 So we're in a series of sermons about marriage. Remember last week we covered worldliness in marriage and we had the marriage conference yesterday. So today we have the topic of marital unity. Marital unity, if you look in your bulletin there should be an outline for the text that will help you follow along in this sermon. So the title is Marital Unity, E-Harmony, God's Way. Mm-hmm. Marital harmony, marital unity, is something that is very difficult. It's something that doesn't come by accident. Think about how this particular story is sadly common. Joe was asleep one night and 17 years old sleeping in his bed and he woke up just screaming. He looked at the clock and it was 3 a.m. and he thought, not again. The screaming is his parents are yelling at each other. He thought, maybe if I roll over and fall asleep then they'll stop on their own. Instead in a few minutes they got worse. Then he could tell from the fighting that they had begun to physically fight one another. He got up out of bed, went to the living room and found them, tried to physically separate them. In the process he got in with the argument and said things that he would regret forever. His father rushed out into the night and wouldn't then come back for the rest of the night. As Joe laid in his bed looking at the ceiling he had this thought over and over I don't wanna ever get married. I don't wanna ever get married. I don't wanna ever get married. If this is what marriage is like. 10 years later Joe did get married and a few years into his marriage he found himself looking up at the ceiling at 3 a.m. saying, how did I get to be just like my parents? With his wife leaving at 3 a.m. and not coming back. This story is very common. Many of you may be able to resonate with it with either the experience that you've had with your family or with your own marriage. And what I want to say to you today is God has a plan for unity with his people. There is great hope in his word. This text here in Ephesians is a text about how Christians can be unified. And there is great wisdom and hope here. I have hope and believe that the application of this text can bring great hope to you and your marriage. So let's begin to look at Ephesians 4, 1 to 6. And we will see that first the call to unity in general in the church and then at the end of the sermon we'll go over some marriage applications of this text. So first off, what this text teaches about unity in the church. Let's read in Ephesians 4, 1 starts. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the call in which you were called. So Paul starts off and he says, I therefore. Now if you've heard a good preacher and he finds therefore, what does this preacher say? What is it therefore? Okay, you guys have heard some good preaching. So let's look and see what is the therefore, therefore. This is the hinge of Ephesians. All of Ephesians rotates on this point and this chapter right here is very key to understand this therefore, to understand the flow of the book, to understand God's message to you. You look back and see what the therefore is there for in verses 20 to 21 we see a doxology. We see an expression of worship from the apostle Paul. Why does he have this expression of worship? Look back at verses 14 to 19. Because he has this expression of worship because through Christ, he has this prayer for the church that through Christ in verse 17 they may be rooted and grounded in love that they would comprehend with all the other saints, with all the other Christians, how wide, how long, how deep and how high to know the love of Christ. So then what is the love of Christ that he's talking about and he's praying about here but here's some of the context to think about the love of Christ that it's expressed in this book. Chapter one, verse three, the love of God is expressed in that God the Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Chapter one, verse four, God chose his church, he chose believers. Who would be saved before the world ever began? He did this in love. You are no different than anyone else in the world but in his love he's chosen us to be part of his body. In Ephesians 1.5, we see we've been adopted as sons. We have a relationship to God as our Father. What love is this? In chapter one, verse six, he accepts us in Christ. Because of our union with Christ we can be accepted with him before his throne. Ephesians 1.7, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He frees us from the penalty and from the power of our sins. What love is this? Chapter one, 11 and 118, we have the riches of inheritance in Christ. Christ has given the blessing of inheriting the world with him. He's gonna make the world anew and we get to partake in that because of our union with Christ. In 1.13 to 14, when you're saved you're sealed with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes on you and that is a guarantee of your future inheritance that the Spirit indwells you. Chapter one, 18, we have the hope of his calling. In the future, the completion of salvation is coming and what a hope this is. What a hope this is. The hope of his effectual call being completed. That we live with this hope. In chapter one, 22, Christ is the head of the church. You get to have Jesus Christ as the leader and Lord over the church that you're in. In chapter two, verse one, he made you alive when you were dead in your sins. You were a slave of Satan