00;00;00;03 - 00;00;21;25 Caleb Cole Good morning. Church. How's everybody doing? You guys are looking good. Excited to be here. Christy and I are going to tag team today. And so we do this every so often where we share together. And, we're in this relationship series called Through the Fire. And so we're going to tag team share together. Share some thoughts that God has given us. 00;00;21;25 - 00;00;40;22 Caleb Cole But before we jump in, I do want to let you know about what's coming up. This Wednesday night is presence night in the room. Be here at 7 p.m.. It's going to be worship, prayer, going into his presence. And so we'd love to have you here at 7 p.m.. Make sure you show up. Don't miss it. And then we have some amazing things coming up. 00;00;40;22 - 00;01;01;22 Caleb Cole It's spring. Can you guys believe it's March 1st? Yeah. Next week we spring forward. Come on. Which means nights where the sun doesn't go down till 7 p.m. and then eventually 8 p.m.. This is my favorite time of year. You know, I'm not going to lie to you. It's a great time to play some golf. Come on, somebody, let's go. 00;01;01;26 - 00;01;20;12 Caleb Cole But, we have team night coming up this month, March 18th. If you aren't on the team, we'd love for you to jump in. We're getting ready for Easter Sunday. We're going to have three services. Our number three service is on Sunday morning, April 4th or sorry, fifth, but April 4th we're going to have a Saturday night. So the first time we've done a Saturday night on Easter. 00;01;20;18 - 00;01;42;14 Caleb Cole And so we need more people serving. So if you're available, we're growing right now. And so we're expecting a, a packed out house and also register for your seats so you can do all that in the Church Center app. But we also have our egg hunt. Man, I love blessing our kids. And so down the street in front of the Railroad museum on the grass area, we've done this the last three years, I think March 28th, the weekend before Easter. 00;01;42;15 - 00;02;00;02 Caleb Cole We're going to be blessing our community with a giant egg hunt. And so we need your help for that too. So if you want to jump in and serve the kids, go to Church Center app and sign up today. But hey Christine, our jumping in. We're continuing this series on Through the Fire, but we want to talk to you today about keeping the flame alive. 00;02;00;02 - 00;02;27;04 Caleb Cole We've been doing this for almost 18 years, and, the flame is still going. Yes, I'm thankful for it, but, 18 years of marriage, man. But in 18 years we've been through some things. And you guys know kids come everything changes, right? Life happens. Work. There's so many challenges that we face. The rate of divorce in America has continued to go up. 00;02;27;07 - 00;02;48;27 Caleb Cole And so a lot of people have asked, you know, and they've asked us and we've heard this question asked through the years. They said, man, we've been doing this for so long, been married a long time. How do we fall in love again? That's the question they ask. And I want to say this to you because as we talk about keeping the flame alive, some of you are like, man, I'm single or we're dating or we're engaged or we just got married. 00;02;48;27 - 00;03;06;23 Caleb Cole So the flame is going very strong. Caleb or I don't even have a flame yet because I'm still doing the single life. Now, listen, most of you will eventually get married. They say on average over or this is a statistic, say over 90% of Americans will eventually get married. And so this is for all of you to think about where life is going, okay? 00;03;06;23 - 00;03;27;19 Caleb Cole Because there will be a time when you gotta fan that flame again. Not only that, but this relates to all of our relationships. This can cross over to our relationship with Jesus, right? How do we keep this flame alive? This is all transferable. So this is for everyone in the room single, dating, married, engaged, married for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, or married in your first year. 00;03;27;21 - 00;03;48;14 Caleb Cole And I just want to say to you this, as people talk to us and ask this question, how do we fall in love again? I think we're asking the wrong question because so often this question is asked, how do I fall in love again when life gets heavy? When things come at us, when we have kids, when things get busy, when we. 00;03;48;14 - 00;04;20;29 Caleb Cole When we get stuck in the. In the rhythm of just life as usual. And while falling in love again sounds romantic, I don't think that this is what best serves us, because what this question does is it subtly reinforces the idea that love is something that happens to you, rather than something that you practice. And what we see in Scripture is that love is actually a choice, that I wake up every day, and I choose to love this woman. 