And we are looking tonight, we're finally starting marriage on a marriage and family class. Eventually we need to get to marriage. My wife said, are we going to do singleness again tonight? And I said, no, we are going to do marriage tonight. We are going to talk about marriage tonight. And so we are going to jump right into this. And I want to begin by asking the question, what are some common reasons that people get married? Let's just ask that question. Doesn't that could be right wrong or otherwise, but what are some common reasons that you've heard that people get married? Okay, they're told to so that would be like an arranged marriage, okay Okay All right, that's an interesting way to start off. Yes, Joe because they love each other Okay, they love each other. That was a little bit more along the lines I was thinking. Thank you, Joe, for bringing the conversation back to something that's kind of normal. Okay, they love each other. What else? Actually, that's my first one on here, sort of. They fall in love. Okay, what else? Alright, they want to have a family, that might be number two. I have mutually beneficial arrangement. I want kids, there's Lisa's, I want kids. What else? Don't want to be alone, I don't have that on here. Partnership, that's sort of that. What else? Okay? Culturally acceptable. How about this? Have you seen this one? He or she is my soulmate. Have you seen that? It's all over Facebook. I don't know. Well, it depends if you want it to be or not. But I guess it's all pretty subjective when you're getting, okay? All right, so these are some of the reasons that people might suggest that they're getting married or they want to get married. When I do premarital counseling, the first question out of the gate I ask is, why are you getting married? And it is interesting to hear what people come up with. Let's talk about this for a minute. So if somebody says they fall in love, What does that mean? All right, let's pause and say, can we agree that fall in love does not mean agape love? Can we agree with that? Okay, so we're not talking about agape New Testament kind of love here. What does it mean to fall in love? Okay, infatuation. Brain chemicals, okay. Romantic attraction. So what you're really saying, if you say, I have fallen in love, you're saying that I am physically and romantically attracted to the other person. Right? Is that accurate? Lisa's not sure. She's like, I don't know. There might be more. Oh, OK. At least that, right? OK. I'm just trying to establish a baseline. Is that OK? All right. So when someone says that I am physically and romantically attracted to the person, when they say that, what are they saying? And I'll give you the answer, because you don't know what's in my head, so I'll tell you. OK. They're saying that person can meet my needs. my emotional needs, or my wants, one of the two. That person, why am I getting married? Because that person can meet my emotional, or physical, or both, or other things as well. That person, I feel, can meet my needs. That's essentially what they're saying. Yes? If you say we, then that means? Okay, so I'm saying that person can meet my needs, and the other person's saying that that person can meet, okay, the other spouse can meet my needs. Now what's the problem with that premise? You're going in, right, you're going into the marriage saying, this is for me, this is what I am, what's the word? I'm going into the marriage and this is my what? My expectation, I'm expecting this. And a lot of times, you go into marriage that way, I've fallen in love, I think that person can meet my needs, that's why I'm getting married. Somebody will be married 15 years afterwards, they'll come to me and I'll say, why did you get married in the first place? They'll say, well, we were in love. And I'm basically saying, so you thought they could meet all your needs and they didn't, right? And they'll say, yes, that's true. And I'll say to them, well, you better come up with a different reason, shouldn't you? Right? All right, so fall in love, mutually beneficial arrangement, I want kids, he or she's my soulmate, which is so subjective, it's not funny. So all of those things, are there anything wrong with these things? Is it possible that somebody, I mean, do people fall in love? Sure. Do people, are they infatuated? Sure. Is all of that wrong? Not necessarily. But what's the real problem here? Yeah. Are any of these good reasons to get married? None of these are good reasons to get married. There's got to be something more. So when you get into marriage, then you have these kinds of temptations. Let's talk about this a little bit. We'll call them marriage-centered temptations. You want to put something in the center of your marriage that shouldn't be there. How about this one? This is the most common. Self. Okay, well, if I'm going into marriage saying that person can meet my needs, and I'm expecting certain things from that person, and we're reasonable people, so we sort of say, yeah, I can give some things, too, but I think I can meet their needs, too, but I'm still going in, and I'm kind of at the