Welcome to One and All.

We are getting into the last sermon in our series, How to Fix Your Marriage.

Pastor Dave Stone is bringing the message today, and we are really looking forward to what we're going to learn.

So make sure to grab your Bible, grab a pen, and make sure you have the One and All app.

There is a sermon note section in there that'll make it really easy for you to follow along.

All right, let's get into it.

Thank you.

Well, hello.

I'm excited to be back.

It's always nice when you're asked back a second time, right?

And we're wrapping up the series this weekend on marriage.

And we've been in this series, How to Fix Your Marriage and Make It Better.

On Sunday afternoon, there's going to be a question and answer time with Jeff online.

You'll hear more about that a little bit later.

just think about marriage and how it is that you might have questions.

I'm going to just send a lot of questions in on different things when my wife gets mad at me, you know, and just see how Jeff answers those.

But when God created everything, you'll recall that back in the book of Genesis, it recounts what he made and the wrap-up of each day.

And after each and every day, God said the same thing.

He said, it is good.

It is good.

it is good.

It's this recurring refrain that goes over and over again.

But then there's one time where he says, it is not good.

Now, you know when it was that he said that?

It was when he was talking about man, after he had created man.

He said, it is not good.

Now, it's not a knock against men.

Instead, look at the verse in its entirety, Genesis 2, verse 18.

the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone.

I will make a helper suitable for him.

And the Bible goes on to describe God creating animals and birds and how Adam had the fun responsibility of getting to name the animals and birds.

Now, the next verse is verse 20, says, but for Adam, no suitable helper was found.

And that's a profound verse.

It sets up how God is going to remedy that situation because never fear, God always has a plan.

Genesis chapter 2, look with me at verses 21 through 25.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.

Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh.

By the way, that verse is quoted four different times in the Bible.

Last verse of the passage, Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.

So God takes a rib from Adam's side and creates this beautiful woman, and Adam takes one look at her and says, wow, wrap her up, I'll take her, right?

And he says, on second thought, don't wrap her up, I'll take her just the way she is.

And that's what he does.

And so it begins, the first couple, and it is the first marriage.

Now, from the outset, let me just assure you that I understand who my listeners are today.

and some of you are single, and some of you are married, and some of you are engaged, and others are widowed, and some of you might be separated, some of you might be divorced, but regardless of your current situation, God's Word will have some counsel for you today.

Words of challenge, words of direction, words of warning, of encouragement.

Look at Genesis chapter 2, verse 25 again.

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Now, do you remember when they first were ashamed of their nakedness?

It wasn't until after the very first sin, eating the fruit from the tree that God had commanded them not to eat from.

It was at that moment that they both realized their sin.

And so they...

just tried to cover themselves.

Prior to that, there was no point of reference for them.

They had no concept of clothing.

But it wasn't until sin entered the world that they recognized their nakedness.

You see, prior to that, when they had looked at each other, they were just totally vulnerable, totally available.

Have you ever wondered what Adam and Eve looked like when they first were created?

I'm sure they were fine physical specimens.

They were the only ones, think about that, the only ones in all the world who ever entered into this world in adulthood instead of entering in as a baby.

So at what age did God bring these two people into existence?

I'm guessing that Adam and Eve were probably at the peak of their prowess and their appearance.

So I don't know if that means that they were 21, if they were 25, if they were 30, but I'm pretty confident they weren't 62, all right?

Now we can guess on their age and their appearance, but here's what we do know.

Prior to sin, they felt no shame.

It means they had nothing to hide.

There was total trust.

There was openness.

And in this series, we've been looking at some unreal expectations in marriage, some questions that we need to ask before getting married.

Last week, Jeff had another great message talking about the essence of marriage.

And today, what I want to talk with you about are the roles within a marriage, the roles and responsibilities.

Now, I'm not talking about who cooks or who's in charge of the yard work or who oversees the finances or who plans a vacation.

That's not what I'm talking about.

Each of you have a role and a responsibility.

The husbands have some, and the wife has some.

