We're going to look at Ephesians chapter 5 verses 22 through 33. Most of you know this passage. As you're turning there, let me just say three things. First thing, it's good to see you. So many familiar faces. I went to dinner last night with about 20 of you, and it's so good to see you. We miss you. We really do miss you. I'll leave that there before I get emotional. Second thing, two people you should pick up their books, Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage, and then Tim and Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage. I know probably many of you have read that book. Both of those great books, a lot of what I'm going to say you can find kind of drawn out in both of those sources. The third thing is this. Since I'm the last speaker to you this weekend, when you drive home today, you're heading down the mountain, don't look at your spouse and say to him or her, see, I told you. I've been telling you this for years. Don't say that to your spouse. At least not before you say it to yourself. Take it in. Drink it in. The other thing you shouldn't say is, this is hopeless. You know, don't say, we can't do this, it's too far gone. Don't say that because God is in the business of turning things around. He's in the business of removing our selfishness and our self-centeredness and changing us. So wherever God is at work, there's hope. Okay? Just wanted to say that, being the last person to speak to you. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 22 through 33. Paul says this, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." I want to be really practical this morning. I also want to be comprehensive, and to do that, I'm going to have to be really pithy. And so here we go. If you're going to build a healthy marriage, the image you need to keep at the forefront of your mind is that of cultivating a garden. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul talks about the church as this complex connection of relationships. And Paul actually says, I'm the one who planted the seed, but Apollos watered it, and yet God is the one who makes it grow. The one who plants and the one who waters has one purpose, for we are God's workers and you are God's field. The church is likened to a cultivated field, a garden. And you can apply this image to marriage because in Ephesians, the church is called the household of God. So in Ephesians, the household, the family, the marriage relationship is a kind of mini church. And the church is a kind of maxi household. They're similar, they point to one another, there's connection there. So marriage is very much a complex relationship, just like a garden. And that means it's not like, you know, you see these signs for Supersod? You know what supersod is? They will deliver on pallets, sods of grass. And so you just call them up and you tell them, okay, I need 300 square feet of sod. And so they come with a truck, they drop off the sod on a pallet in their front yard, and you just kind of roll it out. You know? Or you call FTD Flowers and you say, hey, will you deliver some flowers to my wife because it's Valentine's Day? And they come, courier knocks on your door, hands you flowers. Marriage is not like that. It's a garden, and it takes work. It doesn't just kind of appear. Gardens don't spontaneously spring up in your yard. work. And the difference between the beautiful, fruitful marriage that you can have and that you should have is the same difference that there is between a beautiful, full-grown apple tree and the apple seed. It takes work and it takes time. And it takes work no matter the weather. If there's a lot of rain, you've got to weed a lot. If it's really dry, you've got to do your own watering. So it means if in your marriage everything's going well, financially things are going well, the children are doing well, we'll call that water. and everything's going well, you still have to tend to it because what do you have to do if there's a lot of rain in your garden? By the way, I was a forestry undergrad major. So this kind of resonates with me on one level. On another level, I can't keep anything alive. I mean, I can keep my children alive. I can feed them. But like gardening, I have a black thumb. I don't have a green thumb. Like anything I tried, any plant I've ever tried, I had a bonsai tree in seminary. It lasted like two weeks. It probably died well before that, and I just noticed it died two weeks. But I can still follow this out. If there's a lot of water in your marriage, if things are going well, you have to weed. And actually, success can be one of those things that choke out your marriage. Because your kids are doing really well, so you're running over here to soccer practice, or you're running over here to ballet, or whatever it happens to be. There's success going on, and everything can kind of just be rolling along, and you realize, wait a minute, our marriage is getting choked out. Who are you? Who are you again? I see you in the morning, I see you at evening, but who are you? The same way, maybe your marriage is dry, you know? Maybe things aren't going well financially. Maybe the children aren't doing well. And your marriage takes a lot of watering at that point. And