For Better or Worse // Seek God First // Pastor Josh Evans

Amen. If you believe that He is a way maker, say Amen today. And I don't know about you, but He's made a way in my life.

And I know there's some things that you might be facing even today that you need Him to make a way in. Listen, we're all together, which is a good thing. It looks like the wing you guys just packed in here like sardines over here today. And I love when we come together in one service because it's always funny to me because you put two congregations. You got the early service, the second service, and you guys just have to get here early to get your seat. And your seat matters. There's one thing at Union Grove, I've been here for about six months, and I feel that you guys have carved your name on some of these seats. And you don't want to move, you know. If somebody sits in your seat, you're like, I shall, I shall not be moved. That's basically what the song that you sing on days like today.

But no, it is so good to be here. And the Lord, I tell you, I've never felt in these last couple of months, I've never felt like closer to the Lord than I have because we prayed for snow and He just like unleashed it. And so I'm just like, I mean, my kids have been praying for it. And man, I've never thought of them as spiritual kids until the last few weeks. And just kidding.

And I mean, it is just crazy. And so I will say I've looked at the extended forecast and I feel like there's no snow in the next, you know, 10 to 14 days, which probably means it's going to snow in the next 10 to 14 days. But no, I appreciate you guys pivoting and going to to one service, because I know there's a few people that it's like if there's snow out there on the ground, they ain't coming. You know, it's like it doesn't matter if it's anywhere near the road, you know, it's less.

They're they're just not coming. So we decided to to put it together here today. And I hope that you are doing doing well. I do appreciate so many of you braving the weather today being here. When I was leaving my house, my car said it was 19 degrees and 19 degrees. I'm just like, let me go back inside, you know, and and but no, you guys are here. And I mean, I came and I had gloves.

I had I mean, jacket, you know, beanie. I'm just kidding. I didn't. But I should have.

It was that cold. So but no, I appreciate you guys being here. I also appreciate you being here yesterday as we had the funeral for Danny Sizemore.

And this place was packed yesterday. And that means a lot to the family. It shows how big of an impact he he was in our church and and how much he's going to be missed. And so thank you. And I know the family would appreciate that as well. You guys were here.

And that means the world to to them. If you have your Bible, go to Matthew chapter number six. You chose a good day to be here. And we are starting a brand new series that we're going to be in for the next several weeks leading up to to around Valentine's week. And so, guys, that that's your cue.

If you need to, you know, pull up Amazon after this. I understand. And go ahead and get in front of front of that. And but we're going to do a series on on marriage and relationships. And so many of you, I know your spouse said this is the day we will not miss church because you need to hear it. And and this is also one of the only times that I've ever ran through my entire sermon with my wife, making sure that everything I'm about to say is somewhat truthful and that she approves. So this is probably going to be the best sermon I've ever preached. OK. And so because my wife spoke into to this a little bit. I do want to say that if you're in here and and you are you are not married, I want you to know or you hope to be married maybe one day is that I think that this will still be applicable to you.

These next several weeks are not like free Sundays that you can skip out. OK. I think this is practical. In fact, this is probably as much for you as anybody else in the room, because a lot of us have probably made mistakes through the years. And you guys have your future ahead of you.

And and hopefully this will this will help you. I thought about because here in a moment, I'm going to have some of our married couples in here stand. We're going to have some fun today. I thought about having all of those who aren't married in the room to stand.

And then just let them stand for about 30 seconds to look around the room to see. You never know. There could be a connection. There could be a connection right here. And and we do not know.

And so some of you, if you are single, you're like, man, you should have done that, you know. And but I can try to help you with that later. OK. And so but here's really just the next several weeks. Here's the here's the big idea for the of why we're why we're teaching on this and why I think that this series is so, so important.

I will say that I don't normally kind of stray. I'm a big expositional kind of speaker, which is, you know, that's where you take a text of scripture and you just pull everything directly from the text. That's how I like to preach.

And that's how 99 percent of the time you're going to hear me preach that way. And but there are some times where I feel like there's topics that scripture addresses that we need to kind of look at. And and so I think that this is super, super important.

