Become the kind of person you would want to marry so don't be looking necessarily
Only at someone you might be interested in be also be looking in the mirror
And asking god to make you the kind of person that you're most attracted to
I'm talking about warring in marriage and we're looking at ephesians 5
And in my
first message I talked about
making the first thing first
Seeking first the kingdom of god as individuals
and then secondly
I talked about entering your wife's world or entering your husband's world and dying there
and loving
our spouse
The way christ loved the church and christ left heaven. He came in he entered our world. He died here
So we as men
So we as women are to enter our spouse's world and be willing to die there and it's hard work
And I talked about that in the second message the hard work that's involved in being able to take your
Heart and your mind off of yourself
All of us are selfish. We go into marriage selfish and god's making us selfless
Probably the number one tool
That god uses in our lives to make us more sanctified to make us more like christ
Is marriage so marriage can be the worst thing in your life
If you're not working on it, you're not strategizing. You're not trying to make this a great marriage marriage
By itself if you don't do anything
Can be a disaster
Because it's such a selfless environment that person knows you privately and that person knows you publicly
And if you're a big faker a poser
or a hypocrite
The first person who knows that is your spouse and so I would say to any of you out there that are still single
become
The kind of person you'd want to marry
Become the kind of person you would want to marry
So don't be looking necessarily
Only at someone you might be interested in be also be looking in the mirror and asking god to make you
The kind of person that you're most attracted to because kings marry queens and queens marry kings
so
The kind of person the standard that you have you live up to that standard
That's crucial. So today I want to talk about action number three
And this is in ephesians 5 26 ephesians 5 26 if you have your bible
That he might sanctify and cleanse her
with the washing of water by the word
That he might present her to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing
But that she should be holy and without blemish now here. He's talking about the importance
Of god's word cleansing us, but he's but he's identifying it with marriage that the man's
One of the man's biggest responsibilities in a marriage is that he's in god's word and he's actually washing and cleansing
his
wife
With god's word. So here's my action
Number three action number three is grow together
grow together
Grow in the word together learn to spend time together this morning liz and I
Like every morning we wake up and you got to get the first thing first and that is coffee
You got to have coffee
Now if your wife or your husband's into tea then tea
Or maybe you're really into fitness to max and it's water whatever
for liz and I it's
Coffee, and if you haven't had pete's coffee, you probably don't have a happy marriage. No, i'm only kidding
But we have coffee together and we grow together. So we have coffee
Either in bed or in the study
And we open god's word to a proverb. So what's today today is the 23rd
So we did proverbs 23 and we read it slowly
We read it together. It stimulated a whole lot of conversation
day before
It was proverbs 22 two days ago. It's proverbs 21. So we just
Systematically follow the calendar and go through the proverbs together
And usually I mean we always get through
all of the of the proverb, but usually
We camp on one or two proverbs that really speak to us. We underline them
And we talk about them today
We read that as a man thinketh so he is and so there's a there's a book
Liz and I are reading on the renewing of the mind
the importance of
How you think is is the kind of person that you become?
so
we we
Opened that book and read a few. I think we read chapter one
As a man thinketh because of the Proverbs that we had so here's my point grow together
Don't grow separately. I mean you should grow separately somewhat because
You're you're gonna have time with the Lord. That's just you and the Lord
But I want to challenge you and a happy marriage and a joyful marriage that you also learn how to grow together
So I would challenge you men out there
I challenge you women out there that you guys come together in the morning and even if usually there's one that's a little more
Mature than the other it's pretty rare that we're all exactly at the same place
So even if your spouse doesn't want to why don't you challenge him to 15 minutes or maybe it's only 10 minutes
Let's read one chapter
Let's pray together
Let's journal together and then go you know
Do your do the rest of your day at the different things that you're doing?