that's what marriage is like. And if marriage is like a garden, it's going to take an enormous amount of work and constant attention. I mean, people tell me, because again, I don't have a garden, I kill things. But people tell me you can hardly go a day when things are going gangbusters in your garden, you can hardly go a day without tending to it. And the same is true for marriage. And to kind of follow this out, I want to talk about three things this morning. I want to talk about planting, and in some ways there's going to be talk about replanting. there. You know, if you have a garden and something happens, some animals come in and they eat your seeds or they eat the fruit or a flood comes along and it takes away everything, you've got to do some replanting. Okay, so planting or, parentheses, replanting, that's number one. Second thing is cultivating. Planting, cultivating. Cultivating is the weeding, the tending to, the watering, the fertilizing, all that stuff. It's a planting, cultivating, and then finally harvesting. Planting, cultivating, harvesting. First, planting. C.S. Lewis in Four Loves talks about erotic love. He talks about eros. And he talks about it and he develops this idea that in Eros, you're looking at one another toe-to-toe, you're standing there and you're eye-to-ball to eyeball. And he talks about another type of love, friendship love, philos. And in philos, you're not standing toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball, you're actually standing shoulder-to-shoulder, looking in the same direction, to a common horizon. Biblically, phylos is the foundation, and eros is to grow out of phylos. That's the way it is all over the Bible. That what happens first, what is planted first, ought to be the friendship, the phylos, and out of that grows eros. And that means this, I learned this a long time ago, it's not uniquely mine, but it's so true. By the way, I'm gonna say a lot of things today, you're gonna be like, yes, we know this. but you need to hear it, and you need to hear it again and again. But if that's true, that out of philos grows eros, then that means this, that marriage is primarily friendship adorned with romance, and not primarily romance adorned with friendship. Do you get that? Marriage is primarily friendship adorned with romance, and not romance adorned with friendship. I mean, think about it. Why did Adam say, when he saw Eve, you know, he didn't say, people would be like, I don't know, maybe you've said this, but, you know, in a homily or something. Adam saw Eve and he said, whoa, man, you know, Adam didn't actually say, hey, there's Eve, what a hot babe. That's not what he said. He broke out in song, yes, but he said, this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Let me translate that. He looks at Eve and he goes, love you? I am you. You let me know who I am, really. You help me because I'm able in your presence to know who I am. Now I can serve God as a whole person. I finally feel like myself. That's what he's saying in that. God goes on to declare that a man should leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Paul, as you saw in Ephesians 5, picks up on that. And that idea of flesh, yeah, it refers to sex. But it's so much more. It's so much more than that. In Acts 2, God says, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. Now, if flesh only means sex or if it only means body, that's a strange verse. God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Flesh can mean a person, peoples, right? So what God is saying is, I'm going to pour out my Spirit on all peoples. So flesh can mean person, can mean people. To become one flesh is to become one person. And here in Ephesians, Paul speaks of husbands and wives being part of a single body. The husband is the head. The wife is the body. One person. Physically. Emotionally. Psychologically. Spiritually. Everything. Therefore, marriage is the intimate union, becoming one person between friends. And you know what that produces? One easy definition for intimacy is just radical closeness. It's just radical closeness. That's all it means. And he says, you know what happens? Joy is produced in that. Absolute joy. It's why in the marriage ceremony we ministers say that marriage is created for the welfare and happiness of mankind. It's to bring joy through intimacy, radical closeness of body and soul, of knowing and being known. Radical closeness, and it brings joy. I hear a couple of implications. Frankly, there's a sexual attraction that comes from deep oneness with your best friend. whose character you admire to the sky, and who admires your character to the sky. There's an enormous amount of really sexual attraction that can take place when that's occurring. It's a different kind of attraction than Eros, but Eros can flow out of it, and you've got to realize that. There's nothing really sexier than that. It's a different kind of attractiveness. And it's really kind of semi-independent from looks, you know? It really is kind of semi-independent from the looks of the other person. That's why, and this is gonna, I don't know if you'll laugh at this or not, but that's why two physically unattractive people can have a really great sex life. Because