00;04;21;01 - 00;04;40;12 Caleb Cole I don't fall in and out of it. No, I cultivate it. We say marriage is a garden and the garden must be cultivated. You can't leave a garden for weeks or months and come back and expect the garden to look pristine. No, it's every day in the garden of your relationships, of your marriage, of your relationship with God. 00;04;40;18 - 00;05;05;09 Caleb Cole Cultivating it, watering it, weeding it, trimming it, pruning, pruning it. And so I want to say to you, we're not looking to fall in love again, because long term relationships rarely die from lack of feeling. They erode from lack of intentional connection. And what we found is that feelings will follow the focus that you put on your life. 00;05;05;11 - 00;05;27;05 Caleb Cole And so my challenge to you today is that you would see this idea of keeping the flame alive. Not as man, we got to fall back in love again. No, we have to put some practical focus in our lives so we can practically fanned the flame. And this is a daily activity. It's about care over chemistry. We get real concerned with chemistry. 00;05;27;05 - 00;05;54;12 Caleb Cole Oh, do we have chemistry? Like, is there a flame between us? And. Oh, the chemistry has waned. And so maybe they're not the one anymore. Right. I got to go find the one. No. If you marry them, they're the one. I don't care if you're like I, but I couldn't marry the two like you are in covenant. You make connection, in a decision before God that I'm going to live till death do us part in covenant before the Lord in this relationship. 00;05;54;17 - 00;06;19;09 Caleb Cole Now, I gotta put some care into this. I gotta put some consistency into this. I gotta put some cultivation into this marriage. And what will happen is the chemistry will then follow the care. It'll follow the consistency. It'll follow what you're putting into it. But your culture tells you, man, just just pursue what feels right. And I want to say you we don't let our feelings dictate our activity. 00;06;19;11 - 00;06;21;26 Caleb Cole Our activity will dictate our feelings. 00;06;21;29 - 00;06;41;13 Chrissy Cole It's very good. I want to come to you this morning. We want to come with you with the Scripture in Leviticus six 1213. And if you are doing, Bible in a year plan, you may have already skipped past Leviticus because it seems like a snore fest. Right? You're just kind of like, all these laws, but we have a lot to learn. 00;06;41;20 - 00;07;04;22 Chrissy Cole Actually, for our marriages, especially as it pertains to keeping the flame alive. So let's read it. Leviticus 612 through 13, the fire and the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not go out. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall arrange the burnt offering on it, and shall burn it. Burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. 00;07;04;24 - 00;07;37;09 Chrissy Cole Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually. It shall not go out. And the reason why we're talking about this scripture is because your marriages are an act of worship relationships, even if you're not married, any relationship you have is. This is an act of worship. And Romans 12 it says, let us make everything that we do an act of worship, our bodies, our sacrifice, an act of worship. 00;07;37;09 - 00;08;06;06 Chrissy Cole So everything that we do in our relationship should be sacrificial. If it's not sacrificial, it's not worship. And the thing about worship is that whenever you worship, you become. And so if we're worshiping God in our relationships, we're going to become more Christlike in our relationships. We're going to be bringing Christ to our relationships. But if we don't see our relationships as worship, then we're bringing something that the world has cultivated or what the culture has dictated for you to be or do. 00;08;06;09 - 00;08;36;15 Chrissy Cole And so we need to see our marriages as worship. In Leviticus 924, Aaron actually makes the first offering in this new, and newly established tabernacle system. In other words, this is the way the people of God are going to worship. It was a new system, a tabernacle where you come in and you burnt offerings. And so Aaron, he gives an offering, and the fire of God miraculously comes down and burns it up. 00;08;36;18 - 00;09;06;12 Chrissy Cole And this is a miracle of God. And so it says in Leviticus 924, fire came out from the from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and sat on the altar. There was a visible sign from God with this fire, if your fire is still alive in your relationship, that means God is still at work. And I think there's some relationships here where you don't see the flames, but it's just, you know, the the smolder. 00;09;06;14 - 00;09;28;23 Chrissy Cole Can you just please just say, if I worship the Lord with this, you can stoke that smolder. It can become a flame again. It's it's possible. And the way we're going to do that is by feeding the flame. If you take nothing else from this religion or this message, take this. The flame of love doesn't die all at once. 00;09;28;23 - 00;10;02;23 Chrissy Cole It fades when it's not fed. Are you feeding the fire in your relationship? So few ways that we're going to make sure that the flame is burning brightly. Number one, remember that the flame dies in drift, not disaster. Relationships rarely, marriages rarely end because of one eruption and I have an argument. It it is destroyed through a slow eroding. 