1 00:00:00,800 --> 00:00:03,920 Ephesians 5:22 through 33. 2 00:00:04,821 --> 00:00:08,191 Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. 3 00:00:08,458 --> 00:00:11,461 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ 4 00:00:11,461 --> 00:00:15,081 is the head of the church, his body and is himself its Savior. 5 00:00:15,648 --> 00:00:20,387 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything 6 00:00:20,420 --> 00:00:23,423 to their husbands. 7 00:00:24,741 --> 00:00:25,458 Husbands, 8 00:00:25,458 --> 00:00:27,510 love your wives, as Christ loved the church 9 00:00:27,510 --> 00:00:31,347 and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her having cleansed her 10 00:00:31,347 --> 00:00:34,851 by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church 11 00:00:34,851 --> 00:00:39,089 to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, 12 00:00:39,506 --> 00:00:42,859 that she might be holy and without blemish in the same way. 13 00:00:42,926 --> 00:00:45,678 Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. 14 00:00:45,678 --> 00:00:48,181 He who loves his wife loves himself. 15 00:00:48,181 --> 00:00:49,916 For no one ever hated his own flesh, 16 00:00:49,916 --> 00:00:53,253 but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. 17 00:00:53,670 --> 00:00:56,072 Because we are members of his body. 18 00:00:56,072 --> 00:00:58,374 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother 19 00:00:58,374 --> 00:01:01,377 and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 20 00:01:01,911 --> 00:01:06,082 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 21 00:01:06,566 --> 00:01:10,403 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and as the wife. 22 00:01:10,403 --> 00:01:12,288 See that she respects her husband. 23 00:01:15,959 --> 00:01:16,292 Hey everybody. 24 00:01:16,292 --> 00:01:19,345 Good morning and welcome to Christ Community Chapel. 25 00:01:19,345 --> 00:01:21,748 So, so glad that you're here. 26 00:01:21,748 --> 00:01:23,433 Thanks for coming. 27 00:01:23,433 --> 00:01:26,219 Before I get into the message, let me just tell you this. 28 00:01:26,219 --> 00:01:29,522 If you are a member here at CCC 29 00:01:30,056 --> 00:01:33,393 and in just about a month, you're going to be asked to vote on 30 00:01:33,393 --> 00:01:38,731 the transition of the position of senior pastor from myself to Pastor Zach. 31 00:01:39,048 --> 00:01:41,701 We've been talking about this for a while, and if you're a member, 32 00:01:41,701 --> 00:01:44,988 you should have gotten an email this past week with a video. 33 00:01:44,988 --> 00:01:46,039 It's a short video. 34 00:01:46,039 --> 00:01:50,477 You're going to get an email with a short video each week for the next four weeks. 35 00:01:51,144 --> 00:01:53,613 And each other video is designed to tell you something 36 00:01:53,613 --> 00:01:58,401 about how the preparation was for the transition, the mechanics 37 00:01:58,401 --> 00:02:02,021 of the transition itself, and then what's going to happen afterwards. 38 00:02:02,038 --> 00:02:06,776 We want to try to communicate as clearly as we can, what's going on? 39 00:02:07,610 --> 00:02:10,847 For most of you, it won't seem like much of a change. 40 00:02:11,698 --> 00:02:12,982 Because I'll still be around. 41 00:02:12,982 --> 00:02:15,418 I'll still be preaching the same amount. 42 00:02:15,418 --> 00:02:17,904 But in another way, it is a big change. 43 00:02:18,988 --> 00:02:21,991 It starts a new chapter for our church. 44 00:02:22,142 --> 00:02:24,811 Chapter one for our church was, 45 00:02:24,811 --> 00:02:27,797 Jim Colledge, who is our founding pastor. 46 00:02:27,797 --> 00:02:29,933 He was the senior pastor during chapter one. 47 00:02:29,933 --> 00:02:32,485 And then it transitioned to me. 48 00:02:32,485 --> 00:02:35,488 And then I have been the senior pastor for chapter two. 49 00:02:35,722 --> 00:02:38,725 And now it's about to transition, hopefully to Pastor Zach. 50 00:02:39,108 --> 00:02:41,544 And he will be the senior pastor for chapter three. 51 00:02:41,544 --> 00:02:45,715 And I know that Pastor Jim, he prayed that chapter two 52 00:02:45,748 --> 00:02:48,902 would be better and more exciting than chapter one. 53 00:02:49,102 --> 00:02:52,338 I know I'm praying that chapter three will be better and more exciting. 54 00:02:52,338 --> 00:02:54,757 The chapter two in chapter two has been great 55 00:02:54,757 --> 00:02:59,128 I but I really expect it to be even better and that's the way it's looking. 56 00:02:59,128 --> 00:03:01,648 So I just want to let you know what was going on. 57 00:03:01,648 --> 00:03:03,499 If you're not a member and you want to know 58 00:03:03,499 --> 00:03:06,152 kind of what the videos say, they're on our website. 59 00:03:06,152 --> 00:03:07,587 All right. Okay. 60 00:03:08,905 --> 00:03:11,941 This is the second message of our four part series. 61 00:03:11,941 --> 00:03:14,944 We are calling Good News for Families. 62 00:03:15,144 --> 00:03:18,147 And today we're going to talk about marriage. 