there's a type of attraction that takes place when there's friendship and intimacy and openness that's taking place. And incidentally, this is why I tell single guys and girls that you can't really be best friends. I mean, you can, and they do it all the time, but this is really why a single guy and gal can't be best friends, because you know what happens? The guy's thinking, man, this is great. She's like a dude, you know? This is wonderful. I mean, we can just hang out. It's great. We can play video games, you know? And the girl, meanwhile, is thinking, our invitations will be pink, our children's names will be, you know, or vice versa. The guy is like, man, this is really great. She thinks like, dude, and she's hot. I want to be with her. And she's thinking, man, this is great. He just wants to talk all the time, you know. What a great friend. But you can't do it because one of the other person is realizing the beauty in that. And they're saying to themselves, this is what I want in a husband or wife. And the other person is thinking, wow, this is great. We're really great friends. In other words, somebody's going to get killed in that. Absolutely murdered. If both of them realize the joy in that, you know what's going to happen? They're probably going to get married. Because they realize there's something there that's actually driving everything. Incidentally, I've been killed and I've done some killing, and probably some of you. And I'll tell you right now, it was part of my own immaturity of saying, you know, of not realizing what I was doing or what was being done to me. But that's why that takes place. That's why it takes place that way, is because there's this attraction that develops when you do become good friends. That means, here's a second implication, you know, make your friendship a priority. No other relationship has this kind of fundamental effect in your life. There's nothing more fundamental than that of a husband and a wife. Not father, not mother, not child. All other relationships are secondary. Therefore, your spouse and your marriage has to be the number one priority before your career, before your friends, even before your children. And that's a hard one, isn't it? That's a hard one. If you're looking to your children, if your children, I'll put it this way, are more of a source of emotional warmth, and are more of a source of self-esteem, you're actually in a lot of trouble. And really, quite frankly, so are your children. Because you're putting on them something that they can't carry. You know, there's no other relationship in your life that ought to take priority like this. It's why a lot, I mean, guys, you need to hear that. Because maybe you're thinking, well, it's just, it's my, it's, I, my friendships with my guy friends, you know, those are so, those take so much Priority in my I love hanging out with I love being with them I'll I'll give up hanging out with my wife for a little bit just to go hang out with him now I'm not saying you don't need same-sex friendships you do but they don't take priority and Ladies your family can't take priority over your husband. You can't say, you know, I've got to talk to my mom every You know every hour on the hour You've got to be I love my mother-in-law by the way, okay, so that's not a dig on if she ever hears this That's not a dig on her. I love her to death But you see, you can't let anything else come in. The marriage relationship has to take priority over every single thing, every other relationship. And that means you need to go home and you need to ask yourself, are we keeping this a priority? And you need to ask your spouse, am I doing a good job of making this a priority? And listen, if they say, by the way, no, you're not, You don't get to say, yes, I am. Because they're the ones, they're the only ones who can tell you actually whether you're making it a priority. If you ask, hey, am I making this a priority? And they say, no, then you're not. It's like being in a room together with your spouse and you ask her, are you cold? And she says, yes, I'm freezing. And you can't say, how can you be freezing? You're not freezing. Only she's the one who's able to tell you that. So you need to make it a priority. You need to check in with one another. And you make sure that's the case. Whatever it takes, go on vacation, take dates, go out to lunch without your kids. A lot of you have told me that's what this weekend has been about. for a lot of you. Two people show up to marriage conferences, two types of couples. One is you just want to get away from your kids for a weekend, this is a good excuse, and the grandparents think it's a good excuse too, and so they'll watch your kids. The other couple are really scratching and clawing and are really hurting. And if that's you, there's life for you. But it really does start with getting back and planting this idea of friendship, of really getting in and spending time together, with talking together, with no distractions. Do that. It has to be a priority. your marriage will be better for it. Do this and you will live, right? Okay, so that's planting. What about cultivating? The weeding, the fertilizing, the watering, the tending. I realize I'm