00;10;02;25 - 00;10;37;14 Chrissy Cole And it's drifting. It's drifting. And Hebrews two one, while it's not talking about relationships, is again, just this concept of drifting. Hebrews two one says we must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away when we're not paying close attention. That means we're neglecting, we're neglecting, and when we're neglecting, we're being quiet, and we're allowing gradual, unintentional actions to become disconnection. 00;10;37;14 - 00;11;06;22 Chrissy Cole Drift will turn to disconnection. And so when there's neglect in your relationship, it looks like you are more like roommates, not in a covenant marriage. And when I think about roommates, you live in proximity to one another, but you're no longer intentional with your presence with one another, right? So I tell him all the time, like, don't take me to the movies for a date because we might love. 00;11;06;22 - 00;11;07;11 Caleb Cole Movies, I. 00;11;07;11 - 00;11;42;04 Chrissy Cole Know. And then that was major disappointment, more than I even thought. But sometimes when we're just sitting next to each other in proximity, there's no presence. I want him to look me in the eyes, right? I want there to be presence. I want there to be understanding of what's happening in me. When your relationship is reduced to only sharing logistics and like figuring out the calendar, what we're doing with the kids, what we're doing this weekend, what the plans are this summer, if you reduce your relationship to only logistics, I promise you you're going to start drifting. 00;11;42;07 - 00;12;05;13 Chrissy Cole We need to start doing more listening. Not just barking orders, not just sharing calendars, but listening to one another. If you don't continue to listen to one another, you don't stay present with one another. Then you're going to be in a place of more like survival rather than connection. And the worst thing that you can do for any relationship. 00;12;05;13 - 00;12;28;16 Chrissy Cole And this kind of sound like I am. I don't mean to insult your intelligence, okay, but the worst thing that you can do for your marriage is nothing. But we see it happen time and time again because pride stops you from making the first step. Pride stops you from being sacrificial. Pride stops you from being a worshiper in your relationship. 00;12;28;19 - 00;12;54;07 Chrissy Cole Pride stops you from taking on the character of Christ and coming to remember he gave his son. He came to the people. He clothed himself in flesh. To understand us, we need to come into a relationship, say presence, say intentional. Otherwise, we're just kind of drifts. And so the worst thing you can do for your marriage is nothing stops suppressing your emotions. 00;12;54;10 - 00;13;20;14 Chrissy Cole Stop ignoring that reaction. Even if it's passive aggressive and annoyed, you don't ignore it. We can't just do nothing. I remember there was a time where we were drifting. I would say probably a year or 40 or whatever year it was a few years ago, and I remember it because I was turning almost 40. I was 39 years old and it felt like my body was falling apart. 00;13;20;17 - 00;13;50;20 Chrissy Cole Some of you nearing 40 or in your 40s, you understand. And I had this freak accident. You've heard the story. I tore my, ligaments, three ligaments in my wrist. I hurt my back, and it was just awful. And so I was, like, kind of, sulking in some of my ailments, and I was. Yeah, just having a hard time, because in addition to the physical, you know, trauma, I was experiencing, we were not connecting as much. 00;13;50;22 - 00;14;12;18 Chrissy Cole And so I was dying for a connection. I was dying for emotional understanding. I was dying for him to, like, even help me with what was happening in my body in this change and these injuries. And so one day he pulled, we were pulling into the garage and we weren't even fighting. We're just coming back from work. And, but he knew, I think there was no connection. 00;14;12;18 - 00;14;30;24 Chrissy Cole And at one point he says, can I be honest with you and I, we're probably just talking about work. And he felt like he was carrying everybody on his back in that season because I was struggle bus. I was like, yeah, please, please be honest with me. Like I was dying for him to be honest. And he said, can I be honest with you? 00;14;30;24 - 00;14;59;13 Chrissy Cole I have resented you in this season because you haven't been as strong as you normally are. And you may have thought like, dang, that was honest and mean. But I was like, say, for the love of God, thank you. I was so desperate for his honesty that even if it was correction or feedback that might have hurt my feelings, I would have rather had that, especially in the way that he communicated it. 00;14;59;16 - 00;15;29;26 Chrissy Cole And so some of us are avoiding emotions and avoiding sharing our real feelings. And some of you should. If you're still angry, just stay quiet. But if you can share your real, true, authentic emotions and love, then that fed my soul and it reconnected us. And so let's not drift. And it's not just one big disastrous eruption in your relationship that's going to break your marriage. 00;15;30;00 - 00;15;34;15 Chrissy Cole It's going to be that slow erosion and drifting. 