And Ephesians chapter 5 talks about this, and if you have your Bibles, we're just going to camp out in Ephesians 5 for about the rest of our time together.

And we're going to learn a whole lot about what it is that we're supposed to be if we're married, what type of a husband, what type of a spouse.

and what our roles are.

When a man and a woman are in tune spiritually to the fact that God has made them to be the person to meet the needs of someone else, it's then that a marriage can truly begin to thrive and intimacy can increase.

And when the Lord is at the center of your marriage, it's then about being a suitable helper for your spouse.

That's what you're striving to be.

your marriage becomes a spiritual relationship where you're not asking questions about your own happiness and fulfillment, but now you're asking questions about how you can help your spouse be fulfilled, how you can help them enjoy life.

Ephesians 5 reveals some priorities.

It says in Ephesians 5, verse 22, Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

You want a room to get real quiet?

Just read Ephesians 5, 22, all right?

it always gets so quiet when that verse is read.

It just gets everybody's attention.

So Paul begins by talking to the wives first, and he's going to give us some different priorities.

Let me share priority number one for the wives.

I want you to think submission and not slavery.

When you hear that word submit, think submission, not slavery.

Don't make the text say something that it doesn't say.

And let's be honest, this is probably not a passage that most women have embroidered on their bathrobe.

Or it's not a memory verse that they have stuck on their refrigerator.

And men, there are some of you who can only quote two verses of Scripture.

Jesus wept and wives submit to your husbands.

and men somewhere along the line some of you have gotten the idea that the bible confirms that their wife's role in the marriage is to be attentive to her husband's every need and wish to feed him grapes and to fan him with long palm leaves right and a wife is not not to be your slave She is to be, as God said when he created Eve, that she would be a helpmate for Adam.

Some men misinterpret this to be some sort of a perverted privilege to have a wife over whom he can call the shots.

And there are some women who misinterpret this.

to think that it means that wives have no say and are merely a doormat, a Stepford wife.

And so they bristle against the concept of even reading that verse, wives be submissive to your husbands.

But that's not an accurate picture of what the Bible is teaching.

Let's try to understand this word a little bit better, the word submit.

I like what John Piper says, Piper says, Submission does not mean that the husband's word is absolute.

Only Christ's word is absolute.

No wife should follow a husband into sin.

You can't do that in reverence to Christ.

And submission does not mean surrendering thought.

It does not mean no input on decisions or no influence on her husband.

It does not come from ignorance or incompetence.

You may be saying, So what does that look like?

Help me understand.

Well, the husband has been charged with the task of being the spiritual leader within the home.

And guys, you have to step up to the plate in that area.

I cringe when I've been with friends or with people when a child has come up.

and asked the dad a spiritual question, and their response has been, you know what, that's not my department.

Go talk to your mom.

And I want to say, oh, no, that's your department.

That's your responsibility.

God called you to lead that home lovingly in a Christlike fashion.

And on different occasions when there is a decision that needs to be made, there should be a lot of give and take.

As a husband, I am to openly welcome my wife Beth's opinions and suggestions.

Many times I will choose her wisdom and counsel over what I was planning to do.

God gave her to me as a helpmate and I would be...

foolish.

I would be so foolish to try to go it alone.

Two heads are better than one.

And Ephesians 5 is saying that if the two of you come to a real impasse and you can't decide what to do, the wife has to look to the husband at that time as the spiritual leader and be submissive.

Now, that doesn't happen very often.

I've been married 38 years.

I think that probably has happened less than five times in 38 years.

I couldn't even tell you the times.

John Piper goes on to say, Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.

In the Greek verb, submit does not convey some innate inferiority, but it calls for an active, deliberate, and loving devotion.

It was really a Greek, that word submit was really a Greek military term, meaning to arrange under the command of a leader.

It was also used at times in a non-military way.

It was a voluntary giving up of one's life or relinquishing of your rights.

You know, when you get on an airplane, I got on an airplane to fly from Kentucky to come here to preach.

And when I did, there was only one voice that came from the cockpit.