mixing metaphors here. That's okay, I was a forestry major, not an English major. Paul's talking about the body, we're talking about gardening, you know, but you're following along just fine. Cultivating. Paul uses this word body here. He uses three words in talking about the body. He uses this word about cleansing. He uses this word about nourishing and cherishing, right? And so think about that. Think about what it means to clean your body. Think about what it means to floss. Think about what it means to pluck your eyebrows, to cut your fingernails, to bathe, to shower, to go to the bathroom. Cleaning yourself is the most private thing that you do. And Paul is saying that when you get married, your spouse has that kind of access to the most private part of your life. It means that your spouse will see and take part in cleaning the dirt. Right? I'm not talking about physically here. I mean, you may need help with that. But I'm talking spiritually. I'm talking emotionally, psychologically. that your spouse now has that kind of access to your life. To put it, I think Tim Keller put it this way, he said, you know, to put it in Star Trek terms, your spouse now can go where no man has gone before. That's the kind of access that your spouse has. And one of the ways that your spouse cleanses you is simply by being, simply by being there. Right? Christy will say something to me, that's my wife, Christy will say something to me like, why do you always have to do that when I'm around? I would let that sit, you can fill in the blank. Why do you always have to do that when I'm around? And I always reply, because you're always there. And that's, that's cleansing, you know? Simply by being there, your spouse can begin to cleanse. Are you moody? Are you impatient? Are you angry? Are you jealous? You know, your spouse sees that. And in a lot of ways, it's humiliating and it's vulnerable. But before you were married, You could kind of clean yourself. Now, I'll argue whether you could actually do that very well. You know, it's hard to see, if you're cutting your own hair, it's hard to see the back of your head. It's because you need perspective. You need someone else to say, you know, hey, look, I know you can't see this, but this is there. And before you were married, you were just kind of like, who knows? You had stuff hanging out of your nose and, you know, your hair was sticking up in the back and nobody felt like they could tell you. But now your spouse sees it. You can't live in denial anymore. Because they're able to say, like, look, there's something in your ear. You know, you need to take care of that. There's something just on the back of your neck. You need to just brush that off. You can't say, no, it's not. You can't live in denial anymore. They're there, and they're there a lot. And that's why your spouse has the potential to be the greatest sanctifying tool in your life. That is if you let them. That is if you give them that kind of access to cultivate, to turn over, to plow, to tend to. But if you hate that and resent that, then you don't understand marriage and your spouse will never actually be your friend. Not really, not truly. And we need that. We need our spouse's perspective on our lives. I mean, think about it. If you had shaving cream, gentlemen, behind your ear, which you can't see, which I haven't had in eight years. So I'm better than you. No, just kidding. You know, if she says, hey, you've got a little bit of shaving cream behind your ear, you know, you would hardly react as a husband to go, you know, get away from me. Don't tell me that. I don't want to know that. You know, if a stranger conversely comes up to you and says, hey, you got something a little schmutz right there, you'd be kind of embarrassed, wouldn't you? But if your wife or husband were to tell you that, you'd be like, oh, yeah, okay, I'm good. And that's the kind of access. And spiritually speaking, that means that my wife can now say, honey, you have a little greed in your heart. You have a little jealousy. You have pride in your heart. And you don't say, no, I don't. I mean, you may initially, but wouldn't you say, yeah, that's perspective I don't have. I can't see it. I didn't know it was there before. There's such power there to change us if you'll let your spouse have that kind of access. Are you brave enough to do that? Have you given your spouse license to do that? Have you opened up that much? Is there that kind of radical closeness in your relationship? There has to be. You're better off for it. You're cleaner. There's perspective there from your spouse that can help you take it. But if you're the one who is giving it, if you're the one who's pointing something out, you have to be so gentle, don't you? So gentle. You're gentle while cleaning yourself, aren't you? Aren't you? Can you imagine someone else flossing your teeth? Can you imagine someone else cutting your fingernails? When I was a kid, my parents would cut my fingernails. It absolutely scared me. They had to hold me down. You know, those of you who know Pat and Bill. They had to hold me down while I'm squirming to just get my fingernail. You know? It's scary. It can be extremely scary. It's hard for someone else to be