00;15;34;18 - 00;15;39;19 Caleb Cole It's good. Can I can I be honest with you about something else? 00;15;39;21 - 00;16;11;24 Caleb Cole See, my wife loves emotional connection, but for some reason she connects better emotionally when I take her to really expensive dinners. So I'm wondering if we could connect emotionally like a chick fil A to you. And I say sometimes, you know, we gotta work within the budget. Can I get an amen? Okay, that was just for fun. The second thing we see to keep the flame alive is the flame requires priority. 00;16;11;26 - 00;16;38;06 Caleb Cole How many know priorities matter? Yeah, yeah. And your calendar, your life, your spending. There's so much that we could look at right now and see where your priorities lie. Okay, we see in revelation two Paul's writing or John is writing and talking to the church. He's talking to a group of churches. But he says this, but I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 00;16;38;09 - 00;17;06;20 Caleb Cole Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the things you did at first. Now this is talking specifically about faith. And so I want to take it though, and actually apply it, because I think this is so applicable for marriage. Like think about how easy we can drift, as Christie said, out of connection, out of consistency and what John is writing to the church and tell him. 00;17;06;20 - 00;17;29;13 Caleb Cole He's like, you need to go back to your first love and what you did at first. And so this is a reminder for us, because I remember when we first started in this relationship, right, the flame was alive and and I did a lot of things intentionally, right? I prioritized her in all of these ways. And then little by little, over time, you can drift away from that. 00;17;29;15 - 00;17;51;23 Caleb Cole And so this text of like, go back to what? Remember your first love. Remember what you did at first. This is a reminder for you married couples in here who've been doing this a while five years, ten years, 15, 20 like, remember what you did at first. Remember how you prioritized your your spouse at first? I think about us in in the early stages, we were long distance. 00;17;51;23 - 00;18;16;07 Caleb Cole And so I would get on phone calls with her and I wanted to carry on a long conversation. I want to be a good conversationalist. I also wanted to get to know her more. And so I would come with a sheet to our phone calls. This was before face time. I didn't exist there with a list of questions that I was going to ask her, and any time the conversation stalled, I just went to my list and I asked the next question. 00;18;16;10 - 00;18;41;06 Caleb Cole And she's like, he's such a great conversationalist. But I was being intentional and prioritizing our connection by putting things in place right. That would allow me to connect with her on a deeper level. She didn't know it, but I was doing this. And how often do we just forget about that? We go to dinner with our spouse and we have nothing to talk to them about. 00;18;41;08 - 00;19;00;09 Caleb Cole We didn't know homework ahead of time, right? We didn't even type in ChatGPT. What are some good questions I could ask my wife tonight? We went to dinner the other night, a date, and then went to Rick's dessert dinner afterwards. Yeah. You guys, can you. Amen. That much? When I preach to you know, you like Rick's dessert dinner. 00;19;00;09 - 00;19;19;22 Caleb Cole Amen. Come on. When I preach, do it too. Okay. I'm kidding. I'm joking with you. But but, we are Rick's, and she pulls out this whole sheet on her phone of questions to help us connect emotionally. And we went through it. It took an hour to get through it. By the end, I was tired, but it was so good. 00;19;19;22 - 00;19;46;06 Caleb Cole I'm like, Chrissy, thank you for coming. Ready? Right. Coming. Ready and wanting to prioritize us. You see where there is priority, there is oneness. And unfortunately what we see is is too many people make their marriage the least important thing and everything else takes precedence. Your kids are more important. Your job is more important, right? Your calendar is more. 00;19;46;09 - 00;20;06;24 Caleb Cole Your hobbies are more important. No, I need Chrissy to be the priority of my life. The best thing I can do for my kids. I said this two weeks ago or last week is to love my wife well, to show them how much I love her and prioritize her and and want to connect with her because connection is never accidental. 00;20;06;27 - 00;20;29;06 Caleb Cole In fact, I told you earlier, it's actually agricultural. What do you talk about? Okay, I'll talk about the garden and me cultivating the garden of this relationship. I show priorities by how often I get in the garden of our connection, and I want to have relationship with her. Connection with her? What does that look like, man? It looks like regular, undistracted conversation. 