right? Many of you have areas in mind already. I'm weak in that area. I know I need to obey the Lord, and it's not going to be easy. You're going to have to humble yourself, and you're going to have to commit yourself to doing it. If you don't commit yourself to obey the Lord, and just simply doing what the Bible says, then you will revert back to the flesh, and you'll do what the flesh compels you to do. Makes sense? It's just too easy. It's like muddy water finding the lowest possible point. It's going to flow downhill until it finds just a pit to settle into. And that's the way we are in our behavior. If we don't commit to obey the Lord, and we're not intentionally pursuing our sanctification, in this case, intentionally pursuing a godly marriage, then our muddy water, the muddy water of our flesh, is just going to sink to the lowest point, and we're going to do that which is most comfortable to our flesh, that which is easiest to our flesh, and we're going to neglect our marriage, neglect the word of God with the way that we treat our spouse. So if you're not living by faith, then you'll be living according to the flesh, and you'll revert back to that. So reverting back to the flesh, oftentimes you learn lessons the hard way, right? The way the transgressor is hardened. So reverting back to the flesh, you're going to continue doing those things that are destructive in your marriage. We've got to apply God's wisdom and obey the Lord. So look at some of the passages. If you have a handout, we have handouts that you have marital mind field at the top. Okay, look at that first page there, and I want you to apply some of these truths from God's word to your marriage. Take the first there, Jeremiah 219. Let's do it this way. Let's take these two tables right here. You take a look at Jeremiah 219, and make some there on the blanks there on the page for you. Make some observations from the text as to how Jeremiah 219 might apply to your marriage. In the middle here, we're getting a little unbalanced. That's okay. Let's, in the middle here, let's take you guys and look at Jeremiah 616. And then over here, you guys take a look at James chapter 3. Just read those passages and in the blanks there below them, make some observations from those passages to your marriage, and then let's, we'll take some notes on those in just a moment. If you're listening in online, we've got several folks that are listening in online, you can email us at tina at cornerstoneorlando.org, and we'll get you a copy of the handouts so you can have those for your reference. You can use those with us. tina at cornerstoneorlando.org. You can request the handouts. And again, these passages sort of go hand in hand with the idea that God's word with respect to marriage is authoritative and always right, always good. We may think we, we got it all figured out, we know best, but okay, let's hear from you on a couple of these. For the sake of the folks online, I'll read the passage. Jeremiah 219, let's start with you guys. The Bible says, your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts. Give us some observations with respect to that passage and how that might apply to your marriage. What have you guys found on that, anyone? That'll help us too as the other folks will write some of those down. Pardon me? Come on guys, don't be bashful. Yeah. Yeah, do you guys? Yeah. He's here for the Troy. Say that your own actions, your own conduct in the marriage, your own sin in the marriage, you're going to face the consequences of that. It's going to be those consequences that end up correcting you and rebuking you, the things that you're doing. So instead of taking, would it be better, rather than face the consequences of your sin and your marriage, wouldn't it be better to obey the word of God and see blessing in your marriage rather than facing the consequences of your sinful actions. So we need to take heed to God's word and obey God's word, amen. Somebody else on Jeremiah 219, anything else? Yeah, amen. Yeah, and that second sentence there that you see that it's an evil and bitter thing. We look at those judgments that came upon Israel for their disobedience and how bitter, harsh, hard, difficult those judgments were. And ultimately, you'll face an ultimate judgment if you're disobedient in your marriage. The Lord has given you a stewardship, we're a repent of sin. If you're not being sanctified in your marriage, you've got to ask yourself whether or not you're a genuine Christian. And there's ultimate judgment awaiting our sin for that too. Yeah, Josh. Yeah, amen. So what does that mean, Josh, that we were to be walk around, you know, shaking in our boots with, you know, condemnation, hanging over our heads every day? Or what does it mean they're the fear of God? It says the fear of God is not in them. How do, let me ask it this way. How do we know that the fear of God is not in the people at this time? Yeah, so they've disobeyed him, right? It's said of those in scripture that disobey God, that the fear of God is not in their eyes, right? So we fear God by what? By obeying, right, obedience. So yeah, and again, it goes back to the wisdom of God in his word that we're to obey the Lord. They're not fearing the Lord in the sense they're being disobedient, so they're facing the consequences for that. Yes, yeah. Yeah, amen. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, that's good. And that demonstrates not a slavish fear of God, but it's just a fear of disobeying him. We obey him because we love him, because there's respect. The same thing with your kids, right? If your kids were running around disobedient, we could say they have no fear of you in their eyes, but we want them to have a healthy fear of disobeying authority, especially your parental authority. The same reason we fear disobeying God. I like that, yeah, I'll only be entirely yielded. Very nice. Okay, how about Jeremiah 616, where it says, Thus says the Lord, stand in the ways and see, ask for the old paths where the good way is, and walk in it, then you'll find rest for your souls. How does that apply to what we're talking about? Yes, yeah. Yeah, short-lived. Yeah, short-lived. You know, and everything in this world seems to be short-lived, doesn't it? You know, if you follow the world's wisdom, it's good for about a day, you know, a minute. You set your egg timer before it turns bad, you know? Yeah, and God's wisdom is old wisdom, old truth. It's been tried and tested in truth for millennia now, right? So yeah, very good. Anything else from Jeremiah 6? Okay, so in that, you know, Jeremiah 6, we're talking about applying the word of God, right? Talking about applying the word of God, we need to find out where the old paths are, where the good way is, and we need to walk in those ways, not our own ways, and then you'll find rest, blessing for your souls. What about James 3, who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom, but if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic for where envy and self-seeking exist. Listen to this, this is some, I mean, powerful truth from the word of God here. This may describe some of us and the situations that we find ourselves in, where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits. Look at what wisdom that is from above, God's wisdom, right? Godly wisdom. Look at what that produces. It's pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. So let me open it up to this group over here and anyone else who wants to join in. What are some observations from James 3 with respect to our marriage and the importance of the word of God? Yes, sir. Thank you for volunteering. Yes, go ahead, Ben. Yeah, amen. You know, there's a sense in which, and what Ben's talking about, there's a sense in which you can, I'll take a look at the fruit in your relationship and tell what wisdom is guiding your relationship. You know, we've got someone that says, you know, my wife and I are arguing all the time and I don't know what the problem is. I don't know what I'm doing, but you, you can tell what wisdom is being applied, right? Is that God's wisdom being applied in that marriage? No, you're doing something sinful. That, that is wisdom coming from you, not coming from God's word. In some way, there's sin going on. You can tell by its fruits, whereas heavenly wisdom applied is going to produce those fruits that are listed there. In many ways, you can think about in your marriage over the years, right? Whether you've been married one year or 25 or 30 years, Karen and I just had our 21st anniversary. Those 21 years just clipped by like crazy, you know, just so fast. But you think about that many times throughout your marriage, you'd have to be able to concede right when things don't go well. You're making a pig's ear of something. It's your, it's your responsibility. You're doing something wrong and you can ask yourselves like, well, how is your wisdom working out in the marriage? You know, you take an assessment, you know, how's that going for you when you apply your wisdom? When you think through and you say, yeah, I know this is what needs to happen. Here's what I need to do. I need to correct her this way or I need to do this, that, or the other thing. Well, how's that going for you? You know, how's that worked out so far? Has that led to peace, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy, or is that leading to something that is sensual and demonic and earthly? When God's word is applied, God's fruits are produced, and so we need to apply to God's word. Okay, all that to say to make the point, looking at those passages, and I want you to, as you go through, write some notes in those blanks for why it is so important to get back to the basics when there's a problem in the marriage, apply God's word. When there's a problem in the marriage, it's because God's word isn't being applied in whatever particular situation. There's sin that has gotten a foothold in your marital door, so to speak, and you've got to get that out, get that foot out of your doorway, get sin out of your marriage. You've got to apply God's word and God's word is going to produce God's fruits. So you have to be one committed to humble yourself. When there's a problem in the marriage, we need to go back to God's word, we need to do that together, and we need to apply God's word to the circumstance so that we can have a marriage that honors God in this circumstance. We can repent of sin and clean up the mess we've made, and you've got to be committed to doing that. What I've seen time and time and time and time again, and you have to be aware of this, and I'm sure many of you are, is that at the point that happens, we don't do what we're supposed to do. In other words, the very first knot comes up in your fishing line, and you know it's a knot, and it's there, and it's bugging you, and you see it all the time, and it's causing a problem, and yet you don't take care of that knot right then by applying God's word to the situation. When you don't do that, well the next knot comes, and the next knot, and the next knot, and the next knot, and pretty soon you're holding on to the pile of tangled fishing line, and you're sitting in front of a quote-unquote Christian counselor or pastor or somebody asking for help because you don't see a way through. As soon as the problem arises, apply God's word. Now we're going to talk a little bit about how to do that, or maybe things that'll help you build a pattern in your relationship for getting