Here's the big idea for the next several weeks. I really believe that the health of our church is determined in a lot of ways by the spiritual health of the families that are in this room. And and let me say that again, I really believe that the health of our church is determined by the spiritual health of the families that are in this room. I think a healthy, thriving church is built with a lot of healthy, thriving families. So as we think about the church, you know, and we talk about growth and we talk about outreach and we talk, all those things are important. And they're a part of the health of our church.

But I truly think that what's going to make the biggest difference in our church being healthy is for you and your family to be spiritually healthy. If we want a spiritually healthy church, we have to have spiritually healthy, healthy marriages. Now, I want you to understand over the next couple of weeks, we're not going to this isn't going to be the deepest theological exposition on marriage. If you if you kind of want to know in a nutshell what the Bible says about marriage in general, I'm going to give you a few things by way of introduction and then we're going to jump into turn to our message. Here's what I want you to understand about what God says about marriage. First, marriage is God ordained. Marriage is God ordained. If you look back in Genesis chapter two, we see that, you know, God had made man. And he said, you know, it's not good for man to be left left alone, which any woman in this world knows that that's a very bad thing.

Right. And so God said, it's not good. So what did he do? He made woman out of man. And and then he said, hey, leave father and mother and cleave that that word cleave carries on the idea of a covenant. And marriage is just saying marriage is God ordained. Let me say this to marriage is a union created by God between one man and one woman. The Bible is very clear about that. And we don't have to have a whole sermon on that. But I want you to know that from the very beginning, that is the way that God designed marriage to function. OK. And that's the way that that that it is. And I know our world sees some things differently, but we can't allow culture to influence what we believe.

We have to allow the word of God to influence what we believe. Marriage is also companionship, leaving father and mother and cleaving with to your to your spouse. Your spouse should be your best friend. Let me say that again. All right, Joe. Man, you guys should be preaching this message.

Your your spouse should be your best friend. OK, there you go. OK. A few of you, a few of you finally caught on, you know, after your wife said that's where you say amen. All right. Marriage should be a picture of Christ in the church. OK. The way that that Christ loved the church is the way you and your spouse need to to love one another. OK. And so if you want the big theological context, there it is in a nutshell, rapid fire. And we're going to talk a little bit different about something different here today. And but before we jump in, I want to give a few disclaimers.

First, Abby and I's marriage is not perfect. That's what you're supposed to say. Really?

Really? OK. I want you to know that we have what I call intense discussions from time to time.

Here's what you might call that. We have fights. OK. And I don't know about you, but we have we have fights about the way we spend our money. The thing we fight about the most is, is our kids. You guys agree?

Does anybody fight about their kids as much as we do? It's like I think they should be disciplined this way. No, they should be done this way. I think that they should be spanked 20 times a day.

I think they should be spanked, you know, 20 times of their life, whatever. We always are arguing about kids and how we should raise the kids, all that kind of stuff. Here's what we fight about, because I get really upset about stuff like this.

We argue about being on time. Does anybody else? Thank you.

I heard that. There you go. Yes, I feel you. That's that's me.

It's like I'm always like I'll tell my wife will say, OK, before I start getting ready, what time are we leaving the house? And here's what I need. Man, we are right there. OK, man, I feel you. I get you. And but here's what what that means to me when she asked me that.

Here's what I want to say. We are going to leave whenever I get ready. Because if I say six thirty and I'm ready at six, I just want to leave at six. And so she can't stand that. We argue about it.

How about this? You know, many wives, they come to their husband a lot of times and they'll say, you know, they'll want to share their heart. Maybe something something bad has happened. And and what do we do as men? We have, you know, 10 resolutions for the problem.

Are you guys like any guys like that? And then we fight about I didn't want a solution. I just wanted you to listen to me. And and I'm just like, what?

It's a lose lose half the time in my world. But I want you to know Abby and I's marriage is not is not perfect. In fact, one of the best things that we've ever done in our marriage is is a few years ago, we had seen some some families that were somewhat close to us who who were having some problems in their marriage. And we had seen them go through some difficult times. And so what we decided to do is we decided to to go to counseling, just the two of us. We went to about six or eight sessions or whatever.