himself. You were a slave of your own lust. You were under his wrath. What love is this that he would make you alive? In chapter two, verse six, he makes you sit in the heavenly places in Christ. You are united with Christ so that you have his righteousness. In chapter two, verses four to seven, he is kind and loving and has a richness of grace. As he gives you saving faith, the very faith that you have to believe in this love, to believe in this good news, is from him. What love is this? Chapter two, verses 11 to 13, that we were aliens and strangers to the covenants, to the people of God, but now we're brought near. We're brought near and we get to be brought into the people of God. In chapter two, 14 and 15, the middle wall of separation is broken down and we have peace with him and his people. In 219, we're no longer strangers and foreigners, but we're fellow citizens and we're fellow saints. We're members of the household of God. He has grafted us in to his people. His tree of the people of God, as Gentiles are grafted in. What love is this? That he would allow us to be part of his people. In chapter three, verse six, we become fellow heirs, part of the body of Christ, partaking in his promises. We get included into the Old Testament promises. In chapter three, verse eight, we are allowed to now participate in the spreading of this message. To the least of all the saints, us, this grace has been given that we should make known the riches of his grace to the Gentile world. Chapter three, verse 10, we are brought into the church for the very purpose of being a display to the principalities and powers. As the church is on display, so the angels can see the many-sided, manifold wisdom of God that as the church is on display, even the angels take wonder and glory at the salvation and the love that is from our God. So Paul says, how wide, how long, how deep, how high is this love? What does Paul do in chapter three, 20 and 21? But he says, I gotta praise the Lord. And he does it in a doxology. A doxology works this way, where first you say what the Lord has done and then you say what the Lord deserves because of it. Okay, if I were to make up a doxology and I would say, behold the milky way that the Lord Jesus Christ has made by His very words and the milky way remains in existence today because of the sustaining power of Jesus Christ. Now to Jesus Christ, should receive all glory and honor and praise for His great power, His sustaining the universe in a midst of the universe full of sin. See how that works? You say something Lord has done and then what He deserves because of it. Look what Paul does. He says, now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, could you think, could you ask for something greater than what is revealed in Ephesians one to three? Could you dare ask God for something greater, a greater expression of love? What about, could you think of a greater expression? Could you even come up with a better plan of love than what you read in these chapters? You can't even come up with a better one. In fact, Paul says, he doesn't say it's exceedingly beyond what we ask or think but it's exceedingly abundantly beyond what we ask or think. It's like the cowardly lion. There's no way, no how that you could even think of a better plan than this. You couldn't think or conceive of a better plan of love, of the expression of the power of God that works in the church. So he says, because of this great work, to him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generations, forever and ever, amen. This good news, this gospel, this plan that Christ, that the Father, that the Holy Spirit have outlined and employed in the church is now to be applied here in chapter 4 verse 1. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of your calling. This doctrine in chapters 1 to 3 means you have a duty. This indicative in chapters 1 to 3 means you have some imperatives. You have some commands. This creed, this doctrine means you have a conduct that needs to match it. This exposition of glory and love in chapters 1 to 3 means you have an exhortation now to obey and follow because of it. You have to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. Let's look in verse 1. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord. Paul reminds them here with the prisoner of the Lord. This phrase, remember, he's writing this from jail. And this gives the message in earnestness, a blood earnestness. This gives you the idea, this is going to cost you. But it's well worth it. Paul is writing from jail When you read that, that's got to impact you. That's got to make you think, I can't read this like I read the newspaper. I can't read this like I read the newspaper with a heartless idea. This has got to affect me down to my very soul. This has got to be applied. This has got to be lived out. Look at what happens when Paul lives it out. Where does he end up? Yeah, he's not at the Hilton or the Ritz-Carlton. He's not writing from Disney. He's writing from prison. So this makes it life or death serious. You see? This is Paul saying, this is costly. And it's worth it. And it's well worth it. It is well worth it. So he reminds them, I'm a prisoner of the Lord. And so what he says is, I beseech you. In this text in verses one to six, we'll see. In verse one, he gives the motive for unity. In verses two to three, he says the method for unity. How to do it? In