63 00:03:18,331 --> 00:03:22,518 And if you are married, of course, this applies to you. 64 00:03:22,518 --> 00:03:26,539 If you're single and you are hoping one day to get married, 65 00:03:26,539 --> 00:03:30,243 then this should be very helpful as you start 66 00:03:30,243 --> 00:03:33,863 to think about marriage or prepare for marriage. 67 00:03:34,314 --> 00:03:38,785 If you're single and for whatever reason you don't see marriage in your future, 68 00:03:38,785 --> 00:03:42,288 there is still good news for you this morning, I promise. 69 00:03:42,772 --> 00:03:44,357 Just wait. 70 00:03:44,357 --> 00:03:47,043 The passage we had read to us, Ephesians chapter 71 00:03:47,043 --> 00:03:51,648 five, is the longest passage on marriage in the whole Bible, 72 00:03:51,864 --> 00:03:54,918 gives more instructions than anywhere else. 73 00:03:55,201 --> 00:04:00,857 Those of us who officiate weddings, we use Ephesians five a lot 74 00:04:00,890 --> 00:04:05,061 because it gives instructions both to the husband and the wife. 75 00:04:06,212 --> 00:04:07,797 Here are the three points that I want to use 76 00:04:07,797 --> 00:04:11,117 as an outline, just to kind of carry our time together. 77 00:04:11,818 --> 00:04:16,940 I want to talk about the simple part of marriage and of this passage. 78 00:04:17,507 --> 00:04:20,193 I want to talk about the hard part. 79 00:04:20,193 --> 00:04:23,179 And then finally, I want to talk about the wonderful part, 80 00:04:23,246 --> 00:04:25,832 the simple, the hard, 81 00:04:25,832 --> 00:04:28,818 the wonderful first, the simple part. 82 00:04:29,185 --> 00:04:30,053 We want to say simple. 83 00:04:30,053 --> 00:04:34,107 This is like the foundation of marriage that you can get out of this passage. 84 00:04:34,107 --> 00:04:36,175 The first is that marriage is God's idea. 85 00:04:36,175 --> 00:04:39,412 There are three aspects that I put in the simple category. 86 00:04:40,046 --> 00:04:43,583 Marriage is God's idea, and that means that 87 00:04:43,916 --> 00:04:46,853 he's the one who designed it. 88 00:04:46,853 --> 00:04:50,807 It wasn't some cultural construct that some primitive culture 89 00:04:50,807 --> 00:04:55,261 came up with a long time ago, and it's kind of carried through the ages. 90 00:04:55,261 --> 00:04:58,948 God started it way back in Genesis chapter two with Adam and Eve. 91 00:04:59,432 --> 00:05:02,418 This is before sin ever entered the world. 92 00:05:02,452 --> 00:05:05,038 This is what it says. This is Adam speaking. 93 00:05:05,038 --> 00:05:10,293 It says the man said, this at last is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. 94 00:05:10,727 --> 00:05:13,730 She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. 95 00:05:14,397 --> 00:05:16,766 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother 96 00:05:16,766 --> 00:05:20,219 and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 97 00:05:20,219 --> 00:05:23,389 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. 98 00:05:24,324 --> 00:05:29,879 The reason I say that God designed marriage is that there are a lot of things 99 00:05:29,879 --> 00:05:32,999 where the Bible doesn't talk much about, let's say, schools 100 00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:38,454 or community centers or hospitals. 101 00:05:39,205 --> 00:05:43,109 The Bible doesn't regulate those because God didn't invent those. 102 00:05:43,109 --> 00:05:44,777 He left that up to us. 103 00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:48,831 But marriage is his. 104 00:05:48,831 --> 00:05:53,753 That means that if you decide to go against God's design 105 00:05:53,753 --> 00:05:56,756 or God's definition of marriage, you do so 106 00:05:57,140 --> 00:06:00,109 at your own peril. 107 00:06:00,109 --> 00:06:03,479 It's like if I buy a car and I throw away the owner's 108 00:06:03,479 --> 00:06:06,716 manual and I say, I know it says I should put oil in here, 109 00:06:06,716 --> 00:06:09,752 but I'm going to put peanut butter because I love peanut butter. 110 00:06:10,553 --> 00:06:14,657 That will not go well with the way the car is designed. 111 00:06:14,657 --> 00:06:16,893 If you decide to try to do marriage 112 00:06:16,893 --> 00:06:20,997 in a way that God did not design it, you are heading for trouble. 113 00:06:20,997 --> 00:06:23,599 That's the first aspect of the simple part. 114 00:06:23,599 --> 00:06:27,086 The second is that marriage is based on a promise, not a feeling. 115 00:06:27,770 --> 00:06:30,239 It's a promise. 116 00:06:30,239 --> 00:06:32,608 I have officiated a lot of weddings 117 00:06:32,608 --> 00:06:35,611 over the years, and, early on, 118 00:06:35,878 --> 00:06:38,881 I would always start the wedding ceremony the same way. 119 00:06:39,499 --> 00:06:41,901 I would say, dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God, 120 00:06:41,901 --> 00:06:45,805 the presence of these witnesses to unite these two in the bonds of holy wedlock. 