There were three pilots in there, but there was only one voice that said, this is your captain speaking.

And I didn't hear somebody else saying, no, no, I'm the captain.

I want to be captain.

I want to be captain.

And they didn't have a tug of war back and forth with the microphone.

It was just, this is your captain speaking.

Now, why do they have a captain?

Well, because if there's some emergency or there's some crisis, They are looking to one person, how are we going to proceed?

What is it that we're supposed to do?

And if there's disagreement as they get input from one another, that person is the one who will make that final decision.

You know, back in the latter part of the New Testament, in 1 Peter 3, it says, Wives, in the same way, be submissive to your husbands, so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives when they see the...

the purity and the reverence of your lives.

So 1 Peter 3 even goes so far as to address the woman who became a Christian in the first century, but whose husband did not become a Christian.

So win him over with the purity and the reverence of your life.

wives let me give you one other priority that comes from this passage the first one was think submission not slavery second part think devotion not duty paul writes that that wives should submit to their husbands as unto the lord notice he doesn't say women submit to men god's inspired word says wives submit to husbands in other words you have a choice in the matter if you want to honor what God asks, then before you marry, make certain that this man shows the fruits of the Spirit and that you will be willing and want to submit to his leadership.

And notice God doesn't say, wives, submit to your husbands if he deserves it, or if he is a wonderful husband, or if he is a good provider.

No, it just says, submit to your husband as unto the Lord.

You see, God established the family structure to be a microcosm of the church.

And gentlemen, this may seem like a slap in the face to you, but technically and scripturally, your wife submits to you out of devotion to God.

more so than out of duty to you.

And mutual submission defined as one person esteeming the other as better than themselves is clearly taught in Scripture.

In Romans 12, it talks about this.

In Philippians 2, the humility must be our goal, regardless of whether you are the husband or you are the wife.

And when we demand our rights, relationships crumble.

Now, you need to see the phrase, wives submit to your husbands.

You need to see that within the context of the passage.

So let me help understand it just a little bit more, because in your Bible, you have chapter headings, and you'll have little sets of paragraphs, maybe five or six paragraphs, and they'll put a heading on there.

You know, that's not something that was inspired.

That's something that was added to make it easier for us to find things and to let you know at a glance what it is that is going to take place in that setting.

Well, I started with Ephesians 5, verse 22, because that's where most Bibles make the break.

But you have to remember when...

when this book was written, when Paul wrote this book to the church at Ephesus, it was a letter.

he didn't put headings in there it's just a letter that goes on and on so think of it like this rather than starting in verse 22 let's look at verse 21 because it's in the flow all right and the lines right before this talk about being filled with the holy spirit and being submissive to one another and it sets up paul's upcoming section about marriage look at verse 21 paul says submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

That's how the entire section begins.

Sometimes men don't talk about that.

you say, how does having a submissive spirit honor Christ?

Well, it shows that you are accepting a God-ordained structure.

We see it all throughout the New Testament.

Romans 13, citizens should be submissive to the government officials.

Ephesians 6, children are to be submissive to their parents.

Hebrews 13, church members are to be submissive to their church leaders.

And here in our text, it speaks of submission to one another.

and then it goes on in the next verse and says, especially wives be submissive to your husbands.

So, why would I bring that out to you?

Because there are times when husbands submit to their wives.

That's the mark of a healthy relationship.

Let me say it this way.

Three decades ago, my wife and I were praying.

for a new ministry opportunity.

It was about 35 years ago.

In a matter of weeks from our prayers, I was approached by a national Christian organization, and they offered me a job to preach and lead youth crusades in large cities around the nation.

And we decided to find out more about it.

We felt like it was a good use of my giftings.

And so Beth and I drove 10 hours to the headquarters.

We spent two days with the president and with their staff.

and we took a week to pray about it, and I sensed that God wanted me to take that job.

And Beth felt like we were not supposed to take it.

And Beth said, I agree that the job description is tailor-made for you.

It would be the perfect fit, but God just hasn't given me a piece about this.