that done, but when there's a problem, apply God's word and then be humble. Oftentimes, you know, when a wife comes to a husband and wants to bring to that husband's attention a problem and wants to apply God's word, husband reacts with hostility and defensiveness and pride and won't listen, or vice versa. You know, the wife gets angry, and all you do is criticize and won't listen, and there's anger and hostility and frustration, and we have to apply God's word, and we have to be humble to be committed to obey God's word. So, there under James 3, 13, you have that little paragraph, our commitment together, and you need to turn to your spouse while you're sitting there at the table together and say to yourself and commit together. We commit together to submit ourselves and our marriage to the lordship of Jesus Christ and to obey the word of God as it relates to our marriage, our marital roles, and our marital responsibilities. You know, bearing in mind that that's, in many cases, easier said than done, but that's what we have to do. Ultimately, it comes to that. We're going to commit ourselves to obeying God. We're going to apply God's word. We're going to listen to God's wisdom, and when those situations arise, we're going to apply God's word to fix. Where there's difficulty, get help. You've got great brothers and sisters in this church who have been there, done that many, many years. Get help from someone. You know, talk to someone about it. We're having this difficulty. We, you need to both be able to say it. We want to honor the Lord in our relationship. We want to obey the Lord. We want to commit ourselves to doing what God says to do that help us. We need to help with this, and there are plenty of brothers and sisters that will. Okay, so you've got to be committed to obeying God's word. You can't be one of those that says, I know what the word of God says, but I just don't want to do it. Then there's no hope for you. There's no hope for you. You've got to be willing to do what God's word says to do, and although you won't necessarily be able to see it, when you apply God's truth, there is great hope, and there's joy around the corner, and there's, you can't have a bliss of marriage. It's a little taste of heaven on this side of eternity when you just do what the God's word says to do. Okay, so that's our commitment together. What we're going to try to do is, in the sessions that we're going to have this afternoon and also in the sermons at Pastor Mark and Pastor Rick are preaching, is to give you some, an objective look at different destructive habits, patterns, behaviors that we see in marriage. Whirliness, as we talked about, there's a great problem. I think I was talking to Pastor Rick about it after his sermon on Sunday that maybe we need to take a pause at some point and just preach an eight or ten-week series on Whirliness, because it's such a devastating problem in our churches, a devastating problem in your own personal life, in your marriages, is just a horrendous, destructive, devastating force, and I'm afraid in our churches, especially in this day and age, that we don't recognize the devastating effects of it, because we're desensitized to it. It's just crept in to such a degree that things that you and I, and I wouldn't say this is a much a legalism issue, as it is maybe a sensitivity to sin issue, but things that we see going on in the church today in good godly biblical churches would have been scandalous 50 years ago, right? Now is that a picture of their legalism, or is it a picture of our decline into licentiousness, right? And so a Whirliness, you may not see the effects of Whirliness in your marriage, but it's there, because we live in a devastatingly worldly environment in this obviously this world, which is going downhill just faster than we can keep track of it, but also because we see such a decline into Whirliness in our churches, or professing churches today. Pastor Mark's going to preach tomorrow on marriage and unity, so please come ready to take notes on that. It's amazing to me, even in my own sin sometimes, how we can allow disunity or discord to creep into our relationship, and how on certain issues we cannot be of one mind or one flesh anymore, and just the impact that disunity can have on a marriage. Unbiblical conceptions of marriage. This afternoon, Pastor Rick is going to be talking about one, this morning, going to be talking about the conception that we should have a marriage, that it's a promise that you make to God and your spouse, and how you're going to conduct yourself. Marriage is a covenant, but also this afternoon he's going to be talking about how we get into patterns of thinking, like blame shifting, like a master versus a slave mentality, when we're all slaves of Christ, those kinds of things, just unbiblical conceptions of marriage. We'll talk about what sacrificial love looks like, what submissive love looks like, selfishness in the marriage, problems with unforgiveness, where couples, just a husband will not forgive his wife, a wife will not forgive her husband. They hold on to bitterness and resentment, and all of those things are marriage killers, relationship killers. But as we get into those specifics, we're meaning to spend a few more sermons talking about some of those, before we get into those specifics, what I want to do this morning, in the short time we got left here, is to give you a framework for how to operate within that. We think about the enemy, laying out minds in a minefield. Would it be good, would it be right, would it be helpful to have a map to follow, or footsteps? If you see footsteps through a minefield, they go all the way to the other side, well that guy made it, somewhere the footsteps don't end at a