00;20;29;09 - 00;20;39;22 Caleb Cole Can we just do something right now? Church, I need y'all to visually, like, do this. All right. I didn't mean to do that. 00;20;39;24 - 00;21;01;10 Caleb Cole Your wife is trying to talk to you, and you're scrolling the whole time. Yeah. Come on now. We got to get real about it. We are so distracted. And then we have. We wonder why we're not connected. Because all our time is our faces in a screen. Like, y'all need to get delivered in this place. Okay? From your screen time, from your social media, I rebuke it in Jesus name. 00;21;01;16 - 00;21;30;16 Caleb Cole I rebuke myself right now. Chrissy will tell you. Yeah. What about shared experiences? What are you guys doing together? Do you have any connection? Activities, hobbies we find and science backs this that men connect best with shared activity. So find a shared activity. Physical affection without agenda. I'm talking to the men right now. If the only time he's he's attentive to you physically is when he's trying to get something or get some. 00;21;30;18 - 00;21;49;13 Caleb Cole There's an issue. Like men, when you come home, what's the first thing you do? The first thing I do is I go to my wife and I give her a hug and a kiss when I come home, because I want her to see that I'm intentional in my physical and physical connection with her, with no agenda. When I walk by her, I'm going to smack her on the butt ten times out of ten. 00;21;49;16 - 00;22;15;07 Caleb Cole Why? Because that is an intentional physical connection. There's no agenda here. I'm just letting her know I see you right? And I like what I see. Okay. But I know it's funny, but for reals. Men like, so often, the only attention our wives will get is when we have an agenda attached to it. We repair conflict quickly. I'm not going to let the sun go down on my wrath, on my anger. 00;22;15;07 - 00;22;36;05 Caleb Cole No, I'm going to go to her, say, hey, I'm upset, I resent you. I like be real, be honest, and I'm express appreciation out loud. Do I ever tell her I'm thankful for women? Ladies, are you ever complimenting and thanking your husband for what he does? The sacrifice he makes? You see? Oneness requires space, and space requires choice. 00;22;36;08 - 00;22;53;02 Caleb Cole You have to choose to create the space to prioritize your spouse. And life will get real and life will get busy and the flame will naturally, naturally fade. Unless you say no, this is my priority. 00;22;53;05 - 00;22;59;20 Chrissy Cole Whatever always comes second eventually grows weaker. I think we need to remember that. 00;22;59;22 - 00;23;02;21 Caleb Cole But I'm gonna go get my phone quick. 00;23;02;23 - 00;23;30;11 Chrissy Cole Number three, can you please put it away? Just kidding. That's what I said. Number three, the flame needs oxygen. The flame needs oxygen. In order for a flame to survive, it needs oxygen. And what does that look like in a relationship? It looks like speaking truth. Everybody say truth. And I think some people who love conflict and love has to say how it is and love to verbally process. 00;23;30;11 - 00;24;00;19 Chrissy Cole You're like, yeah, tell them, speak truth. Ephesians four in fact says rather speaking the truth and love, we are to grow up in every way. And to him who is the head into Christ. When you are sharing truth in love, you're growing up as a mature believer. But if you're only sharing truth and it's without love and it's without the fruit of the spirit, I am going to question your maturity in Christ. 00;24;00;22 - 00;24;23;05 Chrissy Cole We need the fat to fan the flame of love by keeping it in oxygen, which is truth. I love what Timothy Keller says in his book The Meaning of Marriage. Love without truth is sentimentality. It supports and affirms us, but it keeps us in denial about our flaws. This is what most of us want, which is just tell me how much you love me. 00;24;23;08 - 00;24;54;25 Chrissy Cole Don't tell me all my mistakes. But truth without love is harshness. It gives us information but in such a way that it cannot real. Not we cannot really hear it. Man. The flame of love is going out when we're sharing truth without love, and when we are communicating and maybe over communicating. And you're a verbal processor, you're sharing your emotions all the time, but it has no vulnerability. 00;24;54;27 - 00;25;22;16 Chrissy Cole The the flame is likely fading if there is not this fire and this intention of repairing in your communication, if there's no intention, while you share the truth and love to grow more connected with the person, then that means the fire of your your love is growing dim. And the reason I share this and I'm going to review what we talked about a couple of weeks ago, but you might be thinking, oh, there are flames. 00;25;22;16 - 00;25;46;01 Chrissy Cole There are still flames in our relationship when there's communication, but I, I doubt that they're flames of love and they're probably more flames of fury. And this is what's happening in relationships and in marriages where we are just not sharing truth in love. We're saying that we're sharing truth, but we're actually just stoking the fire of escalation and unhealthy conflict. 00;25;46;01 - 00;26;14;18 Chrissy Cole I'm just going to have it up on the screen again. But we talked about this, that there are moments where we're hurt and then we get defensive, then we attack, and then we counterattack. This looks like flames of fury in your relationship when there when there is hurt that's taking place or when there is concern about something and you share that with somebody and the person just gets defensive, then that will invite an attack. 00;26;14;20 - 00;26;35;08 Chrissy Cole And then not only will they attack, you know, maybe satisfy you, but truth will be shared. And then a counterattack is shared. Do you see how truth can get twisted? But it's actually an unhealthy cycle. We need the kind of truth that is with love. Ephesians four. If you want unity in your family, you want unity in the body of Christ. 