More than Happily Ever After: J.P. Pokluda

If you don't like to serve, you're not going to like marriage.

If you don't want to change, you're not going to like marriage because God will use it to change you more to the image and the character of His Son. Welcome to Family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. So we got a love like you mean it marriage cruise coming up.

Yes we do. I mean it's months away, it's not till February, but are you excited about it? I'm really excited. There's nothing like going into the ports of call, being in the sun, having good food, but also this is the best part. Just hearing people speak on God, on marriage, we're laughing, we're singing, there's worship. It's a great time. I mean it's a marriage retreat on a boat in the Caribbean in the sunshine with free ice cream. Several times a day, it's terrible. It's not good for your diet, but it's good for your marriage.

And you better sign up because it'll sell out and it probably will sell out this week, so this is your chance to do it. And like Ann mentioned, you get to hear these great marriage messages, and we're going to hear one today from last year's cruise from Jonathan Pacluta. He's a pastor of Harris Creek Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. He has several best-selling books, he's an author. Yeah, we've had him here on Family Life Today.

Love, love JP. And we listened yesterday to the first part of a message on really marriage, and today jumps into the mission of marriage. Let me ask you, if someone... No, I was going to ask you. I'm asking you. Okay, okay. What would you say you thought the mission of marriage was before we got married?

Besides finding the most amazing guy in the world? I would have had no... You're not even going to respond to that, the most amazing guy? Oh yeah, you, yeah. I would have said you are the most amazing guy. You would have. You said that in the past tense.

I know. I would have said that, and I would have said, oh, what's the purpose or the mission of marriage? It's for Dave Wilson to make me happy.

That's what's going to happen. How'd that work out? Well, none of us can ever make one another completely happy because our joy doesn't come from there, and it's not the purpose of marriage, which I really thought that was the purpose.

Did you? Yep, I sure did, and there's a better purpose and a bigger purpose, and JP's going to tell us what God's design and purpose for marriage is right here, right now. The world would tell you, Disney would tell you the mission of marriage is to live happily ever after. Some of you guys thought the mission of marriage is to, you know, have your own little play partner who wears lingerie and does laundry, and some of you women thought it's, you know, now I have a handyman and a security guard, and you thought marriage is going to be one long conversation, but the mission of marriage says to make her holy and serve as you would yourself. The mission of marriage is sanctification through service. Sanctification to be made holy through service by serving one another, okay? So what marriage actually does to followers of Jesus is it makes you more like Jesus, and to be made more like Jesus actually means change. Now you don't marry them hoping they'll change, and you don't try to change them, but you trust that God has them in a process, if they have his Holy Spirit, where he's actually changing them, conforming them to the image and the character of Jesus, and your greatest effort in that to help that process is to pray. I take 2,000 questions every Friday, and I would tell you, and I don't answer them all, I answer about 50 to 100, but I can see what people are asking, and it's always, my husband won't, what do I do? My wife won't, whatever, fill in the blank, what do I do? And it's like, prayer's too easy, no, no, no, no, make sure you do that.