top, and I end up going into a marriage, and I'm self-centered. Is that a possibility? What's going to happen if somebody is self-centered in their marriage? Okay, disappointment's gonna be the result. Always, eventually. Always, eventually, yes. Sure. Okay, I have an answer for that, but I'll get to it. Yeah. And you don't want to have your marriage be centered on self. Okay, so disappointment will be the result of a marriage that's centered on self. The next one is child-centered. What's the problem with that? Does this happen? All of the time yeah That's one major problem the kids grow up, and you don't have any reason to get married stay married anymore, okay? All right, what's the other what's another problem with child-centered? Yeah, they start thinking. They're the center of everything and Instead of realizing that they're not the center of everything, they start thinking they are the center of everything, and then they grow up, and they don't want to leave, and things like that. You're funny. I bought your house from you. What's that? Yeah, I'm the homeowner. We'll move on to the next one. Spouse-centered. What's the problem if you are centered on your spouse? What's the problem? It's annoying? Okay, Lisa. What is the problem if you're centered on your spouse? Yes, Miranda. You're still not going to be able to fully meet their expectations and you're going to disappoint yourself and them. Okay, when you disappoint yourself, what do you call that? Frustration. Okay, that's the word for it. So self-centered, you're going to be disappointed. Child-centered, you're going to mess up your kids. Spouse-centered, you're going to do what? Yeah, you're going to be frustrated. You're going to feel frustration. None of these are going to work to have the center at our marriage. We cannot have it this way. So what's the answer? Who should be at the center? God should be at the center. Christ. But Jeff brought up a pretty good point. All of us to some degree or another are kind of, we want to fulfill our needs. How is it that, how do we deal with that? I love this statement and I was going to put it later on but I wanted to put it earlier on because I want to make sure we got to it. This is by Timothy Keller, by the way, excellent book. I love this book on marriage called The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller. You want an excellent book on marriage, look up, he and his wife wrote it together. It's an excellent book on marriage, The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller. He says this, we should rightly object to the binary choice that both traditional and contemporary marriage seem to give us. Do you follow what I'm saying when he says binary? He said that you only have one or two options, either traditional or contemporary. And you'll see what these mean in a minute when we finish. Is the purpose of marriage to deny your interests for the good of the family, or is it rather to assert your interests for the fulfillment of yourself? So he's setting up two options. Is it one or the other? Answer, the Christian teaching does not offer a choice between fulfillment and sacrifice, catch this, but rather mutual fulfillment through sacrifice. Jesus gave himself up, this is the gospel, Jesus gave himself up, he died to himself to save us and make us his. Now we give ourselves up to die to ourselves first when we repent and believe the gospel, and later as we submit to his will day by day. So if you're living the gospel, you are constantly giving of yourself, and the more you give of yourself to God, the more you receive. The more you sacrifice, the more you're fulfilled. You're sacrificing the right biblical way. And then you take that and you apply it to your marriage. You go into marriage and you say, I'm going to give rather than receive. I am going to sacrifice knowing that the most fulfilled I can be in my marriage is when both people are going in to sacrifice, to give, then you end up being in a very fulfilled position. It's going to be fulfilling. It may not be fulfilling in all the ways you want it to. In fact, it probably won't. But it will be fulfilling in the way God intends it to be. And what God intends is always better than what we think or what we want. Does that make sense? I think this is so absolutely crucial. to understanding how God is to be the center of our marriage, and how the gospel is supposed to be the center of our marriage, and how we're supposed to live out the gospel both in our lives as Christians, but also in our marriage. The marriage ought to be a reflection of the gospel. And by the way, that's not my idea, is it? Think of Ephesians chapter five, what does it say? That marriage, the husband and wife relationship, is an illustration of what? Remember? Good. Christ in the church. So it's an illustration of that. So these things are so important to understand. The hard times, this is what he says here, the hard times of marriage drive us to experience more of the transforming love of God. If the gospel is my focus, then the hard times of my marriage drive me to the transforming love of God. In other