121 00:06:46,339 --> 00:06:49,008 And then my next line was always our friends, 122 00:06:49,008 --> 00:06:52,011 we have come here to celebrate love. 123 00:06:52,412 --> 00:06:54,781 And then I realized that wasn't true. 124 00:06:54,781 --> 00:06:57,984 So if I did your wedding and I started out like that, sorry. 125 00:06:58,284 --> 00:06:58,584 Yeah, 126 00:06:59,569 --> 00:07:01,220 that. 127 00:07:01,220 --> 00:07:04,223 Because I realized that no one gathers at a wedding 128 00:07:04,257 --> 00:07:07,260 to hear a couple say how much they love each other, right? 129 00:07:07,260 --> 00:07:11,848 Then you gather at a wedding to witness a promise of how 130 00:07:11,848 --> 00:07:15,501 things are going to be 20, 30, 40 years after that death. 131 00:07:16,369 --> 00:07:19,922 And the reason you make a promise is that a promise is not fickle, 132 00:07:20,907 --> 00:07:23,009 and feelings are. 133 00:07:23,009 --> 00:07:28,164 I don't care how much you love your fiance and you think that you will never have 134 00:07:28,164 --> 00:07:31,584 a different feeling, you're going to feel something different someday. 135 00:07:32,852 --> 00:07:35,271 That's why you make a promise everyone's well, 136 00:07:35,271 --> 00:07:38,274 somebody will be in my office and they'll say, you know what I have? 137 00:07:38,541 --> 00:07:41,544 I no longer love my spouse. 138 00:07:41,961 --> 00:07:46,582 And with as much compassion as I can muster, I say, I don't care. 139 00:07:47,700 --> 00:07:50,903 That's not what you said when you stood up. 140 00:07:50,903 --> 00:07:53,239 You said, I promise. 141 00:07:53,239 --> 00:07:55,441 And promises aren't fickle. 142 00:07:55,441 --> 00:07:58,861 So feelings go up and down, but not the promise. 143 00:07:59,846 --> 00:08:02,498 The third thing aspect, it goes in. 144 00:08:02,498 --> 00:08:07,053 The simple part, is that a marriage relationship is supposed to have priority. 145 00:08:07,770 --> 00:08:10,756 That's what it says in verse 31. 146 00:08:11,090 --> 00:08:15,294 It says, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast. 147 00:08:15,294 --> 00:08:16,679 The old fashioned word was 148 00:08:16,679 --> 00:08:20,850 and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 149 00:08:21,467 --> 00:08:24,587 That word cleave, is the word for being glued together. 150 00:08:24,587 --> 00:08:27,590 The Bible didn't talk about any other human relationship like this. 151 00:08:28,491 --> 00:08:31,377 So this is different. 152 00:08:31,377 --> 00:08:33,930 Your relationship with your spouse is different than 153 00:08:33,930 --> 00:08:36,933 and so nothing should take priority. 154 00:08:37,383 --> 00:08:39,051 No other human relationship. 155 00:08:39,051 --> 00:08:42,238 Not the one with your parents and sometimes people 156 00:08:42,438 --> 00:08:45,441 I have trouble with that if they come particularly from a good family. 157 00:08:46,559 --> 00:08:49,161 But then sometimes people are not so not 158 00:08:49,161 --> 00:08:52,348 so bad about separating from their parents to cleave to each other. 159 00:08:52,348 --> 00:08:57,003 But then they have children, and slowly the children become the priority 160 00:08:57,470 --> 00:09:01,457 in the family instead of the relationship between the husband and the wife. 161 00:09:02,341 --> 00:09:05,311 And of course, that's a problem 162 00:09:05,311 --> 00:09:09,081 because the Bible says that one day those children grow up 163 00:09:09,081 --> 00:09:12,685 and they're supposed to leave and cleave to somebody else. 164 00:09:13,803 --> 00:09:17,156 But the third thing that can kind of get involved 165 00:09:17,156 --> 00:09:21,360 in a priority of a marriage is, of course, work a job. 166 00:09:22,278 --> 00:09:24,530 Scottie Scheffler, who is the world's number one 167 00:09:24,530 --> 00:09:28,818 golfer and has been for over 100 weeks in a row, is amazing. 168 00:09:29,035 --> 00:09:30,503 Golfer. 169 00:09:30,503 --> 00:09:33,506 He said something that shocked people about a month ago. 170 00:09:33,873 --> 00:09:34,607 He said, 171 00:09:35,608 --> 00:09:36,842 my marriage and my 172 00:09:36,842 --> 00:09:39,829 family are more important to me than golf. 173 00:09:39,862 --> 00:09:43,382 And the day golf gets between me and my wife 174 00:09:43,683 --> 00:09:46,669 and my children is the day I quit golf. 175 00:09:46,669 --> 00:09:48,087 And everyone like, what? 176 00:09:48,087 --> 00:09:48,354 Right. 177 00:09:48,354 --> 00:09:51,357 You're the number one golfer in the world. 178 00:09:51,707 --> 00:09:53,726 Tim Keller, the late pastor 179 00:09:53,726 --> 00:09:56,729 from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. 180 00:09:57,063 --> 00:10:00,916 He wrote he and his wife, Kathy, wrote probably the best book on marriage 181 00:10:00,916 --> 00:10:02,101 I've ever read. 182 00:10:02,101 --> 00:10:04,787 It's called The Meaning of Marriage. 183 00:10:04,787 --> 00:10:07,590 And I remember him telling a story about, 184 00:10:07,590 --> 00:10:11,844 when he first went to New York City to plant the church. 