And here's what I always thought. I was scared even say that for the longest time because I thought, you know, counseling means your life's falling apart. If you're going to counseling, that means, you know, you're on the rocks. And we actually said, you know, I want to go to counseling before we're on the rocks.

You know, I want to go to counseling before we need it. And so we did. And it was it was awesome. And we learned a lot about one another. I say all that to say this. We are not perfect. So what I'm going to say in the next few weeks is is from God's word.

But but we are not perfect. The second disclaimer is this. I am not a licensed marriage counselor. I'm a pastor. So I'm going to share with you some some scriptural principles for relationships. But I want you to understand that you might need some extra help on top of what we're going to be talking about the next several weeks. And we can help you with with that. So by way of introduction, I want to I want to do this is if you're a married couple in this room, I want you to stand. OK. All the all the married couples in here. OK. And all right.

So this is probably the majority. And listen, if you're seated, that's OK. And but here's what I want you to do. I just want to see who I'm talking to and understand this. So if you have been married for less than five years, you guys have a seat. OK, we're going to spend some time. OK. So if you have been married for less than 15 years, have a seat. OK. All right. If you have been married for less than 25 years, have a seat. OK. We're slowly, slowly dwindling down. All right.

We're going to make a little bit of a jump here. If you have been married for less than 35 years, have a seat. OK. All right. If you have been married for less than 50 years, have a seat. All right.

Still got some standing. And I want you guys to know you've been married longer than I have been alive. OK.

If you have been married for less than 60 years, have a seat. OK. So we still have.

All right. So, Pastor Fletcher, tell me how long you've been married. Sixty five years.

That is awesome. I, Joe and Judy, how long have you guys been married? Sixty one years.

Awesome. Archie, Betty, how long have you guys been married? Sixty two years. All right, George, how long have you guys been married?

Sixty three years. All right. So, George, if you can come forward and finish this for me. Listen, I wanted to do that because that's kind of the that's what we should be striving for.

Right. A lot of what what was just in front of us. That's inspiring to to my wife and I and some people in in this room who maybe had to sit a little bit early. Me and my wife, we've been married. Next month will be 14 years.

So we have a ton to a ton to to learn. In fact, I have a picture of shortly after we were dating. This is a picture of us right here. OK, so I want you to know that the the plaid shorts just is what she wanted. She she had been searching her whole life for somebody that could dress like that. And she finally she finally found the one guy in the world who bought plaid shorts that were like Capri length.

And and so that's basically it. But this was shortly after we were dating. We actually met.

It was my sophomore year of college. In fact, we worked at the same place. And and when she came into the office for her first day, I was just being friendly. And and so I said, hey, I'm not sure.

You know, I probably treated it just like I do church. I'm not sure we met before. What's your name? And I told her what my name was. And and I knew she was a a pretty girl, but I didn't think much about our paths had never crossed to this point.

And so I didn't think much about it. She went to work in in her building and and she on the way to her building. She she called two people. She called her sister and she called her best friend. And she said, I just met the man that I will marry one day. True story.

True story. I don't know if it was the voice that just got her. But it was something it could have been that it could have been the charm. I don't know, you know, but I think it was probably the voice. She just couldn't get enough. And I might have been wearing plaid shorts that day.

I don't know. And she's like, man. And and so from that day, you know, she kind of knew.

I did not know. Many of you know, kind of my story as as we kind of found each other. I had this philosophy that to find the right one, I had to try a lot of them. And and so for me, I just was dating, dating, dating, dating. And finally, our senior year is when, you know, our paths begin to cross. And and we went on our first date before her last semester of college. And then we got married in 2008. Here's a picture of us when we got when we got married.

And I really don't know. That was right when we came out of the church. And that was the photography's come a long way.

By the way, if you're young in here, like iPhones take better photos than what we had back in the day. And but this was us right after our first picture, after we came out of the church and they announced us and and things. But I want you to know we have a lot, a lot to learn. And here's the thing.