words, when you go through difficult times in your marriage, God is still there and loves you and you can know his love. But a good marriage will also be a place where we experience more of the kind of transforming love at the human level. In other words, if we're living in a good marriage, a Christian godly marriage, then we will also experience God's tangible love as well. It's essentially a win-win. Why? Because we're dependent upon who? We're not dependent on self. We're not dependent upon the other spouse. We're dependent on who? On God. When we have a God-dependent marriage, and we live out that marriage as a God-dependent marriage, then we're going to have the kind of marriage God wants us to have, and ultimately, it's never self-gratifying immediate. That's the way life is. The world says, I'll give you self-gratification, and then later on come consequences. It's the exact opposite in God's economy. We sacrifice in the beginning, we don't have immediate gratification always, and then we have future reward and fulfillment. So let's ask this question. Why do we have godless marriages? Is it possible as a Christian, as a couple, both are saved, is it possible to have a godless marriage? And I would argue that it is possible. So why does this happen? Well, one is our spiritual immaturity. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3 it explains this, it says, He says, Carnal means fleshly, you're still following after your flesh. For where there are envy, strife, divisions among you, are you not carnal and behave like mere men? Let me illustrate this in marriage, how this works in marriage. This is a little story I did not come up with myself, because I'm not that creative. Here we go. This is a story in a marriage between Jack and Jill. I did come up with the names, which is why I'm not that creative. So Jill, they have a disagreement about finances. Jill says, do we need to think says, do we need to think through what to do with our money? We've got a lot more than expected this year. Jack, that's a good question. We can contact a financial advisor at my job and see if he has any advice, but it costs money to see this guy. Jill, but the money has been sitting in our account for a while. We need to do something. Jack, I know, I know. We'll go to do something about it, but I don't want to rush. Don't you trust me? We agreed that I'll handle the finances. Jill, honey, I trust you, but you're not all that proactive when it comes to investments. Jack, in a sarcastic tone, well, I could name a few areas that you are not proactive that is hurting us. Jill, stop it, Jack. That was mean. Jack, well, it's true. Jill starts to cry. Jack storms off. End of discussion. Is that all that unrealistic? Now it's actually probably very realistic. But the real issue here is not finances. That becomes a very common thing to talk about in marriage and a common source of conflict. But the real issue in this marriage is they don't have God at the center. They're not really thinking in terms of, you say, well, what does that matter? They're talking about investments. It all matters. God needs to be the center of everything. If somebody would have stopped and asked in this scenario, and asked the question, what does God want us to do? What would be pleasing to the Lord? I mean, just think about how that would change. There wouldn't be an accusation going back and forth. Well, you're not proactive. Well, you're not proactive. No, that's not pleasing to God. If one spouse said to the other, what do you think would please the Lord? And the other one wanted to please the Lord. I mean, we now have God in the center of things. So the real issue, there are other issues here, they obviously need to deal with their finances, but the main issue is that God is not the center of things. And why? Because if they know the Lord, it's because of their immaturity. See that verse 3? Where there are envy, and strife, and divisions, you know, Jack and Jill, they're going back and forth, and they're button heads. you are carnal and have been behaving like mere men. You're not behaving right. And that is because you are following after the flesh, you're not following after the spirit. So that an immature Christian will end up being someone who is going to not have a God-centered marriage if they're not careful. Something they really have to work on. Yes, Simon. that same argument still occur? Because even if Jack and Jill spoke and said, what's going to please the Lord? And I say, well, let's make sure we've tied up the way we're accordingly and done all that. Now we should have invested properly so that we were planning and using it wisely. They might still come to the same conclusion that investing is the right decision. They'll still have the same argument on who's going to handle it and when are they going to take care of the situation. OK. Where's Elizabeth? Come on up here. Okay, so we're going to do a little role-playing here. And I'm going to have you be the immature person. So, meaning you can come at me and accuse me and those kinds of things and tell me I'm wrong and I know how