Well, this went on and on, and we were at an impasse, and I was really frustrated.

My pride wanted me just to leave the Bible open on the kitchen table to the verse, wives, submit to your husbands, you know, maybe highlight it a little bit just in case she wasn't seeing exactly where it was so that we're just going to stand out.

But then I thought, you know what?

God is a big enough God.

and he can change my mind and he can change her mind.

So I said, if next week, I said, if we don't both feel at peace with this, then I'll turn down the job.

Next week, same result.

But one of the reasons that I had been drawn to Beth was because of her gift of discernment.

and her prayer life, but I wanted this job so bad, so badly.

And my pride wanted me to say yes to the offer, but she didn't feel at peace, and I knew I had to keep my word.

And so at the age of 27, I turned down the job that we both felt like was the perfect fit.

But just a few weeks later, Beth found out she was pregnant.

And just a few weeks after that, out of the blue, my hero in the ministry, the guy who I had looked up to in preaching for so many years, offered me a job to share the preaching with him at Southeast Christian Church and to move to Louisville, Kentucky.

It was a thriving, growing ministry where I would end up spending the next 30 years of my ministry life.

And when that job offer came, all of a sudden I began to understand why God caused Beth to feel uncertain.

You see, my parents lived not far from Louisville.

And to top it off, Beth's parents and siblings actually all lived in Louisville.

And that was a big deal.

And it became an even bigger deal three years later when Beth's mom was diagnosed with cancer.

And she passed away a couple of years later.

but Beth got to encourage and serve and love on her all the way till the end.

You see, God knew something that we didn't know.

And now with the benefit of being able to look back instead of forward, now it all makes perfect sense.

Husbands, pride wants us to focus on verse 22, wives submit to your husband, but love wants us to focus on verse 21.

Submit, therefore, to one another out of reverence for Jesus Christ.

And if I would have focused on verse 22, I would have missed out on getting to learn from an incredible ministry mentor.

My pride almost made me miss out on having a dream job at a dream church for three decades.

And to think that my pride almost made my wife miss out on getting to see her mom most every day for the final two years of her life.

Let me say to the wives, when you're tempted to reject your husband's authority, ask yourself if Jesus Christ asked you to do the same thing, would you be willing to do it?

Your submission to his leadership in the home is a testimony to others of your love for Jesus Christ.

Well, let's skip ahead.

Let's change gears and let's look at a couple of priorities that the husbands need to have.

And we look again in Ephesians 5, verse 25.

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

So, husbands, you're not off the hook.

Priority number one for you.

think dedication and not dominance.

It's interesting that Paul tells a husband to love his wife, but have you ever noticed he doesn't tell the wives to love the husband?

I think that's because, for the most part, that's a given.

Women are more emotional and express those feelings, for the most part, more easily than the men do.

God wired them to love their man.

well men have a tendency to say well you know she she knows i love i told her i loved her on her wedding day and i said if anything changes i'll let her know you know paul is saying show her your love tell her talk with her comfort her cuddle with her hold her, let her know over and over again that she is loved and that she is cherished.

Christ-like spiritual leadership within the home is driven by love, affection, and a deep dedication to someone's best interest.

And this is shown in the next verses.

Look at Hebrews 5, 25 through 27, we'll see it in its entirety.

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy.

cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Some people say that earlier when Paul said, wives be submissive to their husbands, that that was merely being politically correct in his time.

And it was just a time period.

After all, this was a time when women couldn't speak publicly.

This was a time when women were treated just as a piece of property.

and bearers of children.

but if you say, oh, he's just being politically correct, then we have to be honest, and we have to realize that Paul doesn't let the men off the hook, and he goes on in the same passage, and he says some politically incorrect things to the husbands, and he lays it on the line.

Now, when this was written in 70 AD, this is at a time when absolutely no one was elevating womanhood, and certainly not a man.

It was unheard of to suggest that a husband have an agape love or unconditional love for his wife, so much so that he would sacrifice his desires in order to help her.