crater. They make it to the other side. We need a roadmap to find our way through the minefield. I want to give you that, I want to give you a number two on your notes here, building and executing a biblical strategy. And if you boil this down, it's really not that complicated, it just takes intention, it takes effort, takes some work, intentionality, got to pay attention to it. It's like the erector set, if you will, for your relationship with your spouse in marriage, and you can boil that down to just a few critical spheres that we need to be attentive to if we're going to have a marriage that honors God. These are necessary to a godly marriage and a godly family. If you're not willing to do them, they're going to be subject to your flesh, and they're going to be subject to your fleshly decisions and your sinful behaviors, sinful conduct. You need to work on this framework. It's a framework that'll help you develop biblical love, pay attention to forgiveness, it'll help you communicate, it's going to help you resolve conflict. It's within that framework that all these things sort of take place. It's how you obey the Lord, how you apply His word within this framework. This should be, as you go through, and what I hope will happen is that after today, you'll take this and you'll spend some time talking about it, looking at it, and working on it together. Things that you'll put in place together. This is something that will probably take a good bit of time that I hope will generate some conversation, but you're going to have to commit yourselves to working on it on your own after today. Hopefully that will be led by the husband in a godly biblical way, would be supported and helped along by the wife. Oh, thank you, sister, very much. Helped along and supported by the wife. This would be a good way for men, for you to take just leadership of the process, ladies, for you to give input and to help and to work through biblical issues with your husband. You guys have these discussions together. It should generate conversation. We'll talk about that more as we go. All right, the first is, before we get into that, is it's going to take one personal commitment. We've already talked about that to a degree, but you can't have any compromise, a compromising heart attitude about this. You've got to be committed to making it work. Some in the beginning, maybe you've been there, I've been there before, find it awkward to begin the conversation. Like I said in the beginning, there were certain things my wife and I just hadn't talked about. Well, you need to talk about those things. You need to get over the awkwardness and you need to have the conversation. Begin talking to your spouse about whatever the problems are in every area of your marriage. And we're going to go through every area in just a minute. You need to be willing to talk. If you are at a point where you have sort of declined in your relationship, and this happens, to where you feel awkward showing affection. You know, that seems strange in a marriage relationship, but that happens more than we'd like to admit. Where in your relationship, you've sort of devolved into a circumstance, a situation where you feel awkward showing affection, where you don't hug anymore, kiss anymore, there's no intimacy in the marriage. You've got to be willing to humble yourself and to do what the word of God says. Some, they'll come in like in an counseling situation and they'll want help. You know, I'm having difficulty, we're having difficulty, we want help on our marriage, but they're not willing to schedule 15 minutes of time once or twice a week to spend with each other. If you're that way, you've got that kind of an attitude, it's not going to work. There's no hope for you in your marriage. You might as well do something else. You've got to be willing to put in a little effort, put in a little time, do what feels awkward. Do the things you don't want to do. You need to be willing, uncompromisingly, to do what the word of God says regardless of how you feel about it. And so it's going to take some effort on your part and you need to be committed to doing that. Look at the first question there under personal commitment. What does Genesis 224 communicate about the commitment you should have to your spouse and to your marriage? Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. Just give me some, just throw out some observations real quick from that text. What does that say about the commitment that you should have to your spouse and to your marriage? Leave in cleave verse from Genesis 224. Yes sir. Amen. Oneness completely. Oneness of mind. Obviously oneness of flesh. Oneness in the purpose. Oneness in your direction. Just oneness right in your marriage. Somebody else. Quickly now, come on. Please help. Shadrach. Thank you brother. Amen. How many of you when you were three years old were cleaving to your mother? Right? You should be cleaving to your wife. Yes ma'am. Oh that it does not. That's right. Yeah so what does that say about the priority of marriage, that relationship, above any other quote-unquote relationship that you have? Yeah you should, yeah amen. Everybody understand where we're headed with that? So it takes great personal commitment. There should be a cleaving like Ryan said also, this pursuit of unity. Like Maria said, above any other relationship that you've got, so it should be, it should inform your understanding of your personal commitment to your marriage. Men, you're called to lay down your life for his daughter. Realize that Ephesians chapter 5 verse 25 and write some notes there for yourself. Husband, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. It's a high personal commitment to your wife. You're to lay down your life, lay