I'm handling things. And I'm going to try to respond in a way that, believe me, my role is harder, so that's why I'm giving you this one. Anyway, and I'm going to try to respond in a way. So, we're going to talk about finances. Your concern, because we talk about finances all the time, like every week, twice or three times a week. We talked about finances, we texted about finances today, didn't we? Anyway, okay. She is looking at me like, why did you call me up here? OK. We don't really need this, because I'm already in enough trouble. Anyway. OK. So let's assume I needed to do something with the finances. I've not been proactive. And you're getting after me for that, because that is a quite possible scenario. Go ahead. Just think about it. It's not hard. Well, I've been really busy, honey, but you know what? You're right. I need to do that. Oh, that was easy. Yes, please remind me because I need to be reminded of these things because I'm not that bright. So would you please text me and remind me at three o'clock tomorrow? Okay. Not that hard. What was it that I responded, what was it about how I responded that would have been the right way to respond? It's humility. Now I could have said, what in the world? I do a lot around here. I don't have time for this. And believe me, I have responded similar to that. But a godly response where I want to please the Lord is going to cause me to respond that way. I mean, in this particular scenario, you're going to have that. So Jill is going to, OK, we need to do something about the finances. If Jill really wants to please the Lord, she's not going to say, you know, you haven't been proactive about the finances. What's she going to say? Hey, do you think it would be good stewardship for us to consider doing something with our finances? Do you think the Lord would be pleased if we do something with that? It's not about what I want or what I think it's best about. And if Jack is pleasing the Lord, he's gonna say, you know, honey, that's a good point. I've not been quite as proactive as I should. It's gonna be a totally different conversation. You might disagree on certain things when it comes to the finances. At the end of the day, if you can't agree, and by the way, most of the time, Elizabeth and I don't have a problem agreeing on what to do with our finances, usually, okay? But if you come into conflict and you're not violating anything scripturally, and you can't figure out what to do with the finances between a husband and wife, what's the answer? The husband has to leave the house. So if you can't figure it out, then the husband's got to be the one to make the decision. And he's also responsible to the Lord for the decision he makes. Now I'm not at all... Now, I'm not at all suggesting that it's something that you should just, I'm not saying men should be unilateral, because you shouldn't. I bought a minivan, I'll remind everybody. I want to wear that one out. Anyway, but it really is something that ultimately, if you can't come to it, it's like my dad used to say growing up. He had 51% of the vote. So it's not like someone's down here and someone's up here. It's just at the end of the day, I got to make a decision. Yeah, and God set that up for me. then you pray for them. Well, if you can humbly confront them, then that's certainly acceptable to do that. And once you confronted them and they're aware of it, then you've got to let God deal with it. It's out of, I mean, you could also, depending on what else is going on, you could go to your pastor, okay, or something, and that's fine too. But that would be what you would do next. But in many cases you're just going to pray and let God deal with them as much as possible. And that takes a lot of trust in the Lord. So our spiritual maturity oftentimes is why God is not the center. So something else. our unbelief and our selfishness. So we just sort of let into that. Why is it that often we want to take things into our own hands and we kind of deal with it ourselves and we kind of handle it ourselves? Why? Yeah, it's pride, and I'm not trusting God. That's unbelief. I'm not trusting that God's gonna handle this, that he's gonna take care of this. I've got to depend upon myself rather than trusting God, and a lot of that has to do with it. Warning to Christians about being, sometimes it's because there really is, maybe you don't really know the Lord. That's a possibility. And sometimes it's almost like you're giving in to momentary atheism. or you really do not factor God in at all. And for a Christian, that really should not be how we live, how we act, how we decide, those kinds of things. We should always be conscious of God and what would please Him. Jeff, did you have something? No, you have to be careful, though, about being too deferential and not doing anything. Sure. Can you give me an example? Yeah, the particular scenario where you find that your spouse is in sin, you've confronted them. You can, I mean, that's a Matthew 18 thing, you take somebody else and you confront them that way. I mean, so you would go down that road depending on, you know, perhaps what it is. But what I don't want to do is try to... So I don't want to sin in the process of trying to fix somebody else's sin. That's what I don't want to do. In fact, the Bible says, it's interesting, Scripture says, Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. So the risk is they'll be wise in their own conceit if we don't answer them. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest we be like him. So if we answer a fool according to his folly, we have this risk of actually becoming part of the problem or we're like him. And so it is a balance. There is something there. But oftentimes, there's oftentimes where we need to sit back and trust the Lord and wait on Him and pray and ask God to do what we can't do. So oftentimes, that's the case with people. Can you shut that door, Dad, please? Make sure there's something, like somebody's not dying, and then shut the door. Anyway. Okay. All right, so what does it look like? Let's kind of go through this. What does it look like for a husband to actively... Actually, I think I had some verses to look at with this. Okay, so Hebrews, for example, says this. Hebrews 3.12 says, Beware, brethren, lest there be any of you evil heart of unbelief and departing from the Living God." So why do we depart from God? Why do we not think about God? What He wants is because of unbelief. "...but exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence instead fast to the end." All right, so All right, here's one example. I know I'm to sacrifice for my wife, like Christ sacrificed his life for the church, but I choose not to do it. Rather than serve her, I'd rather fulfill my own comfort and desires. That's an example of a husband who is actively living in unbelief in his marriage. This is what this looks like. I know I'm to engage my wife emotionally, but it's easier to avoid the hard stuff and to stay superficial. I'm not willing to engage my wife. I'm not willing to dwell with my wife according to knowledge. It's just easier not to. Another one, I know what I want out of our marriage and out of life, so I control my wife. I tell her what to do and how to do it. I don't want God to be in charge. I want to be in charge. That would be another very overt example of this. I know I'm to confess my sins to my wife and be humble, but my pride prevents me from doing so. This is a big one. Only by pride comes contention, Scripture says. Did you know that? We can't have contention without pride. So instead of humbly confessing when I've sinned against my wife, my pride prevents me from doing that. There is a sense in which all sin finds its root in pride. But Scripture says only by pride comes contention. So I think depending on how you define contention, the way you have to define it scripturally is that it would have to have its root in pride. Otherwise, it's not really contention, biblically. But the point is simply that when we are contentious with each other, I mean, if somebody is, okay, so let's take the scenario of let you use lawfulness. So let's say one spouse is being lazy and the other one is upset about that, okay? If a person says, look, honey, either one, doesn't matter, honey, I feel like you are not showing diligence. Anything wrong with that, by the way? There's nothing wrong with confronting your spouse on that. If you're doing it in a loving, humble manner. They say, I don't care. Did I say serious? I didn't say serious. Anyway, they say, I don't care. That's kind of freaking me out. So, now I've totally lost my train of thought. What was I saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sloth fears, okay. Alright, so then what is, so you go to the person, you humbly confront them, and they respond by saying what? Oh, you're so perfect, that's pride. So now you're going to have contention. They respond by what? by not getting better. If they respond by not getting better, which is not responding, but that's passively responding or something. Okay, if they don't get better, that's not contention. It's problems, but it's not contention. I mean, if somebody confronts and then they just walk away. Now, if the person confronts, the person doesn't get better, and the person says, well, why won't you do what I'm telling you to do? Well, then there's pride. I mean, I think either way you look at it, you're going to end up with pride somewhere. There might be more creative ways to motivate besides pride that wouldn't cause contention. But anyway, I think in most cases, on one side or another, you're going to have pride. I think perhaps that's the issue. It's one side or the other. You can have contention on one side, pride on one side and have contention. Yeah, I think that's certainly possible. But there's going to be it somewhere. OK. Wives, what is their act of unbelief? Here's what it looks like. I know that I'm more competent than my husband. Rather than following his leadership, I'd rather take control of the situation. It's not belief. It's not trusting God to do that. Yes? Say you have something, I think an example. Say you have a husband or a wife that is very content at their job. They like their