In other words, she comes first.

Let me tell you, in the first century, that had to fly in the face.

It was so countercultural.

His admonishment of sacrificial love was both revolutionary and startling.

And while God's For a man to be the spiritual leader, it is accompanied with the expectation that the husband should love his wife just as Jesus loves the church.

And you do realize that countless studies have been done through the years that show that a man's greatest need in life is to be respected or admired, while a woman's greatest need in life is to feel loved.

God is so amazing.

He knows how we have been created and how he wired us.

And that's why 2,000 years ago, he writes, wives, respect your husbands, and husbands, love your wives.

you each pump oxygen into the relationship when you do that.

Don't miss this.

We pointed this out earlier that the wife is to respect the husband even if the husband isn't a Christian or isn't loving the way that he should.

But by the same token, the husband is to unconditionally love his wife even when she's not submitting.

And in that culture, that was extremely, extremely radical.

John Piper says it like this.

He says, headship is not a right to command and control.

It's a responsibility to love like Jesus, to lay down your life for your wife in servant leadership.

Ephesians 5, verses 28 and 30 says, in this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.

he also he who loves his wife loves himself after all no one ever hated his own body but he feeds and cares for it just as christ does the church for we are members of his body so here's the other priority that husbands need to have priority number one was think dedication not dominance secondly think sacrifice and not selfishness Guys, Paul is saying you must be willing to lay down your life for this woman to whom you say I do.

While her love is to be submissive, your love is to be sacrificial.

Lay down your possessions, your titles, your pursuits.

Lay them all down for your wife.

Not because she deserves it, although she may.

Not because she has earned it, although she might have.

But because you love her.

you don't demand her submission.

If you try to gain the obedience and respect to someone by putting them on a leash, that's not marriage.

That's parenting.

Sorry.

Marriage is to be different.

It is realizing that you are sacrificially sold out for this woman and you would do anything, anything within the limits of God's law to communicate that you love her.

I found that out a few years ago on my birthday.

I saw my birthday coming.

It was a big birthday.

And I came home from work and my wife was all excited.

She met me at the door and she gives really good birthday gifts.

So I'm like, okay, I don't know what it's going to be, but I know this is going to be good.

And I know it was a big birthday.

So I walked in the door and she said, turn around.

We're getting ready to go in the car.

It's your birthday.

I've got something planned.

I said, what is it?

She said, well, I have got you set up.

over on Shelbyville Road about 10 minutes from here, and I got you an appointment for a back waxing.

And I didn't know what a back waxing was, but I was about to find out.

But she had such excitement, and her eyes danced as she said it.

And as she talked about a back waxing, I drove a little faster to the place, to be honest with you.

and evidently you all know a lot more than I did at that point, and we went walking in, and there was a sweet lady that was there, a little Asian lady, and she said, follow me, and I followed her, and I walked past all these ladies, and they were seated in these big, cushy chairs.

and they were getting massages, and their feet were in water, and someone was rubbing their feet, and they all just had this look.

And I thought, man, if I died and gone to heaven, this is going to be incredible.

and my wife had been over there earlier, and so they took me back to this little room, and they put me in there, and then they shut the door, and I'm laid down on this nice, you know, soft table, and I thought, this is going to be incredible.

And I'm thinking in my mind of back waxing.

I'm thinking she's got some giant candle somewhere, and she's just going to rub it back and forth over my back.

and I'm like, this is going to be great.

This is awesome.

I just didn't know, all right?

But I realized I was in trouble when Beth leaned over and said, do you want to hold my hand?

But nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

This little sweet-spirited tiny woman who I thought was a Christian poured burning hot lava on a small section of my back.

I would have screamed, but the pain had taken my breath away.

and just at the instant that the scalding wax began to cool and my body had stopped convulsing this passive woman suddenly became Attila the Hun and with the gusto of a steel worker she emphatically ripped off a field of hair follicles this process was repeated time and time again and even though I was facedown throughout the entire procedure I imagined the two women smiling at each other the next time that I had a birthday coming, I tried to do a preemptive strike, and I just asked for a kidney stone.