185 00:10:12,178 --> 00:10:15,181 Planting a church takes an enormous amount of time. 186 00:10:15,681 --> 00:10:18,684 And so he told his wife, Kathy, listen, 187 00:10:18,834 --> 00:10:21,654 for the next three years or so, you won't see much of me. 188 00:10:21,654 --> 00:10:24,090 I'm just going to be busy planting this church. 189 00:10:24,090 --> 00:10:27,143 But after three years, things will settle down and get back to normal. 190 00:10:28,044 --> 00:10:29,996 And he came home, one evening, 191 00:10:31,430 --> 00:10:33,949 around four years later, 192 00:10:33,949 --> 00:10:38,871 and he came home to his apartment and he heard some crashing out on the balcony, 193 00:10:39,355 --> 00:10:41,841 and he went out on the balcony and his wife, Kathy, 194 00:10:41,841 --> 00:10:45,144 was sitting on the floor of the balcony and taking saucers. 195 00:10:45,144 --> 00:10:47,463 Their their wedding China one at a time 196 00:10:47,463 --> 00:10:50,449 and putting him in front of her and smashing him with a hammer. 197 00:10:50,850 --> 00:10:52,852 And he said, what are you doing? 198 00:10:52,852 --> 00:10:55,821 And she said, I'm getting your attention. 199 00:10:55,821 --> 00:10:57,573 And he said, okay, okay, stop. 200 00:10:57,573 --> 00:10:59,308 You have my attention. What do you want to tell me? 201 00:10:59,308 --> 00:11:01,560 And she said, you said three years. 202 00:11:01,560 --> 00:11:02,461 It's been four years. 203 00:11:02,461 --> 00:11:03,929 What she was saying is, 204 00:11:03,929 --> 00:11:07,383 if we keep doing it the way we're doing it, you keep doing it 205 00:11:07,383 --> 00:11:08,300 the way you're doing it. 206 00:11:09,318 --> 00:11:10,703 This marriage will not survive. 207 00:11:10,703 --> 00:11:13,322 It's not the way God designed it. 208 00:11:13,322 --> 00:11:17,343 Just to finish the story that later on he said to her, 209 00:11:17,343 --> 00:11:21,330 you must have been really upset to be smashed in our wedding China. 210 00:11:21,831 --> 00:11:22,798 And she said, 211 00:11:22,798 --> 00:11:26,552 I was only smashing the saucers where the cups had already been broken. 212 00:11:26,552 --> 00:11:28,220 I'm not an idiot. 213 00:11:28,220 --> 00:11:31,223 And I thought that was funny. 214 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:33,292 So if you're married, 215 00:11:33,292 --> 00:11:36,662 when you get home from church today, it might be good to sit down 216 00:11:36,662 --> 00:11:39,648 and just say to your spouse, how are we doing? 217 00:11:39,882 --> 00:11:42,885 Do you feel like our relationship 218 00:11:43,252 --> 00:11:46,422 is more important than our relationship with our parents? 219 00:11:46,439 --> 00:11:51,360 Do you think our relationship has priority over our children? 220 00:11:51,827 --> 00:11:55,131 Do you think our relationship has is more important than our jobs? 221 00:11:55,798 --> 00:11:58,217 All right, that's the simple part. 222 00:11:58,217 --> 00:11:59,969 Now we get to the the hard part. 223 00:11:59,969 --> 00:12:02,905 You know, the Bible or in seminary they tell you 224 00:12:02,905 --> 00:12:05,908 when you read the Bible, make sure you read it in context. 225 00:12:05,941 --> 00:12:08,928 It's kind of dangerous to open up the Bible and just point to some place 226 00:12:08,961 --> 00:12:10,062 and start to read it. 227 00:12:10,062 --> 00:12:14,033 Be like opening up an email and trying to read right in the middle of the email 228 00:12:14,300 --> 00:12:17,303 and reading something like, you've always been like this. 229 00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:20,689 You don't know whether that's a compliment or a criticism. 230 00:12:20,689 --> 00:12:23,092 Not until you read the context. Same thing with the Bible. 231 00:12:24,443 --> 00:12:26,095 Right before 232 00:12:26,095 --> 00:12:30,116 the Apostle Paul starts all these instructions about marriage, 233 00:12:30,566 --> 00:12:34,620 the passage before he's talking about being filled by the spirit. 234 00:12:35,604 --> 00:12:38,090 And when he talks about being filled by the spirit, that's somebody 235 00:12:38,090 --> 00:12:43,078 who understands the gospel, who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for them 236 00:12:43,262 --> 00:12:46,432 to such an extent that the gospel has gone deep enough 237 00:12:46,432 --> 00:12:49,435 where they're opening their lives more and more 238 00:12:49,652 --> 00:12:52,521 to the to the Spirit of God. 239 00:12:52,521 --> 00:12:56,158 And the last verse right before he starts the passage on marriage, 240 00:12:56,542 --> 00:13:01,247 it says this submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 241 00:13:02,515 --> 00:13:06,652 What Paul is assuming is that two Christians who are about to get married 242 00:13:07,503 --> 00:13:12,107 have already gotten the gospel deep enough into their system that they know 243 00:13:12,358 --> 00:13:17,963 what it feels like to serve someone else, do not have themselves in the center. 244 00:13:17,963 --> 00:13:23,419 And that's what it means when you submit one to another, submit to someone else. 245 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:27,723 The hard part about marriage 246 00:13:27,723 --> 00:13:30,926 is that self-centredness is the number one 247 00:13:30,926 --> 00:13:33,929 problem of every marriage. 