job, they enjoy it. Maybe they don't make as much money as their spouse would like or whatever, and they say to them, hey, why don't you try to get this promotion or something? You want to please the other person in your marriage, but at the same time, maybe you are very content where you are, and so you don't have You know, you feel you're very content, so you don't feel the need, or God's providing all your needs, so you don't feel the need for something. So maybe something like that happens, then how would that, it's not necessarily contention, but is anybody wrong in the fact that, you know, maybe the wife or the husband, whoever has the job that they enjoy is content at it, but maybe the other person... Yeah, I'd have to know more details about that, but with this particular... I can make up more details. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it depends on... But with this particular thing, if you look at it, a wife is saying, I'm more competent than my husband, and then she won't follow his leadership because she thinks she's more competent. So that's a little bit different than what you're saying. I mean, a lot different, actually. I was thinking of the prod. Oh, the previous one. You got into the wrong with prod there. Oh, the previous one. Yeah, so it all depends on, you know, for a spouse to say, hey, have you considered taking a promotion? That's not pride. If a spouse says, you know, you better take this promotion or you're worthless, that's pride. I mean, it all depends on how it's been, you know, what's being said and how it's being said. So that's one. That's a good question. That was previous to what you're talking about. OK. Yes. Yeah. Say again? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah sure I Sure. Let me illustrate something. I'll give you another one. And you may not like how I answered this person. This is not our church. You won't ever be able to know who this is. Not in the state. Anyway, okay. So this is a real situation, but it's really you're not going to be able to figure it out. Okay. So, she came to me and here was the scenario. The guy, the husband, they were probably in their 60s. The husband had got laid off, was intending to get another job, but instead he started pulling money from his 401k and didn't. He just didn't get a job, just kind of didn't, basically. And I was She came to me and she was really upset about it. And it had been, you know, maybe a couple of years actually, I think, that this had gone on. And he was staying at home. I mean, they were doing fine because he was pulling from his 401K. They didn't have financial problems. She was working outside. She was working full-time. She was upset because she was having to take care of it. All their kids were grown, so that wasn't an issue. She was trying to take care of things and he wasn't. She was upset. She came to me. She was upset. And she was actually bitter. I actually was concerned because she was so bitter about the situation. I said, well, I got to be honest with you. Your being bitter about it isn't going to help. In fact, the Bible says if you're bitter about it, it's going to defile many scriptures, says Hebrews 13. So we've got to figure out, you've got to realize when you're getting bitter and you can't be bitter toward your spouse. Very likely the spouse, by the way, didn't know the Lord, but it's not conclusive. I said that she was still frustrated, she didn't know what to do, and I said to her, I said this, I said, look, are you saying that he is not providing for you? She said, yeah, I'm basically saying that. And you're providing for him? She said, yeah, I'm basically saying that. I said, do you feel like you have to provide for him? No, I shouldn't be providing for him. I said, what would happen if you, I said, you have two choices here. You quit your job, then he has to work. Or you keep your job and you don't be bitter. It's your choice, it's really that simple. Because bitterness is not a good, bitterness is not an option, biblically. It's not an option biblically, it'll destroy your marriage, it'll destroy yourself, it'll destroy everything. So bitterness isn't a good option here. So you either, and I said, so you could just, you could quit your job and it would probably put him in a place where he would have to get a job. And if it doesn't, then you've got to figure out what to do. Or you don't quit your job at all and you just be content with the situation that you're in. It's really not the worst situation in the world. I mean, it's not like he's being, you know, it's not, so he's not being abusive. There's not, you know, there's a lot of worse situations, believe me. And she came to be, you know what, so what do you think she decided to do? How many of you think she quit her job? Yes. How many of you think that she didn't quit her job? Okay, the ones, the majority is right. Okay, she came back to me about two weeks later, she said, you know what, Pastor Jim, I really appreciate you bringing it, putting it back in those terms. She said, I really consider quitting my job and I realized I'd rather just work my job