00;26;35;08 - 00;26;56;25 Chrissy Cole What unity with your kids. Ephesians four is where to go. We don't have time to go into it. We need to get to the place where we're healthy and there's flames of love, not flames of fury. Flames of love. And resolution says I'm hurt. We pause. Everybody say pause us. Shut up. This is what it's saying. Even a fool is not wise when he holds his tongue. 00;26;56;28 - 00;27;33;01 Chrissy Cole Some of us are reacting and sharing what we think based off of, wrong emotion. Maybe we're hungry, we're making way too many assumptions, and we're talking to one another in the wrong time. And this without pause, this kind of communication, without pause is escalating anger and increasing, disconnection. But healthy truth and love sharing it causes you to pause, clarify, ask for understanding, listen in your relationships and marriages, especially when you've been married for a long time. 00;27;33;03 - 00;28;01;09 Chrissy Cole You make so many more assumptions and you're not asking any curious questions any longer, and you're not getting any clarity. And there's no chance for resolution if you don't get gain clarity or ask for understanding before you throw out your assumptions that are all like little darts, you know you're just throwing darts at your partner. So we need to stop assuming we need a pause and we get clarity. 00;28;01;11 - 00;28;18;10 Chrissy Cole I want to talk about that again. I mean, they say that people are only attending church, on average 1.2 times a month. 1.4 times a month. So if you didn't see this last time, I need you to write this down. And we want to share it again, because this is what we're seeing division happening in the body. 00;28;18;10 - 00;28;50;01 Chrissy Cole Do visioning happen happening in your relationships. And the other couple last two things. If a flame needs oxygen, speak life over your partner. Proverbs 1821 death and life are in the power of the tongue, and in those who love it will eat its fruit. Are you telling your partner how grateful you are for them? You grow in intimacy with the Lord when you tell him how good he is and how grateful you are for him, just like we did during the worship session. 00;28;50;03 - 00;28;59;01 Chrissy Cole Now do we do that to our spouses? Do we tell them that I appreciate you for always washing the dishes whenever I cook? 00;28;59;03 - 00;29;18;12 Chrissy Cole And here's the thing. When I need you to ask the question if life or death is in the tongue is my conversation? Am I bringing life or death to a person? I mean, it's a simple question. And again, I don't want to insult your television. So you've probably heard this a million times, but some of us just are not thinking before we talk. 00;29;18;15 - 00;29;26;01 Chrissy Cole So pause and get some oxygen. Breathe. And everybody breathe. There you go. 00;29;26;04 - 00;30;11;16 Caleb Cole The fourth thing we see to keep this flame alive is we have to have the flame survive on consistency. I mean, you know, consistency is overrated or underrated. Yes. Flip it. I shared this a couple months back just how important consistency is in our faith. It's the same in marriage that we must be consistent. Consistent. Our faith, consistent in our connection, consistent in our in our investment into this first Corinthians 1558 it tells us, therefore, Paul's writing to the church in Corinth, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 00;30;11;18 - 00;30;37;10 Caleb Cole We're giving you scriptures about faith, but the consistency that Paul is calling the church to carries over to our investment in our relationship. I want to be consistent in my faith, in my pursuit of the Lord, in my rhythms of spiritual practices. I also want to be consistent in my practices within my marriage, in my regular connection with my wife and my investment into this relationship. 00;30;37;12 - 00;30;57;08 Caleb Cole You see, too many people are seeing their marriage as an overwhelming problem that's impossible to tackle, rather than seeing it as one daily choice at a time. So right now we got to reframe the marriages in this room that are struggling. We got to just like, reset our brains. We can't right now say, man, it's there's too many problems. 00;30;57;08 - 00;31;22;27 Caleb Cole It's too far gone. It's one big, huge problem. No, no, no. Well, we're going to do is we're going to say I'm going to start today and tomorrow with daily consistent choices of investment and cultivation of this marriage, of this garden of, of relationship, of this flame. It's a daily choice to love, to put on love. Here's what Jimmy Evans, Doctor Jimmy Evans said. 00;31;22;27 - 00;31;43;22 Caleb Cole He said, why is it that we will work so hard to impress a total stranger who will not work to please the one we vowed before God to love and cherish for the rest of our lives right? Right, right. So we'll work at all these other relationships. We care about what all these other people think. But when it comes to the person I came to the altar to die. 00;31;43;24 - 00;32;10;18 Caleb Cole Yeah, die to self. That's what you do at the altar. You come in before God, right? You're saying I was one, and now the individual Caleb is becoming the. The individuals are coming together and forming something completely new, a new thing. And now I am laying down my needs, and I'm putting your needs first. And if we both live that way, guess what? 00;32;10;18 - 00;32;41;10 Caleb Cole It's a blessed marriage. I'm putting you before myself. I'm serving you before I serve me. And that carries over to everything. But it has to be a daily choice, daily kindness. Not just big anniversaries, regular pursuit through every day. Not just one week's vacations. A year where I actually spent time and talk to you. It's ongoing forgiveness. Not just emotional highs. 