down your life. It's a divine calling to ministry, a stewardship. Ephesians 526, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with a washing of water by the word. It doesn't say with a fire hose and a metallic scrub brush, right? It says that he might sanctify and cleanse her with, it sounds nice, with a washing of the water by the word. It's a ministry, a divine ministry that husband has toward his wife. Men, you're to lay down your life for her and it's a lay down your life in ministry to her for the purpose of sanctifying and cleansing her with a washing of water by the word. For the purpose of both her sanctification and yours, Ephesians 527, that he might present her to himself, a glorious church not having spot a wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. Now that is, we know for marriage, one of the purposes for marriage is our sanctification, for her sanctification, men, and for yours. If you flip the page, Romans 828, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew, he also predestined what? To be conformed, right, to the image of his son. So he predestined you to be conformed into the image of his son. One of the means by which he does that is through your marriage relationship in which, although you may think, this woman that he gave me, you've got that kind of attitude, that's a stinking thinking, that sinful, unbiblical attitude, she's for your good, she's for your good because he determined ahead of time he was going to conform you into the image of his son. And so he perfectly suited your wife for your wicked disposition, your sin that needs to be lopped off and repented of. He suited her for you, ladies. He suited him for you, for your sanctification. Your marriage to your spouse falls within the scope of God's all-encompassing sovereignty over your life. Everything falls within God's scope of sovereignty. He's given you a spouse with perfectly designed strengths and weaknesses to see to your sanctification. He's done that perfectly for you because he intends to conform you into the image of his son. And oftentimes our sanctification is accomplished in a soil of difficulty in adversity. So is it going to be difficult in your marriage? Yes, expect difficulty. And when difficulty arises, you can, as James says, you can rejoice in the Lord. Lord, thank you for the opportunity to work on this. I need to humble myself, I need to work on it because I know that you intend this for my good, you intend this for my sanctification. This is going to work out for my better. You know, it's interesting to me, back in that passage in Jeremiah, that one of the things that the Lord says about sending them into captivity is that God sends them into captivity for their good. Now, there's a group of Israelites, they're going to be judged, they're going to go to hell when they die, and Lord, that's the way it's going to work out. But there's a remnant of God's people that go into captivity, and why does God send them into captivity under the hand of the Babylonians? For their good. Now, we may not think of it that way all the time, but the Lord did it for their good. Here, no matter how difficult things get, this is for your good. He's going to teach you patience, he's going to teach you humility, he's going to teach you mercy, he's going to teach you about his grace, he's going to teach you forgiveness, he's going to teach you how to work through a struggle, how to resolve conflict, he's going to teach you how to bear with one another, sacrifice for one another. You know, it's interesting with all the texts that we have in the Bible on marriage that all of those texts that we see in Scripture that command us with respect to the one and others, how much more so our wife, right? How much more so our families? All those texts apply to marriage. Ladies, you're called to submit to him in all things. You're called to submit in all things to this man that he's appointed over you. Ephesians 5, 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. And you can't get any clearer than that. And there is no, there are no various definitions of Scripture with respect to submission, right? There's no qualification here. This is not some nuanced word that, in one case it means this, in another case it means this. It's submit, all right? And the submission called for here is as to the Lord. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Remember that, men. Christ is the savior of the body. We're to emulate Christ in our marriage. That's a high calling. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let wives be to their own husbands in everything. So whether the man, quote unquote, is worthy or not, whether you think, quote unquote, he deserves it or not, whether you think that he is spiritual enough, you know, for you to give it to him or not, this submission in Ephesians 5 is a submission really technically between you and the Lord, not as technically between you and your husband. You're to submit to your husband as unto the Lord in everything. So this is a submission. This is a thing, if you will, between you and God. Your submission to your husband is for the glory of God, for your obedience to God, it's for your submission to the Lord. She's to submit to you men, but are you laying down your life for her? You're to lay down your life for her? Think about that for a moment, men. Are you laying down your life for your wife? Ultimately, all this, you know, falls upon the leadership and sacrificial love of the man in the household. The man has to lead in this. Are you laying down your life for her as much as you are laying down your life for your job? This goes back to Maria's point if you think about it, that you're commanded to provide for your household, but are you