verses four to six, there's the foundation, the doctrinal foundation for unity. So remember that. Write that down. Verse one, the motive. Verses two to three, the method. How to do it? Verses four to six, the foundation for it. What you gotta agree upon in order to have unity. So first off, this prisoner of the Lord explains to us the motive. So he says, I beseech you. Nobody uses the word beseech now today. What that means is he's saying, I'm urging you. I'm begging you. I'm calling you to do something. I'm scolding you. I'm admonishing you. I'm pleading with you. This comes from a pastor's heart. This is not like a sharp rebuke. He's saying, I beg you. I beg you to apply this. And what he says, what he begs about, what he says, this implies, this is from God. I'm begging you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. He's saying, I want you to walk. I want you to live in such a way that gives Christ honor. That Christ would not be ashamed to say to you, well done, good and faithful servant. He wants you to walk in a way that goes well with the calling by which you've been called. The calling here, if you look at the grammar you see, first it's the calling. So he's speaking about a noun here. He's speaking about the calling, the effectual call. This is what the Holy Spirit has done to make someone born again. This is how the work of God to open up your eyes to see, I need a savior. And to give you faith, to give you the gift of repentance, to turn, that's the effectual calling. He's saying walk worthy of the effectual calling with which you were called. You see the past tense, it's already happened to them. It's a one-time event that's happened. Do you see the motive here? You know often when I'm evangelizing I'll use this analogy to express the heart that should be in response to the gospel. Where you're talking with somebody, you probably use a similar analogy where you say imagine you're a criminal in the law court and the judge is before you and the judge says you're guilty, guilty, guilty and then the judge takes off his judge's robe, he comes down, takes your chains and then he goes out and he dies in your place. And you to get the freedom, he gets the penalty. And then later on you see the judge's family. How would you treat the judge's kids? Everybody gets it. You would treat his kids with kindness, with love. You would care for them. Send part of your check in for the care for these kids. They don't have a father because the father died for you. And I say to them, what if the funeral service was going to come up and you didn't bother to show up? He died for you and then you didn't bother to show up. Would that be walking worthy of the calling? Would that be walking worthy of what the judge has done? And everybody knows. Now, that would be an extreme insult. If you bear the name of Christ, you don't want to bring shame on Christ. The one who has poured out this great love. How can you respond to this plan of salvation by walking in an unworthy way? When a politician sins, when a politician does an evil thing, corrupt thing, he takes money, and then he gets removed from his post, we would commonly say, yeah, he wasn't worthy of the position. He wasn't worthy to be a judge, he wasn't worthy to be a governor, he wasn't worthy to be a president, etc. We must walk worthy of our calling. We must respond to the love that Jesus Christ has poured out to the church. Do you see the motive? The motive is shame if you don't. You don't want to be shamed. So how do we walk in unity? How do we walk in unity? See verses two to three. Five characteristic traits. One, with all lowliness. Two, gentleness. Three, with long suffering. Four, bearing with one another in love. Five, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. So first, lowliness. Lowliness. You have to have a correct understanding of who you are. That you need to think of yourself as not as good as others. When you look around the church, you need to see other people in the church and think of them as better than you. It doesn't matter if you've been a Christian longer. It doesn't matter if you know more. If you know more of the Bible, then you will know that you're not better than them. You know there was an ant downtown. And this little ant was screwing around looking for food. And he bumped into a flea. A flea smaller than him. And he's like, look at this pitiful, hairy thing. Goes around drinking blood. I'm much better than that thing. And as the ant looked away, he bumped into a building and he saw it's a Sun Trust building. He looked all the way up. And he realized, never seen anything so big, he realized he was nothing. It's a little ant compared to the Sun Trust building. And then he began to see, you know I'm a lot closer to the flea than I thought. You know, when you understand the grandeur of the holiness of God, it reaches much higher than the Sun Trust building. When you understand the perfections of the love of God and the justice of God, and you see yourself for the first time a right, just like that ant sees himself right when he sees the reality around him. You know how you're to be lowly? You're to understand who God is and who you are. Christ is the only one who could walk around this world and say, I'm better than you. I'm better than you. I'm better than you. And how does Jesus Christ walk around? The only one who could think that way legitimately and he walks around treating others better than himself. Loveliness is necessary for unity. The apostle Paul says in Acts 20, 18 to 19, that he served the Lord with all humility and trials and tears. In Philippians 2-3, the apostle Paul says to consider others better than yourself. You've got to think about others better than yourself. 