248 00:13:34,163 --> 00:13:35,548 Selfishness. 249 00:13:35,548 --> 00:13:38,551 Number one problem in your marriage. 250 00:13:38,701 --> 00:13:40,553 If you're married. 251 00:13:40,553 --> 00:13:43,289 I remember reading a book on marriage years ago 252 00:13:43,289 --> 00:13:47,927 where the author said that the reason that selfishness is so easy 253 00:13:47,927 --> 00:13:51,847 to have happen in a marriage is he said, when when you get engaged, you 254 00:13:51,981 --> 00:13:56,218 when you find the person that you want to marry you, you usually find them 255 00:13:56,218 --> 00:13:59,755 because they make you feel different than anyone else has ever made you feel. 256 00:14:00,739 --> 00:14:03,559 They do something for you 257 00:14:03,559 --> 00:14:06,328 that no one has ever been able to do. 258 00:14:06,328 --> 00:14:08,280 And so you say, that's who I want to marry. 259 00:14:08,280 --> 00:14:12,718 And this author said that can easily shift into what he called 260 00:14:13,018 --> 00:14:18,140 a tick on a dog syndrome, where a tick finds a host 261 00:14:18,407 --> 00:14:23,479 and then pulls out what they need from that host and what this author said. 262 00:14:23,479 --> 00:14:27,266 The problem with most marriages is that there are two ticks and no dog. 263 00:14:27,833 --> 00:14:29,401 Right? And that's true. 264 00:14:30,619 --> 00:14:32,755 Self-Centredness is the 265 00:14:32,755 --> 00:14:35,758 major problem in any marriage. 266 00:14:36,692 --> 00:14:38,994 Show me two people 267 00:14:38,994 --> 00:14:41,997 who have put the other person 268 00:14:42,197 --> 00:14:45,200 and their needs in front of their own. 269 00:14:45,751 --> 00:14:48,737 I will show you a great marriage. 270 00:14:49,221 --> 00:14:51,957 Show me two people who are married who put their own 271 00:14:51,957 --> 00:14:55,077 needs in front of the person they're married to. 272 00:14:55,077 --> 00:14:58,080 I'll show you a terrible marriage. 273 00:14:58,397 --> 00:14:59,548 All right. 274 00:14:59,548 --> 00:15:02,551 I remember hearing about a guy who had a dream. 275 00:15:03,118 --> 00:15:06,055 And in that dream, he went to hell. 276 00:15:06,055 --> 00:15:07,623 And in hell there was this. 277 00:15:07,623 --> 00:15:11,477 What he saw was this huge banquet table with all this amazing food. 278 00:15:11,477 --> 00:15:15,714 But everybody was starving, and they were screaming, and they were in agony. 279 00:15:15,948 --> 00:15:20,102 And he realized the reason was because, on their hands, they had three foot 280 00:15:20,102 --> 00:15:24,139 long forks and they couldn't get the food into their mouth. 281 00:15:24,757 --> 00:15:25,641 Right. 282 00:15:25,641 --> 00:15:28,260 And in that same dream, then the guy went to heaven 283 00:15:28,260 --> 00:15:31,246 and he saw the same banquet table, same food. 284 00:15:31,580 --> 00:15:35,701 People were laughing and singing and having just a blast. 285 00:15:36,168 --> 00:15:40,039 And he realized they had the same forks, three foot long forks on their hands. 286 00:15:40,039 --> 00:15:42,107 But instead of trying to feed themselves, 287 00:15:42,107 --> 00:15:43,943 they were feeding the person across from them. 288 00:15:45,527 --> 00:15:46,078 And the point of 289 00:15:46,078 --> 00:15:50,432 that story is, in some ways, there's not a huge difference 290 00:15:50,432 --> 00:15:53,419 between heaven and hell. 291 00:15:54,269 --> 00:15:56,789 In some ways, that's a huge difference. 292 00:15:56,789 --> 00:15:59,491 Same thing with marriage, right? 293 00:15:59,491 --> 00:16:02,928 Show me two people who are saying, you know what, I'm 294 00:16:02,928 --> 00:16:05,164 going to deal with my own self-centeredness. 295 00:16:05,164 --> 00:16:08,968 So this is the hard thing about what I said about self-centeredness 296 00:16:08,968 --> 00:16:10,919 being the problem in marriage. 297 00:16:10,919 --> 00:16:14,873 If, if, when I said that your immediate thought was of your spouse 298 00:16:15,591 --> 00:16:17,876 and you're thinking, yeah, they're a problem, you know what? 299 00:16:17,876 --> 00:16:20,612 You're probably the problem. 300 00:16:20,612 --> 00:16:21,630 That's the kicker. 301 00:16:21,630 --> 00:16:24,033 Because if you thought, you know what, I am self-centered. 302 00:16:24,033 --> 00:16:24,767 You're the problem. 303 00:16:24,767 --> 00:16:26,218 And if you thought they're the ones 304 00:16:26,218 --> 00:16:29,221 that are problem, you're probably still the problem. 305 00:16:31,340 --> 00:16:34,143 And this is what happens if with the gospel. 306 00:16:34,143 --> 00:16:37,162 The gospel is supposed to go deep enough inside of us 307 00:16:38,063 --> 00:16:41,266 that we realize that our deepest needs 308 00:16:41,266 --> 00:16:44,937 are met by Jesus so we can afford to go ahead 309 00:16:45,270 --> 00:16:48,257 and care about the other person 310 00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:51,477 and see them and serve them. 311 00:16:52,578 --> 00:16:53,579 All right. 