and not be bitter and let God deal with it in his time and his way. And after that, she was pretty much content to do what she was doing and to be content in the situation that she was in. It was not a horrible situation. Should he have gotten a job? Yes. Should, I mean, why? No, as far as I know. But at the same time, what's the issue here? Well, you've got to trust the Lord. Part of the problem was she's just so frustrated and all that. So is life not perfect? Life isn't perfect. Marriages aren't perfect. Not this side of heaven. And so, you have to look at the situation, you have to say, okay, Paul said, whatever state I'm in, I've learned to be content. I'm not in dire straits. My kids aren't suffering. What do I do? Well, you just choose to be content or you have another option. But you've got to look at things differently in order to take that kind of scenario. Next one. I am hurt or frustrated so to get back at him by saying mean things or unleashing my anger. Do women get hurt? And do they get frustrated? Sure. Men do too, by the way. Next one. I'm going to trust my assumptions about him more than I trust his proven character or his track record. I'm going to trust my assumptions. I'm going to nag him until I get what I want. Now, by the way, I didn't come up with these, just so you know. I pulled these from somewhere else. Yeah, the Bible does talk about that. Actually, you know what the Bible says in Proverbs about a contentious woman? It's better to be in the corner of a housetop than with a brawling woman, is what Scripture says. I better move on. Okay, number three. Number three, trapped. Why else, what happens, and this is a big one, I think this is really significant. Why are we, do we have godless marriages? Well, we're trapped in the horizontal and we forget God's glory. Now, what does that mean? Well, marriage exists on two planes, the horizontal and the vertical. The horizontal relationship is what goes on between me and my spouse, how we talk, how we love, how we argue, how we parent, how we live together. This is what scripture refers to as the one flesh dynamic. One goal for my marriage is unity. Is that a good goal, by the way? Sure it is. In fact, Genesis chapter 2 verse 26 says, it uses the term cleave together, so you leave your father and mother and you cleave to your spouse and the two become one flesh. That idea of cleaving is to stick together. It's like to stick like glue. So that's good, that's a goal in marriage. Working as a team, or as Jesus describes in Mark chapter 10, becoming one. That's a horizontal thing, and it's a good thing. However, what happens in the day-to-day travails of marriage becomes a problem. So what happens is I get so occupied, and I gotta tell you, this is a fault I realize I have sometimes. We get so occupied with being a team and dealing with things on a horizontal level, and cooperating, that we don't, we're not vertical. We don't think about how we should, what our relationship should be in God's eyes, whether it pleases the Lord, we don't pray together, those kinds of things. Because we are so, is the horizontal a reality in marriage? Yes, but the idea of marriage is to be both horizontal and vertical. Often our sinful choices and attitudes in marriage keep us entrenched in the horizontal dynamics. Are you preoccupied with your spouse, what she does, thinks, reacts, desires, acts, etc.? Because the day-to-day battles of marriage are fought in the trenches, we often lose sight of the bigger things. we can too quickly forget about the vertical dimension of our marriage. So, if you work well as a team, then things... And actually, my wife and I work really pretty well as a team, I think. And that's good, that's a good thing. But if you work well together and you kind of work well as a team going back and forth, sometimes you can get just so caught up in that that you really, things are fine, so you really aren't cultivating your marriage from a vertical perspective. And this is something that is really subtle. It's something that for busy couples like Elizabeth and I, this is something we have to be really careful about. Any questions about this one? Horizontal versus vertical. Yes. Good question. We're going to cover some of that later, but I'll mention it now. The real key to the vertical relationship is trusting God. The horizontal is staying connected. So I'm staying connected to each other like glue. I'm cleaving. But the vertical relationship is as I'm doing that, I'm still trusting God. If I lose the trust in God in the midst of trying to connect, then I won't be able to stay connected because my reliance is gonna be on me rather than on God. Does that make sense? So it's both. Well then, practically, okay, what does trusting God mean? A lot of the scenarios we're talking about is where you get into that. Does that make sense? Good question. Life compartments is another one. What keeps us from having a God-centered marriage? Life compartments. These are just some examples. I did not come up with these. Sex as married man or woman. I have sex in my marriage, but I never communicate about sex, let