1 Peter 5, 1-5 talks about how you need to be submissive to one another, clothed with humility. In the context he says that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. You are not worthy to be called. You are not worthy to be effectually called. So why don't you walk that way? Why don't you live that way in a lowliness? So 1, lowliness. 2, how to have unity? Walk in gentleness. Walk in gentleness. Gentleness and meekness are synonyms and they are despised in our culture, just like they were in Paul's day. In the Greco-Roman world, they didn't have a word for humility, is what I've read in the study of this. The people despised weakness. Aristotle talked about how you know what a man is, one who will never let someone talk bad to him. But he'll stand up for himself. That's the picture of a true man. Is that a good philosophy? But meekness, gentleness is power under control, like the Lord Jesus Christ. Could Jesus Christ go around calling down fire upon this city and that and this? He could have, but he was one who was gentle. Gentleness is the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. Gentleness is steel under control. It is inward, it is toward God, it is a meekness toward other people. Where you're thinking about the effects of what you do on someone else. In order to have unity, you have to be gentle. You have to think about what you do and how it affects others. In 2 Timothy 2, 25, Paul exhorts that we must gently correct those who are in opposition, that they may come to repentance. In Titus 3, 2, we're called to be gentle in light of the gospel. In Matthew 11, verse 29, Jesus says a famous passage where he says to bring your yoke and take my yoke upon you for my burden is easy. And he says for why? He says because I'm gentle, I'm gentle. Romans 5 talks about how the hard times in life are gonna make it so that you can learn how to be patient, how you can be gentle. This will develop in your life from difficult times. This idea is the opposite of I'm gonna fight fire with fire. I got hurt, so I'm gonna hurt back double. Gentleness is the opposite of that. Gentleness is the idea that I'm gonna be controlled and can think about what I do and how it affects others. So one, if you wanna have unity, you gotta be lonely, humble. Two, you gotta be gentle. Three, you gotta be patient. Long suffering. Do you see that in verse 2? Long suffering. Long suffering now is the passive side. You know, the active side is you're gonna be bearing with another one's love or you're gonna be gentle in what you do or the mentality, you're gonna be of a lowly mentality. So this one now is how do you react when people sin against you? You know, you could go to prison with a bunch of people who aren't very nice and you could get along with the guys who are nice to you. Even prisoners in prison get along with those who treat them well. It's not a virtue to get along with those who treat you well. It is right in a virtue to get along with those who hurt you, who sin against you. That's patience, that's long suffering. You cannot have unity unless you're willing to be hurt. Are you willing to have your face slapped and turn back and say a kind word? Long suffering is bearing and dealing with someone else's sin. The self restraint, not acting to an avenge when you have been hurt. God did this with you. Do you remember Romans 2, 4? God is long suffering and why? To bring you to repentance. If God did it with you, again, this is another fruit of the spirit. In Galatians 5, long suffering. Colossians 111 talks about how we should be strengthened for all patience and long suffering with joy. You can do it with joy. The word of God is to be preached with long suffering in 2 Timothy 4, 2. Paul was saved in 1 Timothy 1, 16. He says he was saved as a result of the long suffering of God. You are a Christian if you're in Christ today because God suffered with you. God, it hurt God what you did but he suffered long with you. Shouldn't you do that with others? And you must do it in order to have unity. Okay, so to have unity, you gotta be lowly. 1, 2, you gotta be gentle. 3, you gotta have long suffering. 4, you gotta bear with one another in love. Bear with one another in love. Bearing has the idea of enduring, putting up with, showing the tolerance for the kind act. 4 was doing what's right. It's not just about receiving pain. It's about you bearing in order to do what is kind, what is thoughtful for someone else. You understand, he doesn't say just bearing with love but he doesn't say, I'm sorry, he doesn't say just love but he says bearing with one another in love. This gives the idea that it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard to continue to love. Have you ever been carrying something and then your arm starts to do the jelly thing? You know, some of you don't know that but me with these guns, sometimes I've experienced that. You know, with the jelly arm, holding something a long time, when you get the jelly arm, what you think is typically, somebody get over here and help me. Or you think, I'm droppin' this. And the