You know?

Thought that would make it less painful, you know?

Some of you ladies enjoyed that story way too much, all right?

Now, looking back, that was a time I should not have submitted to her, all right?

Ephesians 5, verse 33.

And if you asked my wife about it and said, is that true?

She would say, oh, yeah, it's true.

I just had no idea it would hurt so badly.

Yeah, right.

Ephesians 5, verse 33.

However, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

It's not a sign of inferiority.

It's an expression of servanthood.

And Paul goes on to say to the husbands, husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.

So man's greatest need is to be admired.

A woman's greatest need is to be loved.

And when both are doing their part, they are spiritually united.

I have never found a wife who has a hard time being submissive to her husband and respecting her husband, if the husband.

loves her the way Christ loved the church, sacrificially, unselfishly, willing to die for her.

And that's what happens within a marriage relationship.

Ladies, your husband needs to feel and sense.

And know that you're in his corner, that you admire and that you respect him.

Doesn't mean he's perfect.

He's not.

Doesn't mean he hasn't let you down.

He has.

It means you made a commitment and you see something in him that others can't see from their vantage point.

It means that you believe in him.

And guys, your wife wants to feel loved and it's your spiritual duty to protect her and to love her and to point her in the direction of God.

You remember that earlier verse I said is quoted four times in the Bible?

Genesis chapter 2, verse 24.

A man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

it's leaving, it's cleaving, it's weaving.

This is not something that takes place instantaneously.

When it says they become one flesh, not they became one flesh, but they become one flesh.

Oneness is not created overnight, not even on a honeymoon night.

Marital oneness is a lifelong spiritual and emotional and sexual quest.

I have performed 548 weddings.

And after I talk about the couple for the first five or six minutes, I do the same thing in every wedding.

I will then look at the young man and I will say, will you take her to be your wife?

I'm not doing the vows yet.

I just look at him and say, will you take her to be your wife?

He says, I will.

Then I look at her.

I say, will you take him to be your husband?

He says, I will.

Now that they...

have both said that in front of the dad who is there.

Now he gives his permission and he hands him over.

And now the marriage ceremony moves into a second part.

But here's what I want you to notice.

When they say that at that point in the service, they're not looking at each other.

they're looking at me when they say I will.

Watch the next time you go to a wedding.

They're looking at the pastor.

Why?

Because technically that pastor is a messenger of God, an agent of God in that moment.

So they are making a covenant with God first, and they're saying, I will take her.

I will take him.

And later in their vows, they will be eyeball to eyeball, and they will face one another.

Do you realize what's happening?

First, it's a covenant with God.

and then it's a covenant with one another.

Wedding vows are not a declaration of present love, but they are a mutual binding promise of future love.

Marriage vows are what keep marriages together through the rough patches, through thick and thin, through mountains and valleys.

Scott Stanley says, commitment is making a choice to give up other choices.

Let me tell you about a Vietnam veteran, Dave Reaver.

You ever heard Dave Reaver?

speak or preach.

He's incredible.

He tells the story of the dramatic way God spared his life when he was a soldier in Vietnam.

He pulled the pin on a grenade.

He raised up the grenade to throw it, and the grenade was faulty, and it went off in his hand.

And somehow, by the grace of God, he survived the experience, but much of the skin on the entire right side of his body was blown off.

If you were to see him today, he himself would admit that he knows he looks rather grotesque.

even after multiple surgeries, the entire right side of his face is deformed.

He has no eyelid.

He has a badly sunken right jaw.

He has no right ear.

He has no right hand.

He says he was lying in the hospital bed recovering from his wounds.

The man in the bed beside him was recovering from a similar accident, from a faulty grenade.

And that man's wife, when she made it there, she walked in.

She took one look at her husband.

she took off her wedding ring.

She said, I can't deal with this, and left.

And Dave Reaver was convinced that when his wife would arrive, that she would do the same thing.

She came walking in.

the next day, and she saw him.