00;32;41;12 - 00;33;10;12 Caleb Cole It's faithfulness, which is one of the most undervalued gifts of the spirit. Amen. I'm faithful in this. Why? Because this flame is only going to survive when we are consistent, right? 18 years of marriage for Christy and I and we are in an amazing place we've had right now in our marriage. We've had tough seasons, but what's gotten us through those tough seasons is consistency and acknowledging where we fell short, acknowledging our lack. 00;33;10;14 - 00;33;40;04 Caleb Cole And every day I sing Cassie and Jojo to her. All my life, I pray for someone like you. I thank God that I that I finally found you. I didn't do that in the last service. I was just for you guys and really for Christy. I'm not really a vocalist, but thank you. 00;33;40;06 - 00;34;17;10 Chrissy Cole Hey. And finally, the flame must be protected. I want us to start having this image of us being the royal priesthood. Like this priest in Leviticus. That is putting the wood on the fire, that is protecting the flame that is, is arranging all the wood that is making plans. It's being so intentional. Please, let's start seeing our relationship, our marriage as worship to the Lord and what God has given you, what he has blessed you with this flame that he provided. 00;34;17;10 - 00;34;52;02 Chrissy Cole Remember the the in Leviticus nine the fire fell from heaven miraculously. What you have it is a miracle. Marriages are miracle because two people are saying, I'm going to put you before myself. That is a miracle. That's this miraculous. And there's wonder in marriage that you can discover if you continue to protect the flame. Proverbs 423 keep your heart with all vigilance, for from its flow the springs of life. 00;34;52;04 - 00;35;24;19 Chrissy Cole Guard your heart. In other words. And so you need to guard what the Lord has blessed us. And we're going to go into that next week. Pastor Sam will be closing up this series on guarding the covenant. But the flame must be protected. And I want to get real practical with you, because I know that there have been times that man, we haven't protected the tone in which we've talked with one another. 00;35;24;21 - 00;35;47;08 Chrissy Cole Are you protecting the tone in which you communicate? Are you one to bark orders? Are you one to shame? Or you want to point blame? Are you the one to criticize at all times? Or are you one who is speaking life? And when you're sharing truth, you're you're seasoning it with kindness in your tone. We need to start protecting our tone. 00;35;47;11 - 00;36;05;03 Chrissy Cole And you know what? That's going to require some of this. I didn't say this for service, but it's going to require some of us to have get some healing and inner healing in our lives. Because the reason why you're speaking in tone is because a certain tone was spoken to you, and a lot of us are speaking with defensive tones because we're so wounded from our past. 00;36;05;03 - 00;36;26;16 Chrissy Cole And there's needs to be some healing, some inner healing. We need protect our tone. We need to protect our time. Yeah, this time is sacred. Friday mornings. Most of the Friday days are sacred for us because that's where we're connecting. That's when we Sabbath. That's when we do our emotional. We'll. And now I've added a really long questionnaire. 00;36;26;16 - 00;36;53;10 Chrissy Cole It's wonderful. If you want to let me know I'll probably post it on IG. Protect that connection. Don't let anybody else come in between that connection. Not your kids, not your friends, not any strangers. Again, some of us are so much more cordial and kind to strangers and the people that are closest to us. Why? Because this person has potential to hurt me more than a stranger could. 00;36;53;13 - 00;37;09;08 Chrissy Cole It's harder to be kind to the people that are closest to us that God has gifted us with. And I would say also protect your friendship. Friendship is a great place to stoke that fire. 00;37;09;10 - 00;37;18;15 Chrissy Cole Friendship? Are you my best friend? I think so, he's my best friend. Absolutely. 00;37;18;17 - 00;37;40;25 Caleb Cole Listen, I think we started this whole day by talking about how do we fall back in love. And I want you to think about it. Like your relationship with Jesus. Because I've been. I've even seen people phrase it the same way with Jesus. How do I fall back in love with Jesus? A lot of us are just chasing these emotional highs. 