312 00:16:53,579 --> 00:16:58,467 The second aspect of the hard part is that there are different roles 313 00:16:58,734 --> 00:17:02,871 for husband and wife, and you probably notice that, right? 314 00:17:02,905 --> 00:17:05,090 They're not interchangeable. 315 00:17:05,090 --> 00:17:10,045 God doesn't say, husbands, love your wives, wives love your husbands. 316 00:17:10,612 --> 00:17:13,082 He says, husbands, love your wives. 317 00:17:13,082 --> 00:17:17,002 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands. 318 00:17:17,753 --> 00:17:19,221 And that's hard. Listen, wait. 319 00:17:19,221 --> 00:17:23,876 Before I go any further, if you're a husband and you have used that verse 320 00:17:24,660 --> 00:17:28,697 to serve your own self-centeredness, shame on you. 321 00:17:29,732 --> 00:17:35,304 Stopping to misuse Scripture is one of the worst things to do, 322 00:17:35,304 --> 00:17:40,142 and that scripture does not mean that she becomes your servant. 323 00:17:41,276 --> 00:17:43,262 But there has to be a reason 324 00:17:43,262 --> 00:17:47,332 why God doesn't say, husbands, love your wives, wives love your husbands. 325 00:17:48,016 --> 00:17:50,519 And this is what I what clicked for me 326 00:17:51,537 --> 00:17:52,171 years ago. 327 00:17:52,171 --> 00:17:56,125 I heard a psychologist, at a lecture, and he was saying that, 328 00:17:56,275 --> 00:17:59,361 in every human being, there are two basic needs, every human being. 329 00:17:59,878 --> 00:18:03,232 You have these two basic needs, the need to be loved 330 00:18:04,099 --> 00:18:07,886 and the need to feel significant, important. 331 00:18:08,687 --> 00:18:09,238 Right. 332 00:18:09,238 --> 00:18:11,990 And this particular psychologist said, listen, 333 00:18:11,990 --> 00:18:15,077 every human being has those two needs. 334 00:18:16,311 --> 00:18:20,149 But the average woman, and this is the difference that he said 335 00:18:20,149 --> 00:18:21,200 was between genders. 336 00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:24,269 If the average woman had to choose between 337 00:18:24,269 --> 00:18:28,457 feeling really loved or feeling really important 338 00:18:28,457 --> 00:18:31,460 and significant, the average woman would choose to feel loved. 339 00:18:32,461 --> 00:18:36,265 If the average man had to choose between feeling really loved 340 00:18:36,265 --> 00:18:39,568 or really significant and important, the average man would choose 341 00:18:40,068 --> 00:18:42,771 to feel significant and important. 342 00:18:42,771 --> 00:18:45,958 If you've heard me preach, you know I like to, I think in analogies 343 00:18:45,958 --> 00:18:47,342 and I love props. 344 00:18:47,342 --> 00:18:50,329 And what struck me when I heard this, this is what's helped me 345 00:18:50,362 --> 00:18:53,365 is I thought, okay, if every time, 346 00:18:53,966 --> 00:18:57,870 I needed to feel a person needed to feel loved, 347 00:18:58,187 --> 00:19:02,057 instead of having someone tell you that that they loved you, or show affection 348 00:19:02,057 --> 00:19:06,145 toward you, or write you a note, you needed a red M&M. 349 00:19:07,462 --> 00:19:10,315 And every time you needed to feel significant or important, 350 00:19:10,315 --> 00:19:14,336 you didn't need a promotion or somebody to say you're doing a good job 351 00:19:14,336 --> 00:19:18,023 or somebody say, I'm proud of you, you needed a green M&M. 352 00:19:18,774 --> 00:19:19,608 That would mean 353 00:19:19,608 --> 00:19:22,377 when you woke up in the morning, the very first thing you would do before 354 00:19:22,377 --> 00:19:27,049 you got coffee, you would go and you'd find Your Eminence and you'd get 355 00:19:27,232 --> 00:19:30,686 have some red ones, have some green ones, because then you would feel great. 356 00:19:30,686 --> 00:19:33,805 You would feel full, right? 357 00:19:35,724 --> 00:19:37,609 Wars would be fought over red and green. 358 00:19:37,609 --> 00:19:40,612 That mean that visibly the most important commodities in the world. 359 00:19:42,181 --> 00:19:43,382 That's what 360 00:19:43,382 --> 00:19:46,368 this passage says at the very end. 361 00:19:46,468 --> 00:19:49,638 However, let each of you love his wife. 362 00:19:50,689 --> 00:19:53,425 Fill her with red ones 363 00:19:54,977 --> 00:19:55,794 and let the wife 364 00:19:55,794 --> 00:19:58,797 see that she respects her husband. 365 00:19:58,797 --> 00:20:01,400 Fill him with green ones. 366 00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:03,235 And this would help me. 367 00:20:03,235 --> 00:20:06,338 Ever since I had that kind of epiphany I began, 368 00:20:06,505 --> 00:20:09,858 I would wake up in the morning and I would think of my wife as an empty jar. 369 00:20:10,676 --> 00:20:14,429 And then my job was to fill her with red ones 370 00:20:15,030 --> 00:20:18,166 and have a net positive at the end of the day of red ones, 371 00:20:18,166 --> 00:20:21,086 like so, the first thing I do in the morning, and if you've heard me 372 00:20:21,086 --> 00:20:25,407 speak about marriage, you know that I do this as I make coffee 373 00:20:25,407 --> 00:20:28,777 and I bring, a cup of coffee up and I put it on the nightstand next to 374 00:20:29,761 --> 00:20:31,430 because she loves coffee, 375 00:20:31,430 --> 00:20:34,549 and I want her to know that I thought of her the first thing in the morning. 