He said, hey, I don't expect you to have to deal with this.

And she came over, and she reached down, and she kissed his burnt lips, and she said, you never were that attractive anyway.

Dave Reaver says this.

He says their marriage survived because it didn't begin in the backseat of a car.

It began in the front row of a church.

marriage is more than a piece of paper.

It's closing off all the other options.

It's a covenant relationship.

It is a stunning blend of love and law, vertically committed to God, horizontally committed to each other.

It is a love-driven, truth-telling, grace-giving, passionate relationship, just like Jesus Christ has with his followers and has with his church.

so if you're not married I hope you will realize all this before you get married and if you are married I hope you will remember the pledges and the promises that you have made and I hope you'll keep them let's pray Father in heaven we uh we come to you and we acknowledge that that we have made a mess of our lives at times.

We've made plenty of mistakes.

Whether we're single or whether we're married, these sermons are so convicting to us and we see our shortcomings.

And so, Lord, we just ask that we would just say, will you help us through this series just to draw a line in the sand?

For those who are single, would you cause them to say, that's the type of wife I want to be.

That's the type of husband I want to be.

Would you help them to...

save themselves a lot of heartache on the front side.

And Lord, for those who are married, may these words from Ephesians 5 be a challenge for them.

And may they not listen to this and think, Oh, boy.

I hope she was listening, or I sure hope he was listening to that part.

But instead, would they take the part that maybe that they're so blind to that they don't even realize it?

Would they take that part and apply it to their own life in their marriage and help them to be the person that you want them to be?

In Jesus'name we pray.

Amen.

We've just finished a good four weeks of talking about this beautiful covenant of marriage.

And if you have come out of this series realizing that you are not as close to Jesus as you want to be or thought you were, and you haven't quite grasped the incredible love that he has for you.

and this love that's reflected in marriage hasn't made itself evident in your relationship with Jesus, we would love to walk you through the process of becoming a follower of Jesus, of calling yourself a Christian.

And if you're deciding that today you want to make that decision or need some help making that decision, we can come alongside you if you let us know at oneandall.church.com.

Now, as a church, we are going into a time of communion this weekend.

And this is really special because I'm here in San Dimas, California right now.

And you could be watching or listening from anywhere in the world.

But as the body of Christ, we all get to celebrate taking communion together.

And so let's take this as a unifying moment where we get to come together and remember what Christ has done for us.

Remember these symbols of his love for us.

I'm going to refer us to a passage in Mark where Jesus is saying, instituting the Lord's Supper with his disciples on those days right before his crucifixion.

Mark 14, 22 says, And as they were eating, he took the bread and after blessing it, broke and gave it to them and said, Take, this is my body.

And he also took a cup.

And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them and they all drank of it.

And he said to them, This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

And so whether you have some bread and juice with you right now, or you need to take a moment later in the day today and take some, whenever you do take communion, just remember this is a beautiful moment, not only to sit in community with the Lord and to sit before him, but that is a symbol that is celebrated across the whole worldwide church, not only here at One and All Church, but...

across the world of all the believers.

So take comfort in that, that we are part of a huge community of people all pursuing Jesus together.

It's been incredible learning and growing with all of our One in All community.

And I want to let you know about a couple of things we have coming up that are going to help you continue to learn and grow.

One of them, if you're listening live or watching live along with us, is this Sunday, May 5th at 5 p.m.

live on YouTube, we are streaming a special conversations Q&A.

where we are submitting questions about marriage, and Pastor Jeff is going to answer as many as he can.

So make sure you catch that live, and if not, it'll be on our YouTube channel recorded for you to go back and reference.

It is sure to be an amazing resource for us.

You might notice that this setup looks a little bit different than it might usually do on our YouTube channel for this message series.

That's because I am sitting at the desk right now that we use to record our daily devotionals that we call The Daily.

You can find those on our app and anywhere you listen to podcasts.

And I would love to have you tune in to hear us on those platforms as well.

But let's leave here as we always do with one hope, one life in Christ.