groceries you're carrying, the egg smash. The tomato sauce clangs and bang, it smashes. When you're tempted to, this is too tough to continue to love. This is too, I'm not being loved back. I give and give and give and I'm not loved back. This is too tough. I can't carry it anymore. Either you're tempted to attack, get over here and help me with this or you're tempted to run. I'm gettin' out of this relationship. I'm ditchin' this. You see? It costs you to bear with love. It's not easy. It takes work. In conflict, you gotta be suspicious of yourself. When you got conflict, the first thing you're to do is be suspicious of yourself. That you're the cause of it. It's because of you. You know, some people talk about, in my marriage, it's 80% him and it's 20% of the problem is me. 80% is him. And all that he doesn't lead, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Well, I would say, if that's true, and he's 80%, you're 20%, then work 100% on your 20%. That's what it means to be lowly. That's what it means to be gentle. To bear with one another in love. That you take 100% responsibility for what you're doing. You see how, when that happens, you begin to see, you know, I have more than 20%. Jesus Christ was one who endured in love. When Jesus Christ had someone come to him and talk about how his son has a demon, Jesus Christ used this word for enduring. When he says, how long will I have to endure with this faithless generation? Jesus Christ endured with the people who didn't believe him for the sake of the gospel. Can you not endure in love and do the same? Colossians 3.13 says we should be bearing with one another and forgiving one another. Second Thessalonians 1.4, Paul boasts about churches bear and endure through tribulations. Here he is explaining to you, you, beloved, the person with indwelling sin, how to work together to have unity in his body. You gotta have lowliness, you gotta have gentleness, you gotta have long suffering, you gotta bear with love, and you gotta endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit. You have to be diligent. You have to make every effort. That's what endeavoring is in verse 3 in your Bible. You have to be ready all the time. This is not an easy thing. You have to work to the point of sweat. Humble sweat to keep the unity of the spirit. You notice it's something to keep. It's something the Lord has purchased with his body. We're the ones who mess it up. We're the ones who mess it up. You gotta endeavor to keep it. What does it take to get real fat? What does it take to get real fat? Do nothing. Just eat what you want, live the way you want, and it happens. What does it take to have disunity? Do nothing. Do nothing. Put no effort in communication. Put no effort into it. And you will have disunity. There's not a mystery to it. You've got to humble yourself in order to be working this hard at it. To keep it in the unity of the spirit, in the bond of peace. What a beautiful language where it describes how unity is a work of the spirit and it bonds us together in peace. So Apostle Paul has explained to you the motive for unity in verse 1. He has told you how to do it, practically in verses 2 to 3. Now the foundation is in verses 4 to 6. The foundation, it reads, there is one body and one spirit. Just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father who is above all and through all and in you all. Seven different points of one, one, one. You know I don't know a lot about e-harmony. I've seen a few commercials. So in the commercials, they describe about how we're going to match you up with a person who's got all the, I don't know, what do they say, 20-some character traits and attributes. They get the common, what matches you up. I want some of you young guys, I want a reform Baptist woman who likes to cook and she likes to go water skiing and whatever, whatever, whatever. And you line up all the attributes, right? Well, God's way of e-harmony is saying these things have got to line up in order for there to be unity and there should be unity because Christians, all Christians should agree fervently with these seven things. First, that there's one body. That we are all united into the body of Christ and committed to the church. That there's one spirit. And when you see this, you'll notice that the Holy Spirit and the Trinity as a whole is in this declaration, verses four to six. You see the Spirit in verse four with part of his work bringing people into the body and the hope of your calling, the effectual call. Do you see that in verse four? The person of the Spirit and his work. Look in verse five. You see the person of the Son and his work. We have faith in his person, who he is, that he's God and what he's done. The body of doctrine, one faith. And one baptism. And then we see in verse six, the Father. So this Trinitarian unity. So in verse four, back to verse four, we have the body that we're included in, we're brought in by the Holy Spirit. We have one Holy Spirit who has done this work. Just as you were called in one hope of your calling, again he's reminding them of the effectual call and this one hope that you have united together in this future completion of salvation. And you have one Lord Jesus Christ that you're committed to. One faith, one body of belief. One summation of doctrine that you agree upon. One baptism. That you are remembering the time when you're publicly declaring that you're