The basics, how much? More than you're doing it currently, a lot, and so you don't seek to change them, you let God do that. This idea saved my marriage, okay? Let me paint the picture for you what we would do. We got in a real bad spot two years in, and you know, she would say, we should go left, and I'd say no, we should go right, and she'd say no left, and I'd say no right, and we would just play tug of war, and it would look like this, I'll give you a real example, she'd say, hey, you know, I'd really like a new car, and I'm already on the defense, like, oh, here we go, what kind of car, a Suburban, a Suburban, we're not gonna get a new Suburban, and I do this thing with my eyebrows, we're not gonna get a new Suburban, do you know how much those are? And what she hears in that, when I do that thing with my eyebrows, she hears, you're so stupid, what are you thinking? I can't believe I have to parent you, that's what she hears, that's what she feels, and the Lord was kind enough to say to me one day, hey, you know she has my Holy Spirit, you know I live in her, like, you know that I'm guiding her too, and what it did is it freed us up, it freed me up, she says, hey, I'd like a new car, and I can get excited with her, what kind of car, a Suburban, oh man, those are nice, what color, black, oh yeah, black, like CIA, man, this is gonna be amazing, you know, but we'll get light interior, because we live in Texas, it'll get hot, and I can even just dream with her, and I say, you know what, do you know how much those are, and she'll say, no, I don't really know, and I say, great, let me do some research, and I can go do my research, and I can come back and say, hey, here's how much Suburbans are, now she might say, oh man, I didn't know they were that much, I don't want one anymore, or she might say, yeah, okay, I want one, and then if I'm at this place where I'm like, hey, I don't think that's a great investment for us, but if you still do, let's bring in our community, let's bring other people in our life who know God, and love us, and love God, and know us, and they're surrendered, and submitted to His Holy Spirit, and their word, and then we get them all in a room, not one-off conversations, but we meet with them, hey guys, can you come over and help us process the decision, hey, Monica wants a Suburban, she wants a new one, here's the range of which I found them, I don't think that's a good idea, here's our income, here's what we're given, I just give them all the facts, now for some of you, that's terrifying, for me, it's incredibly freeing, and you say, hey, will you pray for us for wisdom, and I'm looking for scriptures, and it's saved our marriage, we don't have to fight, like in a disagreement, we can actually come closer when we disagree, it's this really amazing picture, he says in verse 28, that I'm to love her, as I love my own body, right, think about what that means, when I'm hungry, what do I do, I eat, when I'm thirsty, what do I do, I get something to drink, it's just what I do, I listen to my body, and I respond to it, and the scripture is very wisely saying that I'm to love her, even as I love my own body, here's what this looks like, right, I love sleep, man, I get eight hours, I count my hours, I've invested a lot of money in our bed, you know, we got one of those Tempurpedic foam mattresses from Mars, NASA, you know, whatever, and it's real talk, you know, melatonin, all the things, man, I sleep, it's important, man, I lay in bed, I'm out like that, you know, clear conscience over here, I'm out, and so I lay down, you know, and I'm all snuggly under our duvet, like we got a duvet cover, that's like a comforter in a comforter, and I'm all in it, and snuggled up, and I'm out, you know, and I just hear this, hey babe, are you sleeping?