376 00:20:35,033 --> 00:20:36,018 And I'm doing that to sort of. 377 00:20:36,018 --> 00:20:40,105 What I'm doing is putting a couple of red ones in the jar before she even wakes up, 378 00:20:40,772 --> 00:20:43,558 so that when I mess up later on, I'm just back to zero. 379 00:20:46,912 --> 00:20:48,797 Every time my wife says to me 380 00:20:48,797 --> 00:20:51,867 that she's proud of me when she says it in front of people, 381 00:20:53,001 --> 00:20:55,704 it's like a bunch of of green ones. 382 00:20:55,704 --> 00:20:56,989 So let me tell you this. 383 00:20:56,989 --> 00:21:00,993 If you're married and you will go 30 days, 30 days, 384 00:21:01,643 --> 00:21:05,430 I'm saying I'm going to focus on having a net positive. 385 00:21:06,031 --> 00:21:09,468 And as you go to bed at night, husbands, you ask your wife, 386 00:21:10,052 --> 00:21:12,804 do you feel more loved now 387 00:21:12,804 --> 00:21:15,807 than you did when we woke up this morning? 388 00:21:16,141 --> 00:21:19,127 And if she says yes, 30 days in a row, 389 00:21:19,561 --> 00:21:22,547 then you have changed her marriage. 390 00:21:22,764 --> 00:21:25,017 If the husband if the wife says, 391 00:21:25,017 --> 00:21:29,788 do you feel like I am more proud of you, that I'm more excited 392 00:21:29,972 --> 00:21:32,958 about your success than I was this morning? 393 00:21:33,141 --> 00:21:36,511 And he says, yes, you will revolutionize your marriage. 394 00:21:37,929 --> 00:21:39,798 This is 395 00:21:39,798 --> 00:21:43,068 if you will say, my selfishness is the problem. 396 00:21:43,068 --> 00:21:47,522 Not not my wounds, not my past, not even how I'm being treated. 397 00:21:48,090 --> 00:21:50,509 But I'm going to work on that with Jesus, 398 00:21:50,509 --> 00:21:53,061 and then I'm going to serve the other person, 399 00:21:53,061 --> 00:21:56,064 and I'm going to fill them with whatever I can. 400 00:21:56,581 --> 00:22:00,469 So they will feel loved, so they will feel significant. 401 00:22:01,636 --> 00:22:04,706 There's no there's no limit to what your marriage can become. 402 00:22:05,807 --> 00:22:06,742 Right now. 403 00:22:06,742 --> 00:22:08,994 We get to the wonderful part. 404 00:22:08,994 --> 00:22:12,180 Paul says something right in the middle that is great. 405 00:22:12,180 --> 00:22:14,433 He says this husbands, love your wives. 406 00:22:14,433 --> 00:22:18,320 As Christ loved the church, gave himself up for her that he might 407 00:22:18,320 --> 00:22:21,840 sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. 408 00:22:22,457 --> 00:22:27,362 So he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, 409 00:22:27,362 --> 00:22:31,500 or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 410 00:22:31,967 --> 00:22:33,685 And then he jumped down. 411 00:22:33,685 --> 00:22:36,688 It says, this mystery is profound, and I'm saying 412 00:22:36,805 --> 00:22:39,808 that it refers to Christ and the church. 413 00:22:40,592 --> 00:22:44,880 What Paul does in the middle of this talking about marriage, he likens marriage 414 00:22:45,347 --> 00:22:48,767 to the way Jesus loves the church, the way Jesus loves us. 415 00:22:50,302 --> 00:22:50,869 The very 416 00:22:50,869 --> 00:22:54,356 central message of the Bible is called the gospel, 417 00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:58,377 which is what Jesus has done for us. 418 00:22:59,361 --> 00:23:02,731 And the gospel is captured in a bunch of different places in the Bible. 419 00:23:02,731 --> 00:23:06,952 But I love the way Romans five eight puts it. 420 00:23:07,319 --> 00:23:10,439 And I'll use this in my wedding ceremony 421 00:23:11,490 --> 00:23:15,143 says, But God demonstrates his love toward us, 422 00:23:15,827 --> 00:23:18,713 and that while we were still sinners, 423 00:23:18,713 --> 00:23:21,116 Christ died for us. 424 00:23:21,116 --> 00:23:24,653 What that means is that when you were at your very worst, 425 00:23:25,487 --> 00:23:28,490 God loved you the very most. 426 00:23:28,790 --> 00:23:32,727 When I took my vows before a pastor, 427 00:23:32,727 --> 00:23:36,264 when I got married to my wife Karen, I said this. 428 00:23:37,132 --> 00:23:40,135 I promise I will love you 429 00:23:41,303 --> 00:23:44,039 for better or for worse, 430 00:23:44,039 --> 00:23:46,408 for richer, for poorer, 431 00:23:46,408 --> 00:23:49,411 in sickness and in health. 432 00:23:49,611 --> 00:23:53,598 And when I said to her, I will love you for better or for worse. 433 00:23:54,382 --> 00:23:56,451 What I was saying is, when you were at your worst, 434 00:23:57,502 --> 00:23:59,688 you can count on me 435 00:23:59,688 --> 00:24:02,691 to love you the way Jesus loves me, 436 00:24:03,692 --> 00:24:06,678 because that's the way God designed marriage. 