sensitive enough. But it's your job as a spouse to do those things. But you do it gently, just as you treat your own body. Because after all, isn't that what Paul's saying? You're one flesh. You're one person. You're one body. Be gentle. So maybe you're asking yourself, how do I do this? Cultivating, let's get down to some brass taxes. If you go to the Proverbs, I understand there were some Proverbs talked about yesterday. If you go to the Proverbs, do this. Just do this. Go home and do a word study. You can go to biblegateway.com or wherever you want to. Go to Proverbs, narrow your search, and do a search on friendship. I know we're talking about marriage, but marriage is the most intense kind of friendship. So go to the Proverbs, do a study on friendship, and just read through them and think about your marriage. And I'm just going to give you four categories here that kind of stand out if you go do that. You can fit those Proverbs into these four categories. There are more than just these four, but these are four that are helpful for marriage. The first one, consistent. A friend is consistent. A spouse is consistent. They're always there. They're committed. They're disciplined. And if your spouse doesn't know that you're there, that you're committed, that you're disciplined, it's gonna be real hard for them to open up, you know? And if you show it even in little ways like this, if you're inconsistent because you get mad at your spouse for leaving the clothes on the ground, and yet you leave your clothes on the ground, that's an inconsistency, right? You're denying for your spouse what you demand for yourself. Freedom to throw my clothes anywhere, but you need to pick up your clothes. Even in the small things, you need to be consistent. You need to be disciplined. You need to be there. Second thing, honest. We have to fly through these things, but they're really helpful. your spouse is honest with you and about you. Now, a lot of people will be honest about you. They'll be happy to tell you all the things that they see wrong in your life, right? That's being honest about you. But then you know the people that sometimes are honest about you aren't honest with you. They aren't able to say, you know what, I messed up there. I really, I do have pride going on in my heart. I do have, you know, hatred going on in my heart. I have all these things going on in my heart. You know, that's being honest with you and about you. If you are someone who is easily honest with your spouse about them, work on being honest with your spouse about you. Okay, honest with you and about you. Also, vulnerability. Consistent, honest, vulnerable. You know, this is an easy one, I think. You're able to be naked with your spouse, not just physically. I mean, physically, what you're saying is, look, here I am, all of me, this is it. Like I am completely and utterly vulnerable to you. But you see, that shouldn't take place, that's why the Bible says, that shouldn't take place until there's all this other kind of vulnerability. Because the physicalness, and I'll tell single people this all the time, the physicalness, the nakedness, is only supposed to come after there is the nakedness of everything else, emotionally, spiritually, everything else. The nakedness physically is just an expression of the nakedness emotionally. but that you're willing to be vulnerable, you're saying, here I am, all of me, everything, here I am. That's why if you're naked and some stranger walks in, what do you do? You dive for the shadows. But if your spouse walks in, you kind of giggle and say, hey, what's up? You know? Because you're vulnerable. You've already been vulnerable. Continue to be vulnerable. The fourth thing from the Proverbs, big general categories here, encouraging. Be encouraging. You know, there's not a great, that's not a great word for what I'm trying to say. It's really like be a blessing. Remember Jacob at the end of his life, he calls in all of his family and all the men and he blesses them. What he's actually saying is, look, I've caught just a little glimpse of what God is doing in your life. And I just want to tell you what I've seen. I've just seen a tiny little glimpse of what the Lord is doing, and I just want to encourage you. I want to bless you. Not like, bless your heart, you know. Don't say that to your spouse. You know what that means. You're in the South. Bless your heart. Good try. You know, almost. You're one to be pitied. Don't say that. But be a blessing. Be encouraging. You look all the way into someone and you say, I love you. I love you. I affirm this part of you. And I love you despite this other part. It doesn't mean you don't work on that other part that you see. I mean, being loving is, you know, this takes love and truth. Truth without love and your marriage will crack. It'll break apart, you know? You just, you die under that thumb of like someone just always giving you the truth. Well, I'm about the truth. I don't want to lie to you. I just want to tell you everything I see, you know? And if it's love, it's just kind of like, well, if I say anything, it might hurt them, you know? Truth without love, and your marriage will crack. Love without truth, and you'll just kind