gonna follow Christ and not go back. And when you do this, there's some debate whether this is talking about water baptism or spirit baptism into the body of Christ and the debate, F. F. Bruce is a commentator. He talks about how that debate is unnecessary because they're both ideas are united. In order to be baptized, you're baptized by the church and you're baptized as a declaration, public declaration, before the church, you're held accountable by the local church of that declaration and you are baptized to be part of the local church. So when you become a believer, spirit baptism is when you are immersed into Christ, into his body, at conversion. Those two things, uniting with Christ and uniting with his body, are both communicated in the idea of one baptism. That's why he doesn't need to clarify which baptism he's talking about because they're united. They're not ideas that are contrary to one another. Paul doesn't have the idea of a Christian being in the church not being water baptized and not being baptized into the assembly. You see that? Because it's something that all Christians should have in common. One Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father who is above all and through all and in you all. Here, the last verse talks about the Father and how all those, he's referring now to the church in context, those who are his true children are the church who is above all. He's above all in the church. He is working through all and he is indwelling. Okay, so now that you see what this passage says about unity, let's think about how to apply it to a marriage. This is a marriage sermon after all. So how do we apply it in marriage? Look at verses two to six and think now with me about the opposite. What happens if you do the opposite in a marriage? What happens if you do the opposite in marriage? Instead of lowly, you come into your marriage thinking of yourself as the one who is really better. You want to divide your marriage? Think, I'm the one who's doing better. I'm the one who's really the righteous one. You want to divide your marriage? Be harsh instead of gentle. Say things in a rough way. Yell all the time to your spouse. Give uncaring words. You want to divide your marriage? Dominate with your words over the other person. Try and win the battle by your words. You want to divide your marriage? Be impatient. Say, I want it and I want it now. I want you to sacrifice. I want your goals to be sacrificed and never give up any of your own. Put your comfort first. You want to have a horrible marriage? Give up enduring love. Instead, you make no more effort. You refuse to do it. You refuse to set aside your own things in order to set out a plan for how you will serve your spouse. You want to destroy the unity in your marriage in regards to do nothing. Do nothing to continue communication. Do nothing in a matter of leading spiritually for the man. You want to destroy your marriage? Let sin continue on and think it's okay. It'll be okay. Kind of like the hot dog that falls in the living room floor and you kick it under the couch. It's okay. There's a lot of preservatives in those things anyways. Those things don't really meet anyway. They probably won't just kick it under the couch. It'll be fine. I'm busy. I don't want to clean it up. Think of sin in your family that way and that will destroy the unity. That rotten smell is going to come back to haunt you. If you think about your marriage that way the rotten smell of sin is going to come back and disunify your marriage. You want to have disunion in marriage? Instead of being focused on rightly applying and being committed to the body of Christ instead think about your own ministry. Think about how this is often the case where wives will think about the home. I'm working hard to make this a godly home and this man is off doing, working with a church and the wife says, I'm part of the church too. What are you doing? Always away from home. You're always out. And the man looks at the wife and he says, I'm committed to serve the Lord for ministry to affect all these brothers and do good and she wants me to spend all this time at home. See how both have the idea of their own ministry but they're both in sin. In reality, if they're both, if they're sinning in order to do ministry, to do service for the Lord then it's not really ministry. It's really self-proclamation. They're really seeking glory for themselves. The wife is trying to look good by setting example for all by a good family and the husband is trying to look good by setting example to all to be seen by men. A true balance comes when you're rightly committed to the body of Christ that your wife would be part of the body too. You'd be committed for a right understanding of the spirit guiding through his word, guiding the decisions that you make as a family. If you were to have a unified marriage you have to agree on the hope of your calling and you gotta agree that this is what we look forward to the completion of our salvation. This is what we live for. We don't live for this current world. We don't live to have the pleasures in this life and fight and claw for those things. Doesn't James talk about where all these strife come from? From your own lusts and pleasures, worldliness. Pastor Rick preached about last week. You gotta be committed to the doctrinal truth of the Lordship of Christ. That you're going to obey him in his