alone talk about God's purposes for sex and how it relates to our marriage. Money. Jack and Jill would actually wish they should be. We can pursue a lot of practical principles to help steward our money, but we don't ever talk about how God relates or what the Bible says about money. So if I'm always thinking, okay, we can invest it here and we can invest it there, but I'm not thinking in terms of stewardship. I'm not thinking about how God wants me, what God wants me to do with the money that he's given us. Then I'm not, I'm compartmentalizing. You start compartmentalizing these things and you don't have God in the center of all these things, pretty soon God's pushed out of your marriage. Is this where the man cave comes in? The man cave? Yeah, I mean... Yeah, sure. I mean, nothing wrong with having a, you know, I have an office in my basement. I have, I have four females in my house. I need an office in my basement. I just do anyway. Um, so, but, uh, but I guess that would, that would kind of kind of, uh, kind of be the case. Home life, maybe I'm more interested in what is big, comfortable, and secure than building a home that has the aroma of Christ. So a career becomes a focus. This is a very common thing for a man. Under the self-protective label of providing for my family, I just become so focused on my career, always working my career, always doing this, that I forget I've got other goals I've got to work on. And it can become a godless marriage that way. Home life can be the same thing. I'm more interested in building a big home or secure building or those kinds of things, something comfortable than actually thinking about having Christ in the center of our home. So how do we bring God to the center of our marriage? I think I better stop here. Any questions about what we've talked about so far? By the way, having four women was a joke. I'm really thankful for all of my family. Toby was the only boy besides my dad. My dad's very cute sometimes, so it's good. Anyway, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Any questions about any of this? All right, unfortunately we're stopping in the middle because we have to, but this is the next part of this about, okay, how do we bring God into the center of my marriage? is the next part, and we'll look at that next week. Let me mention this, and I want to close with this. What is the reason? We talked about a lot of reasons why people get married, but what is the reason why someone should get married, or why should they stay married? Anybody know? Yeah, yeah, to please God, to glorify God. It's because I have a firm conviction that I can serve God better together than apart. So a person, teenager, you're thinking about somebody to get married to, you ought to have the firm conviction that I can serve God better with that person than apart. Now here's the reality. Everybody that's married in this room, you can serve God better married. Does it really matter? You say, well, my spouse isn't what I expected, or it's not what I wanted, it doesn't matter. You can serve God in your marriage. And so if you have the option of staying married, you ought to stay married. And you choose to serve God in the midst of it. That's essentially what 1 Corinthians 7 is saying. If you go through the whole thing and basically talks about singleness, talks about married, talks about somebody who's married and the person's unsafe and wants to leave, all of it is, if you can, stay in that state, stay in that state. is the bottom line of that. And so it's important for us to understand. If you say to yourself, well, and this has happened, and much counseling that I've done, marriage counseling, years go down the road, 15 years, 20 years, whatever, 30 years, and they never really established what the original reason, they never really were clear on why they're married. I mean, I literally have had people that I've talked to 20 years, 25 years, married, and I said to them, and they're going through really difficult problems, and I said to them, why did you get married in the first place? And one guy looked at me, and he goes, I have no idea. I mean, just like that. And he said, I can't believe you asked that question. And I said, OK, so we've got to figure this out. Your answer is that you could serve God better together than apart. And now you need to explore how that's going to work. Just establish that's where you are providentially. This is where God's put you. OK, let's figure out why that's true. Now, before you're married ever, before you're married, then you say to yourself, okay, I want to find somebody that is going to be, I can serve God better together, that part. But once you're married, you're going to assume it's true, and now let me discover how. And that is a state, that's not based upon feelings, not based upon emotions, and all that kind of thing, it's based upon focusing on what pleases God, what glorifies God, what honors God, and it's not going to be, it's not going to shake with time and change with time, all that. All right, let's go ahead then and let's pray about this. And I, let me have, do we have an