00;37;40;27 - 00;38;08;07 Caleb Cole The chase in in marriage. We chase in our relationship with God. But that's not what we see in Scripture as what we should pursue, but we see is a healthy cultivating of a relationship. And I do that through daily rhythms, daily rhythms in my marriage, daily rhythms with God. It's the same. I want to tell you, write your feelings. 00;38;08;09 - 00;38;37;28 Caleb Cole They will return as fruit. Too many of us are just following feelings all the time. No, we follow the daily rhythms of healthy connection with God, healthy connection with our spouse, and what will happen. The fruit will form in the feelings that you're longing to have towards God, towards that spouse. The feelings are not the foundation. The foundation is the commitment to the consistency of connection. 00;38;38;00 - 00;38;58;07 Caleb Cole I choose every day to pursue God. I choose every day to pursue my spouse. And so I think in this room right now, we need to actually address a couple groups of people. The first group, you know, you've run from, God turned your back on God. You've not pursued, regular spiritual rhythms and regular connection and rather regular relationship with God. 00;38;58;07 - 00;39;16;01 Caleb Cole But today, you know, you need to come back. You need to put those practices back into place. You need to go back to a place of pursuing God, maybe for the first time, giving your life to Jesus. He laid his life down for you because he loved you so much. And I want you to respond right now. If that's you, would you bow your heads close your eyes across this room? 00;39;16;01 - 00;39;30;17 Caleb Cole If that's you, you say, that's me. I've been running from God. Turn my back on God. I've. I've prioritized all the other things. And, you know, right now you need to give your life back to you. You need to recommit yourself. You need to give your life to him for the first time. We just lift your hand right now just so I can see it. 00;39;30;17 - 00;40;00;06 Caleb Cole I want to pray for you. Go ahead. Shoot up. Yes. 12345. Six. Seven eight. Nine. Ten. 11. 12. Thank you, thank you. You can put them down. The second group of people I think are maybe very people in this room. And you know that you have not properly fanned the flame in your marriage. You have not had the healthy daily rhythms of connection and cultivating of the garden of this marriage that you should have had. 00;40;00;06 - 00;40;17;19 Caleb Cole And you just want help. You want God's touch, you want his strength, and you want to make a commitment. Today to put these rhythms in place, to put this connection a place to prioritize your spouse. If that's you, go ahead and raise your hand. Say that to me. I need to do this, Caleb. I need to do it. 00;40;17;19 - 00;40;43;16 Caleb Cole Yeah. Hands going up all around the room. Thank you. You can put it now. Would you pray this with me and Christy today? Just say this with us. Everybody in here say Jesus today. I confess my sin, my weakness. And I ask you to forgive me. Come into my life, make me new. I surrender wholeheartedly to you, Jesus, right now. 00;40;43;18 - 00;40;57;26 Caleb Cole And I thank you that you gave your life so I can have life in your name. Amen. Amen. Come on, let's give God some praise for all these people to raise their hands. 00;40;57;28 - 00;41;16;19 Caleb Cole We want to pray right now over the marriages in this room. And so if you're sitting next to your spouse, grab their hand up. And I just want to pray over you, Jesus, we pray for the flames of these marriages, that they would be fanned. Lord, we pray for deeper connection, deeper cultivation of the garden of this marriage. 00;41;16;19 - 00;41;30;07 Caleb Cole Lord, that you would strengthen that which maybe has been waning. Lord, maybe the the passion and the the connection has been waning. Maybe there's been a struggle in this season, Lord, maybe they're doing great. I pray that that flame would be fan even greater. 00;41;30;09 - 00;41;35;17 Unknown But Lord, we pray over the marriages of this house. You would bless them, you would connect them. You would deepen their. 00;41;35;17 - 00;41;50;21 Caleb Cole Intimacy with you first and foremost and in turn deepen their intimacy with one another. Lord, we ask for your touch on our relationships, your touch on our marriages, and we give you all the praise, all the glory, all the honor. In your name, Jesus, we pray. 00;41;50;23 - 00;42;01;17 Unknown Amen. Amen. Come on. Would you stand your feet. And let's worship together. Before we go, let's sing. Jesus, 00;42;01;20 - 00;42;04;29 Chrissy Cole Thank you for being a part of our online community here at Project Church. 00;42;05;00 - 00;42;08;11 Chrissy Cole We hope that this message and the whole service bless your life. 00;42;08;14 - 00;42;24;19 Caleb Cole Yeah. And if it did, we want to ask that you would do something for us. First of all, if you're not already subscribed to our YouTube channel, be sure to subscribe. Like this video. But also, we would ask that you would consider financially supporting what God is doing through Project Church. You can give in a variety of ways. 00;42;24;22 - 00;42;39;28 Caleb Cole You can text project to 97,000. Right now. You can give to our Church Center app, or you can give on our website project church.com/give. Thanks so much for being a part of our online community. And once again God bless you guys. We'll see you soon.