commanded to lay down your life for your job? This is a different calling, right? A different command. How do you spend your recreation time, your leisure time? You're not commanded to lay down your life for your leisure time. You are commanded to lay down your life for your wife. How do you spend your time, sports time with the brothers? I remember we were talking to a guy once that convicted things weren't going well in his marriage, and he was spending all of his time with brothers from church doing churchy things, so it seemed like he was supposed to do that, right to do that in his marriage. It's completely falling apart. You're not, you know, to lay down your life for your brothers in the same way that you're to lay down your life for your wife. What about working out personal pursuits, a hobby? All of this takes personal commitment, and that needs to begin today. We started off this by saying don't get discouraged or don't be discouraged, don't fall into despair, so don't. Don't be discouraged, but rejoice in the fact that where God's word applies to your marriage, there is opportunity for hope and joy and bliss. And then just apply God's word to your marriage. If this is something that you're, like I said, you've made a pig's ear to this point, well then just repent of that and start today, just start today. We need to go home, sit down with our spouse, work through some of these things, and put ourselves on a right path of working these things out so that we can honor God in our marriage. There just needs to be initially, like we talked about here, personal commitment, personal commitment. And what the word of God says is that personal commitment is extremely high. So we're about to close this up for the sake of time, and we'll have to finish this afternoon. So hold on to your sheets here. Ephesians 5, wives submitting as into the Lord, men laying down their lives for their wife. We see what the word of God says with respect to obedience and the wisdom of God's word and how that wisdom applies to our relationship. And so as you come today, and as we continue to work through these things, it's going to take a high level of personal commitment. If we want to honor the Lord in our marriage, it's going to take a high level of personal commitment. That high level of personal commitment is not just words, it's going to take time, it's going to take effort, it's going to take humility, it's going to take sacrifice, it's going to take going home and having conversations that you may not have had before. We've got to go the distance and commit to these things if we want to have a marriage that is honoring the Lord and the way the Lord has said. So think through that and make that commitment. When it comes to God's word, just say, listen, I'm going to obey the Lord. I'm going to obey what God's word says. I'm not going to compromise. I'm not going to allow my worldly wisdom to infiltrate this. I'm going to do what God's word says. That quote from Richard Baxter I like there. Do you wonder why so much ignorance, deceit, and stubbornness and errors contrary to common sense? It's interesting that common sense is God's sense that applies to God's word. Do you wonder why so much ignorance, deceit, and stubbornness and errors contrary to common sense can be found among professed Christians, great and small, high and low throughout all the papal kingdoms? Though the pride, covetousness, and wickedness of a worldly clergy is a great cause, the sinful negligence of parents is as great a cause, if not the greatest. And you say that in our marriages. It's the neglect of the husband to lay down his life for his wife, the neglect of the wife to submit to her husband. These things, it's not rocket surgery, right? These things are a lot of these easy stuff is what the Bible says it. It's just neglect is often the greatest cause for our difficulties. So we come back. What I want you to do next, I'll give that to you in just a second. What we'll do this afternoon is we'll just continue working through this. I want to give you the four spheres, if you will, that we can work on, that we can establish in our marriage that framework that we can work within and talk about why those are so important and give you some practical tools for how to do that after lunch. For right now, if you don't have it already, you should. You have a sheet that says, what is the state of your union? Good little sheet adapted this from Wayne Mack. You've not seen this before. Really good little sheet. Being that this is a, we're going to use a workshop format here. I just want you to take the next 25 minutes or so and work through this with your spouse. Your spouse has one, you have one. Maybe you just sit next to each other and just do a run through of this sheet. Give yourself a quick assessment. At the bottom of this sheet, you've got a place where you can total up your score and then it's got a little next section here at the bottom of the second page. The first one there, list the top three questions from above that you observe to be most pressing to address. So as you fill out one through 35 here, pick out the top three that are most pressing. You think these are things that, you know, the pot is sitting on the stove and there's a fire that's starting. I got to get to this right away, right? And then the second one, list the top three questions from above that you scored most differently from your spouse. Now you look at your spouse's sheet. This is going great. I gave ourselves a five and you've got a zero and there's a problem, a discrepancy. So find those top three things where you and your spouse see things most differently and you want to work on those three too, okay? So take this sheet and we'll get back together at 10.30.