of drift into this blah in marriage, and you'll never grow. But truth with love, and you'll absolutely soar. And you have to cultivate all of this stuff. It doesn't just happen. You know, you don't have this cultivated ground and a garden just pops up without you doing any work. It takes work. And we're not even mentioning cultivating an atmosphere of forgiveness or communication or reconciliation or conflict resolution or fighting fairly or any of those other things. We are skimming the surface. If you have anything to talk about in that department, go to David Lawton. Go to Brandon Barrett. I'm dead serious. Because sometimes in a marriage it takes a different perspective. Be honest with yourself, be open, be vulnerable, and go. It's scary, I know. But go. Go see him. Go talk to them. Cultivate all of this stuff. Cultivate this marriage. It takes work. It's not just gonna happen. But all of that stuff, all of that cultivating, all of that stuff has to be done on the basis and the foundation of friendship. It has to. It has to develop that way. Okay, so that's planting. Some of us have to replant. I think all of us have to replant. We have to do that from time to time. Planting, replanting, cultivating, and now harvesting. That's just a way of saying where are we headed. And you can get a glimpse of that when you look here in verses 25 through 27 in chapter 5 of Ephesians. You actually see it in what he says the husband ought to be doing. Think about the gospel. Jesus sees us stuck in our human condition. So what he does is he comes into our lives and lays himself out in sacrificial love. And as a result, just like the disciples, just like Jesus going to every single one of the disciples and says, come follow me. That's what Jesus does. He comes into our lives. He lays himself down in sacrificial love. And he says, look, come with me and come with me on a journey. And that journey is that he is moving us to our future glory self. That's what he's doing. He saw us not even close to being the persons that God created us to be. But he comes in with sacrificial love and he frees us up so that now we're on a journey to our future glory self. Paul's going back and forth here between husband and wife, Christ and his church, but here's the gist, the common goal. The horizon, remember C.S. Lewis was talking about that? The common horizon that we're standing shoulder-to-shoulder looking towards. And I often say this in homilies during marriage ceremonies. That the world will say, look, it's all eros. It's all eyeball-to-eyeball, toe-to-toe, and you're just looking to each other. And you know what? The world says, that's how we believe you'll fall more into each other. But actually the Bible says this, the more you're standing shoulder to shoulder, moving towards a common goal, a horizon, to do the garden image, to a harvest, is that the more you move towards that goal, you know what happens? The more you come into one another. The more you move into being one person, the more intimacy you have. And you know what that does? It creates the arrows. It happens. And what Paul is saying is you're moving here towards a common horizon, a harvest, a goal, and it's to get one another into a holy and blameless state. It means you get a vision of your spouse's future glorious self, a perfect, radiant being that God wants this person to be. And it's kind of episodic. It doesn't come all the time. It's like being on the top of a mountain and there are clouds all around and you can't see the peak, and then all of a sudden there's a break in the clouds and you can see the peak, and it's radiant, it's beautiful, it's glorious, but then the clouds come and cover it back up and it goes away again. That's what it says. Look, in your in your spouse's life, they're not yet there, but that's where they're heading. They're heading to stand before the throne of God, where Jesus Christ has made them white as snow, eight to 10 inches of snow this week. You know, made my neighborhood absolutely beautiful. Covers up the dirty street. Covers over the parts of my yard that I hate and I can't get anything to grow. And isn't that what it says Jesus will make us? White as snow. Cleansing us white as snow. That's where we're all headed. Before the throne of God. Where we're radiantly beautiful. And God is, through Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, working us more and more towards that goal of being perfect and radiant standing before Him. And you get glimpses of that, of your spouse in that, in marriage. And what you say is, I see that. I got a glimpse of that. And I want to be part of what God is doing in your life. In a Christian marriage, each person looks at the other and sees a beautiful thing that God is bringing about in that person's life. And I've told couples this in premarital counseling. Look, don't look for a finished statue. Lots of people do that, don't they? They look for... Modern technology. They look for the finished statue. But what you ought to be looking for is a beautiful piece of marble. And what you're going to do in your marriage is, along with the Holy Spirit and along with God, the great sculptor, is sometimes you're just catching marble pieces You know? Sometimes