Yeah, I was, I was sleeping, but what's up, not anymore, because you asked me a question, what's going on? I'm cold. Nice to meet you, cold, I'm Jonathan. No, I'll go, that's interesting, you're cold, no, no, here's the deal, if she's cold, I'm getting my butt out of bed, I'm walking to the thermostat, and I'm going to turn it up, because she's cold, because she's cold, and I'm to love her as I love my own body, and sometimes it's I'm cold, and sometimes it's I'm thirsty, but I'm not there to talk her out of what she is, I'm there to anticipate her desires, some of us, right, she's like, I'm cold, I'm like, no, you're not really cold, you know, you can't be cold, because the thermostat, and we want to convince them how they feel, you know, right, no, I'm meeting, I'm meeting that need, if you don't like to serve, you're not going to like marriage, and if you don't want to change, you're not going to like marriage, because God will use it to change you more to the image and the character of his son, for this reason, verse 31, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, this is a profound, what's the word, this is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the church, however, each one of you also must love his wife, as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband, he starts out in Genesis 2, talking about sex, for the leave and cleave, verse for this reason, man will leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, the two will become one flesh, this happened through procreation, God gave us the gift of sex, for two reasons, to make humans and to bond a husband to his wife and a wife to her husband, secular psychology, science now tells us this actually happens in a phenomenon that they call sex glue, that's really what it's called, I'm not even making that up, and this is the love and respect verse, this idea that women want to feel loved and men want to feel respect, it's a oversimplification of what the Holy Spirit just said through the apostle Paul, but there's something else happening, a mystery happening here, this is what we miss, that it's going husband, wives, Christ, church, husband, wives, Christ, church, husbands, wives, Christ, church, and it's happening right here in this text, right before our eyes, that the mystery, my third point, the mystery of marriage is it showcases the savior, like God invented marriage, he didn't have to, he could have designed us that we make children when we shake hands, like he could have made it any other kind of way, like that we would be like engineers and do that in the workshop, but he designed marriage, it was his idea, his really incredible, he designed sex, he created the parts, he put the nerve endings where they are, he created the parts, he put the nerve endings where they are, he made it feel the way that it does, it was his brilliant, genius, amazing, marvelous, wonderful idea, but your marriage is not about you, it's not an add-on to your life, it's not you trying to find a helper or a maintenance person, it is an opportunity for you to showcase Jesus, it is maybe quite possibly the greatest opportunity that you have to showcase Jesus to the world, and so if Jesus has an enemy and his name is Satan, you better believe that he's going to come and attack that union, you need to know that the second you said I do, you stepped into a war zone, so if it feels like a war zone, you might be doing it right, it is a war zone, it is a war zone, it's a picture of what is to come. When Monica and I travel, she really really misses our children, we have three, she's weird like that, wants to see the kids, and so when we're here, it doesn't take long, like day two, she's pulling up the photos and the iPhones, like oh just reminiscing about them, she's looking at a picture, I'll tell you that when we're with our children, she doesn't look at pictures of our children, because we're with them, marriage is a picture of the church's union of the church's union with Christ, this is what the scripture teaches, this is the mystery that I think we've overlooked, that it's about something much bigger than anyone realizes, what if marriage, much like the rest of life, is really all about Jesus. We are listening to Jonathan Pacluta on the Love Like Amina Cruz message he gave last year, and man oh man, he is right on, what if marriage is really all about Jesus. How about the part where he said, don't seek to change them, let God change them, that's hard. Yeah, well we're only halfway through, so he's got more bombs to drop that are going to change you and your marriage and your legacy. When we got married, or we were getting married, we started dating as non-believers, became Christians together, grew up in the church, but we weren't saved, and I ended up trusting Christ, went to, was at a club 20 years ago and someone invited me to church, I went hungover, sat in the back row, and long story short, surrendered my life to Jesus, and then we talked, she became a Christian too, we cut out all the physical stuff, I was like this isn't much fun, I was like this isn't much fun, like we should get married, and so we got married, and we were doing premarital counseling, and we would just fight, manakas, manaklos, you know, and this pastor, he drew this triangle, he drew a stick figure here, and a girl stick figure here, and a cross at the top, and he drew these two lines, you know, coming together, and he says you guys are pursuing each other, you're missing each other, he says when you pursue Christ together, you're gonna grow closer and closer and closer, and I heard that, and I just thought it was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard in my life, I just thought that's really cute, pastor man, you know, did you learn that in seminary, way to go, and this is just my pride and my ego, but then we got married, and year two the wheels fell off, we both wanted a divorce, we had just had a child, she's a really difficult baby, I was completely selfish, there's some postpartum stuff going on, it's hard, I didn't sign up for hard, I didn't sign up for showcases the savior, what if those challenges are your greatest opportunities to be conformed to the image and the character of Jesus, because I remembered in that moment what the pastor said, and it was the saving grace, I said we need to begin to pursue Jesus together, like stop pursuing each other and missing each other, stop the manic highs and the manic lows, let's just pursue Christ together, and it made a world of difference, everything shifted, here we are 17 years later still at it, my first point was the mandate of marriage, the mandates of marriage is sacrifice and submission, the mission of marriage is sanctification through service, and the mystery of marriage is that showcases the savior, John Piper said marriage is temporary and it will finally