word and his word is what is over your marriage. You wanna divide your marriage? Forget about the gospel the way Jesus talked about it. Forget about it. Just stop thinking about those claims where whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Forget about deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Forget about Jesus Christ's claim and your marriage will become disunified. You wanna disun... You wanna have disunity in your marriage? Then stop seeking to understand doctrine, the one faith, once for all delivered to the saints and then instead you just let that fall to the wayside. Stop leading and teaching your family doctrine. Instead you just let it fall away. You wanna destroy your marriage? Then have commitment to another group besides the body of Christ. You wanna destroy your marriage? In verse 6, don't love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. Instead, love your kids, love your wife, love your job, love your... fill in the blank more. You wanted to have disunity in your marriage? Stop loving the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind. So now I've preached to you a sermon about unity and how to apply it in a marriage. What about if your spouse isn't married? Does this sermon apply? Well let's look in 1 Peter 3 and see what God's word says when your spouse is not married or your spouse is not a Christian. Chapter 3, verse 1, wives likewise be submissive to your own husbands that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives. When they observe your chase conduct accompanied by fear, do not let your dormant be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold or putting on fine laparal. Let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is very precious in the sight of God. Do you see how many of the attributes that we talk about in Ephesians 4, 1 to 6 are there? Gentleness. Humility in the submissiveness. Keep reading in verse 5, for in this manner in former times the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves being submissive to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham, Collium Lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid of any terror. Husbands likewise, see the husbands are called the same calling, dwell with them with understanding. You see how that's going to take bearing with love? Giving honor to the wife is the weaker vessel. You see how he's got to be gentle and being heirs together in the grace of life? You see how you got to be united about these important truths that your prayers may not be hindered? Marial unity is not always possible. It's not always possible in a home where there is one believer and one who's not. Sadly, that's the truth. But when both the husband and the wife are believers there is great hope. There is great hope to close. Let's look at Psalm 133. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious oil upon the head running down the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garments. It is like the dew of Herman descending upon the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord commanded the blessing, life forevermore. This Psalm is about unity. And he says how good and how pleasant it is. Doesn't it taste sweet to have unity? He says it's like oil that goes down the beard of Aaron. Oil is the idea where it has a fragrant smell and it feels soothing and it has healing properties. Unity is that way. It gives a beautiful aroma to the home. It is soothing and sweet. He has the idea here of Mount Herman. It's like 9,200 feet in height. And this mountain is where a lot of the water flow for Israel comes from. When the snow on Mount Herman melts. And it's the dew descends upon the mountains of Zion. It is like a unity in the home. It's like a clean, crisp water, refreshing. You see the word pictures here? You remember how we started the sermon with a story about Joe waking up in the middle of the night? If we could sit Joe here. You know what we'd say? We should say, there is hope. There is hope for all the marriages that are in Christ Jesus. There is great hope. I believe that marriage is the grace of life. I do not believe, I refuse to believe the idea that it's better never to be married. I throw away that lie and I preach to you and I tell you it is possible to have a marriage in Christ where the unity, you can say how blessed and how sweet it is. It is possible by the grace of God. It is not easy. I understand, I understand that you can look at your marriage and say what a wreck it will take years to overcome the mess we've made. And I would say to you, it's well worth it. It's well worth the work. It is well worth the work. And it is possible by the grace of God. And to those of you who have unconverted spouses, I will not give up the hope that the Lord can do amazing work of salvation. Do not give up that hope. Pray and seek the Lord and live humbly before your spouse and your Lord. Let's pray. Dear God Almighty, we need You, Lord God, to apply this without hypocrisy. We need to apply this diligence. We need You to humble us. We need You to make us gentle, to be willing to bear with one another, to be willing to bear pain, to work for unity. We need Your help, Lord, to employ this in the body of Christ and with our homes, with our spouses. Please give us this grace. Please, Lord, help us to follow You in this way. Thank You so much for the blessing of Your plan for unity. Amen.