But that's how for the last 30 years
Probably 35 years Liz and I have begun our days not perfectly. We've gone times where we haven't but I would say
Almost every day we get up have coffee. Don't look at our phones. Don't look at any
Social media don't look at the computer zero nothing nada
We just open the physical
Pages of scripture. So we have our Bible right there by the bed. We get up
We read a chapter. Sometimes I read sometimes she reads and then we talk about it
And what's so cool about this is it usually launches us into a bunch of different other areas
So we started talking about other things that are going on in the kids lives. We talk about things happening at church
We talk about things happening maybe in our rental one of our rental houses, whatever it might be
It usually lends itself especially Proverbs, you know, because Proverbs is skill in living
That's a great way to think of the theme of Proverbs
So by virtue of the fact that we're in the book of Proverbs right now
We're talking about very natural
practical stuff
Every morning and then we pray together
We after we've gone through that and we've talked to stuff. We we just we pray for every one of our kids
We pray for all the grandchildren
We pray specifically about different issues that are happening at the church or in our lives
But we but we pray together. So we're united now. Why is this so important? I think it's important because
When you're growing together
You're not growing apart, let me say that again if you're growing together, you're not growing apart
I think the easiest thing that can happen in a marriage is you gradually grow apart from each other
She has her life. I have my life and
You know, we talked a little bit here and there but by and large
we're thinking on a different wavelength, but by starting the day and
Maybe a good way to think of it is almost like a company if you're starting your company there
You have an executive meeting and there's a president and there's a vice president or maybe there's co-presidents
Whatever you want to call it, but it's coming together about life. It's coming together about the kids
It's coming together about the staff
It's coming together about the mission and the vision of
your
Family and that would be the rubric. I want to go to underneath grow together is do you have a mission?
Do you and your spouse have a mission together?
because here's what the verse says it says that he might that means Christ might sanctify and
Cleanse her with the washing of the water by the word that he might present her to himself a glorious church on the same way
We as men come
We as women come that we might sanctify and cleanse our
Spouse through the washing of the water of the word
So have a mission. What's what's the vision of your marriage?
Have you and your spouse ever written down a mission statement written down?
why you think God brought you together and what's your purpose in being together is on this earth and
Then grow in that
check that mission statement check that vision statement on a fairly regular basis and see if you're growing in
Relation to what God's given you as a vision of your marriage because there's a purpose
There's a specific purpose for you meeting that person
Falling in love with that person and marrying them and I believe under God's
Rubric of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment of what he's called us to do. He wants you to grow together and
So want to challenge you
you start your day reading God's Word together, start your day praying together, start your
day maybe even asking for forgiveness for something that happened the day before.
Again coming together as a couple in God's Word, in prayer, maybe even in worship, Liz
and I sometimes put on worship music and we just worship the Lord, some of the mistakes
of the day before.
Some of the getting crossways with the other usually gets dealt with.
I'll tell you it's really hard, I think it's harder for women than for men, but it's really
hard for women to connect emotionally and relationally with their husbands if they're
angry toward them, if they're bitter toward them.
So this is another way to keep short accounts, quickly forgive, quickly build bridges again
after there's been mistakes made, and so grow together.
Spend time in God's Word together.
It can be five minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes or an hour, but start somewhere.
Start with spending time together in the Word and praying together.
You say, well I don't really like to pray out loud, I definitely don't want to pray
out loud with my spouse.
Okay, get over it.
I'm going to challenge you to get over it because it's power in it and that's the devil,
man.
The devil does not want you to do what I'm saying.
You say, well how do I start?
Well just start with Jesus helped Liz be a good person today.
I mean you can start off with one sentence, but just start there and then the other one
and say a prayer.
Just start there and watch what will happen with time.
You'll get hooked.
You'll get hooked on the miracles.
You're going to see miracles happen in your marriage because you guys are praying together.
You're going to see miracles happen because you guys are in the Word together.
You're going to see breakthrough in issues of disagreement in your marriage because you're
regularly growing together.
I promise you it works, so God bless you.