give way to the relationship to which it was pointing to all along, Christ and the church, the way a picture is no longer needed when you see face to face, I want to show you that marriage is more than you think it is, in the first century the Hebrew tradition what would happen is a young Jewish boy, a Hebrew child, he would when he became of age to find a wife, he would leave his father's home and he would go to a foreign land and he would begin to interview people, is there anyone here, is there a woman here of noble character and the city would make recommendations to him, hey you should meet Sally, you should meet Kristen, you should meet Jennifer, right, and he would interview them and when he found a wife his father would pay what was called a dowry, he would purchase the right for them to be married, they would drink out of the same cup, a toast if you will, and then he would leave and go back to his father's house and begin to build a room on his dad's house called the bridal chamber because that house was going to be his house one day and so he built a room for them on that house on that estate, now she doesn't know when he's coming back, at an hour, a day, and a time that is unknown to her but she's busy getting her bridal party together, this was a thing then, true story, and they would begin to make her dress and make preparations for the wedding and whenever he was done building that room on that house he would go looking for her but then he couldn't send a text or you know make a phone call so he would send word ahead with trumpets and people would run in front of him and word would spread from village to village, town to town, he's coming for you, your groom is coming for you, your husband is on his way, and he would show up and he would take her back to his kingdom and they would enter that bridal chamber and they would be in there for seven days while there was a party outside, hashtag awkward, they would come out and he would present his new bride to his family, this is how this is done, and so when Jesus tells you Thomas says but Jesus we don't know the way in John 14 and he says my father's house has many rooms if that were not so would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am you know the way to the place where I am going because I've showed you I've purchased your ticket there dude don't you see marriage is so much more than what you thought it was it's this metaphor pointing us to Jesus that he left his father's kingdom that he came to this foreign land the father paid a dowry for our salvation to be with him guys you gotta know you're gonna be dead soon I don't know how soon but sooner than you think it tends to sneak up on you right and all that's going to matter in that moment is what did you do with Jesus people ask me all the time will we remember this world you're gonna remember it like you did your mother's womb that was the world you lived in and I don't know how often you think about it but when you were birthed forth into a new world you don't think about it much more and when you're birthed forth into the kingdom I don't know how much we're going to think about our little 80 years 76 years 95 years 100 years here on the earth marriage is hard just because it's hard doesn't mean you're doing it wrong make sure you get the Jesus thing right but he died for your sins God raised him from the dead there's no other way to get to the father except through him so that was Jonathan Pacluta from the Love Like You Mean It cruise last year and I'm so thankful he started reminding us of what matters Jesus in the middle he reminded us that what if marriage is all about Jesus and he ends with reminding us of the gospel that God loves us he died for us and we can't miss that we can't get that wrong that is the center and that is the purpose of our life and that's going to change our marriage more than anything and yet when most of us say we're having marriage problems we'd say we need to go to a counselor we need to learn some communication skills which are all great things those are great but when you say but how's your walk with God have you been in the word those aren't things we typically think of to make our marriage better and like JP said the most important thing you can do is get on your knees and say God changed me I change her yeah or change him God changed me God can change you when you say I'm all in Jesus I'm giving you everything please make me the man the woman you've called me to be and then he gives you the power to actually do that and I think too this just gets me excited to go on that next cruise in February of 2024 we'll be there in a few months yeah sitting on the deck uh you gotta sit there with us on the loungers eating our ice cream cones and working on your marriage in the sun so sign up we'll look forward to meeting you yes as David and Wilson were saying my biggest problem in life is me that's one of the things that God has been teaching me a lot lately I'm always dragging me into every situation that I'm in including most importantly my marriage and God can work on me and change me and therefore change my spouse and amazing things can happen I'm Shelby Abbott you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson as they have listened to Jonathan Pakuda on Family Life Today and Jonathan was speaking from the Love Like You Mean It cruise it is June which means in about less than nine months we will be on the boat that's less than the time of a human pregnancy we will be on the boat so we're counting down to sell out for the 2024 Love Like You Mean It cruise meaning we will sell out this week but don't let that stop you from signing up there is an opportunity for you here and your spouse to have six romantic nights together at three exotic ports leaving initially from Miami Florida and cruising all through the Caribbean it's just going to be an incredible experience this is the 12th year of the cruise and this cruise sells out every single year and that's for a specific reason it's because it's so amazing I was on the cruise last year and I'm super excited to go back this year so you can go online to LoveLikeYouMeanItCruise.com or more importantly if you want to sign up give us a call at 800-358-6329 again the number is 800 F as in family L as in life and then the word today and we will see you on the boat you know anger is one of those things that nearly everybody struggles with universally I know I have struggled with it a ton in the past and I did not know how to deal with it appropriately well coming up tomorrow Dave Wilson is going to unpack anger talking specifically about how we have choices when it bubbles up in our lives that's coming up tomorrow we hope you'll join us on behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson I'm Shelby Abbott we'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.