you're getting hit with them. Sometimes the Master allows you to pick up a chisel and a hammer and just one little... You know? You're His helper. I mean, can you imagine this image? This beautiful piece of marble. God is sculpting the person He wants your spouse to be, and you're running around getting things for Him. You know? You're the helper. You're the intern. Whatever. You're the apprentice. That's the word I was looking for. And that's what your job is in marriage. You have to look into the caterpillar and see the butterfly. That might be the cheesiest thing I've ever said in my life. But it's not mine. It was somebody else's. But it's true. Do you do that? Or do you just see this mangled caterpillar It's got stuff all over it, you know? What do you see in your spouse? The passion and goal of a Christian marriage is to get to the throne and along the way to offer one another up, to cleanse each other by the washing of the water with the Word. Not your Word. God's Word. And that means what? I mean, we could go on for another half hour about this and we won't. But that's why you've got to cultivate a spiritual life, you know? And that takes work, you know. I'm not here to lecture you about, you know, having your quiet time together, have your time together and all that stuff. I'm not the one to give you that lecture. You probably need that lecture, but I'm not the one to give it to you. Because Christie and I haven't really been great about that. You think two people who talk about God for a living, would be really good at doing that with one another. But we have different spiritual habits, we have different things. But I tell you what, when we moved to Asheville and we started praying in a different way, it was absolutely, it was life-changing. Absolutely life-changing. So just pick up something, a dopey little devotional, read it in the morning, just pray together before you go to bed, do something, start, start with something, even if it's lame, it's weak, it's small, do something. Cultivate that. Cultivate that in one another. Wash each other with the Word. And you're able to look at the other person and say, I see underneath your flaws and your imperfections and your dependencies and I see something absolutely ravishing and that he's making you into. I see flashes of immortality and glory. And you see that and you want to be part of helping your spouse become the person God wants him or her to be. We want to present one another before the throne spotless and without blemish. washed in Jesus Christ. And that means that years and years and thousands of years from now and zillions of years from now, because this life is just the waiting room, but it has such implications in the zillion of years to come and all of eternity. But one day, you'll be standing before the throne of God, and He'll look at you and He'll say, well done, good and faithful servant. Over the years, you lifted one another up to me. You sacrificed to one another and held one another up with prayer. You confronted one another. You rebuked one another. You hugged and you loved one another. And you continued to push one another to me. Look at you. You're radiantly beautiful and presentable to me without spot and without blemish. You're a vehicle for redemption. in the other person's life. That's where you're going. The ultimate purpose of your marriage is that deep oneness. The deep oneness that comes through journeying together towards a common horizon. And that common horizon is standing radiantly beautiful one day in front of the throne of God. So that means this, ask yourself the question, when you're about to lay down a criticism, when you're about to lay down something you see in your spouse's life, when you're about to talk to them, something that's gonna be incredibly difficult for them to hear, are you asking the question, how does this help them get along to their glory self? That's the question you need to leave here with. Whenever anything is taking place in your marriage and you feel like you've got to just say something because you want to get him back or get her back, or you want to put them in their place, or you want to feel better than they do, or whatever else it is, ask yourself the question, what is what I'm about to say? How does it help them get towards their glory self? That'll change the way you approach your spouse. And it'll change the way you love them. That's the goal. Anything smaller than that and lower than that, with a different goal in mind, you're just playing at marriage. You're not really doing it. Your marriage is a garden. Plant, cultivate, harvest. Do this and you'll live. Let's pray. Father in heaven. Thanks for the gift of marriage. We hardly know how to open the package. It's a great gift. It's an enormous gift. It's a beautiful gift. And we want to be good stewards of it. We want you to help us even to know how to receive it. In many cases, we're hardly taking the ribbon off. There's so much more power in it than we've been able to access. So we ask that You'd make us able to receive joyfully the gift of marriage more skillfully because we've spent this time together this weekend. And we pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.