437 00:24:06,812 --> 00:24:09,931 The wonderful thing about marriage is that it gives us 438 00:24:09,931 --> 00:24:15,170 the opportunity, gives me the opportunity to love my wife. 439 00:24:15,687 --> 00:24:20,058 Just a little bit the way Jesus loves her. 440 00:24:20,492 --> 00:24:23,211 And my wife can love me when I'm at my worst, 441 00:24:23,211 --> 00:24:26,214 and I can feel what it feels like in a concrete way, 442 00:24:26,481 --> 00:24:29,484 the way Jesus loves me. 443 00:24:30,385 --> 00:24:33,388 And that is astounding. 444 00:24:33,688 --> 00:24:36,858 You know what marriage is supposed to be, at 445 00:24:36,858 --> 00:24:40,912 its best is a reflection of the love of Jesus. 446 00:24:40,912 --> 00:24:42,631 It's a pale reflection. 447 00:24:42,631 --> 00:24:45,617 I always think that marriage is a little bit like, 448 00:24:45,650 --> 00:24:48,653 like a model car, like a little matchbox Porsche. 449 00:24:49,404 --> 00:24:52,190 And Jesus is the real thing. 450 00:24:52,190 --> 00:24:54,743 He is the portion. 451 00:24:54,743 --> 00:24:57,746 This is the good news for those of you who are single, 452 00:24:58,230 --> 00:25:00,482 is that you have the real thing, 453 00:25:01,850 --> 00:25:02,100 right? 454 00:25:02,100 --> 00:25:05,604 If you had to choose between the real thing and the pale 455 00:25:06,137 --> 00:25:08,657 imitation, you would choose the real thing 456 00:25:08,657 --> 00:25:11,660 every day and twice on Sunday. 457 00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:14,996 And you have the real thing every once while somebody, well, 458 00:25:15,447 --> 00:25:18,049 who has had a great marriage 459 00:25:18,049 --> 00:25:20,902 and their spouse dies, 460 00:25:20,902 --> 00:25:25,156 they'll say, I can't wait to get to heaven to see my spouse again. 461 00:25:25,156 --> 00:25:25,857 And I get that. 462 00:25:25,857 --> 00:25:28,860 I really do. 463 00:25:29,127 --> 00:25:31,880 But I want you to know 464 00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:34,065 that your love that you had with your spouse, 465 00:25:34,065 --> 00:25:37,736 your spouse had for you is just just a tiny taste. 466 00:25:38,403 --> 00:25:42,440 Like you get to heaven, your spouse will be like a candle, 467 00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,443 and Jesus will be like the blazing sun. 468 00:25:46,044 --> 00:25:49,047 And when you get to heaven, you will run towards the blazing. 469 00:25:49,097 --> 00:25:54,052 You might run with the candle to the blazing sun, but you are made for that. 470 00:25:55,020 --> 00:25:56,371 You are made for Jesus. 471 00:25:56,371 --> 00:26:01,376 Listen, marriage, and as much as it is a reflection 472 00:26:01,376 --> 00:26:04,613 of the love of God for you, is great, 473 00:26:04,613 --> 00:26:07,616 but it's not Jesus. 474 00:26:08,333 --> 00:26:10,869 And when my wife, when I. 475 00:26:10,869 --> 00:26:14,189 I want the chance to love her the way Jesus loves her, 476 00:26:14,189 --> 00:26:16,891 which means I am keeping this what I'm Susie. 477 00:26:16,891 --> 00:26:20,211 I'm so to keep my eyes peeled for when she's at her worst. 478 00:26:20,996 --> 00:26:23,882 Because that's my time to shine, right? 479 00:26:23,882 --> 00:26:27,419 And when when I do that, I want her to feel just a drop 480 00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:33,692 of the love of Jesus, the fountain of love that Jesus has. 481 00:26:33,692 --> 00:26:37,879 For when I am at my worst and my wife loves me still, 482 00:26:38,930 --> 00:26:42,467 but I want it to make me love her more, for sure. 483 00:26:43,218 --> 00:26:47,839 But even more than that, I want it to remind me of the love of Jesus. 484 00:26:48,473 --> 00:26:49,641 Because what? 485 00:26:49,641 --> 00:26:54,179 When I am at my worst and she loves me, that love comes right from him, 486 00:26:55,046 --> 00:26:55,680 right from him. 487 00:26:57,032 --> 00:27:00,018 And so that's good news for every family. 488 00:27:00,018 --> 00:27:03,021 It's good news for you, wherever you are. 489 00:27:03,321 --> 00:27:05,090 It's good news for me. 490 00:27:05,090 --> 00:27:08,009 Would you pray with me? 491 00:27:08,009 --> 00:27:08,627 Father in heaven. 492 00:27:08,627 --> 00:27:12,047 Thank you for this thing that you designed called marriage. 493 00:27:12,047 --> 00:27:15,033 Thanks that you made it 494 00:27:15,033 --> 00:27:16,951 so that it is supposed to be 495 00:27:16,951 --> 00:27:19,938 this reflection of your love. 496 00:27:21,056 --> 00:27:22,757 I pray for all of us. 497 00:27:22,757 --> 00:27:26,761 I pray that you would, help us with the the simple and the hard 498 00:27:27,529 --> 00:27:30,148 and the wonderful part of marriage. 499 00:27:30,148 --> 00:27:34,135 I pray that those who are single will realize 500 00:27:34,803 --> 00:27:38,123 the deep love, the real thing that they already have. 501 00:27:38,123 --> 00:27:41,760 Jesus, thanks and thanks for Jesus. 502 00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:44,095 We pray this in his name. Amen.