I know couples are always looking for that that special, perfect person. And here's the big idea that I want to talk about for the next few moments that we have here today is this. And it's very simple. It's elementary. OK, everybody in here can can get this.

It's this. God should be your number one. Your spouse should be your number two.

This simple. OK. And that's what we're going to talk about for the few minutes that we have. God should be your number one. Your spouse should be your number two. For those in the room who are not married.

Here would be my challenge to you today is this. You need to focus not on finding the right person or the perfect person. You need to focus on being the godly person that God wants you to be right now. Because when you focus in on being the person that God wants you to be, God will lead you to the person that he wants you to be with. Here in Matthew Chapter six, we see a passage of scripture. This isn't a marriage passage of scripture. And so if you're kind of looking at all the verses here, wondering where I'm going to go with this, there's not a marriage verse in here. And but there is a verse that I think is super important and applicable to to marriage.

We're going to jump back. I know this isn't on the screen, but we're going to jump back to verse twenty five. And and it says this. Matthew Chapter six, twenty five.

It says this. Jesus, he's speaking his sermon on the mount. He said, Therefore, I say unto you, take no thought for your life. What you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on is not the life more than meat.

And the body than raiment. Behold, the fowls of the air for they sow not. Neither do they reap nor gather into barns at your heavenly father. Feedeth them.

Are you not much better than they? So so basically this setting here is Jesus. He's talking to to the crowd. And a lot of these people have have you know, they were they were worrying about things. They were worrying about things such as, you know, their life and their clothes and what they're going to eat.

And and things like that. That might not be the the worries that you are worried about today. Well, some of you are probably like, where are we going for lunch?

You've probably already asked the person next to you. And but we're not typically worried about those things. But here's what we are worried about. We're worried about relationships. We're worried about all of these different things.

And you can put whatever you're worried about right here. Verse twenty seven. Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit unto unto his stature?

In other words, he's saying worrying about those things is not going to help you in any way. And why take you thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not.

Neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon and all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you?

Oh, ye of little little faith. He says, Look, I'm taking care of the flowers. I'm taking care of all of these things.

Surely I'm going to take care of you. Therefore, verse thirty one. Take no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek for your heavenly father knoweth that you have need of all of these things. By the way, God knows what you need right now.

OK, God knows exactly what you need. And then he says this and this is our text first for today. Verse thirty three. But seek ye. What's the next word first? All right. I need one hundred percent participation.

Here we go. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things shall be added unto unto you. Listen, God needs to be your number one and your spouse should be your number two. Here, Jesus is talking about about relationships.

He's talking about everything. And he's saying this, that the number one priority in your life should be your relationship with God. Before anything else, that should be the thing.

So that brings us to point number one. Prioritize God above one another. Prioritize God above one another.

He uses this word first. Let me say this, that a great marriage or a healthy marriage starts with your vertical relationship with God. A great marriage starts with your vertical relationship with God. Now, if you read a book on marriage, which I'm for and I think you should, we should all try to get to get better. There's not a perfect marriage in here if you're looking for the perfect marriage. Let me tell you, don't don't get into that marriage because you're going to make it imperfect. OK, because there's no perfect person in this world.

But if you're if you're looking, here's what I want you to know. There's not a perfect relationship out there. But if you read a book or or you listen to a podcast or or whatever, a lot of things, they're going to give you, you know, the the 10 tips to, you know, have a successful marriage or they're going to give you all of these, you know, kind of hacks to to have a good a good marriage.

And a lot of those things are good. But if you work on all of those things and you forget the main important thing, then you're going to be disappointed with the result that you're looking for, because the most important thing you need to focus on is your relationship with God. Let me ask you this in your relationship.

Are you seeking first the kingdom of God? Is that the main priority of your life? You see, we get our priorities all out of out of balance sometimes. And we do in our relationships as well.

A lot of people, their spouse can become an idol. Or how about this? Your kids? You know, a lot of families can can slowly start to put their kids into that number two spot over their spouse.

Listen, that's been done. It's a real problem. And Jesus notices how we get our priorities all out of whack from time to time. Some of us put our career before our family. And like if you are hearing if you want to know, hey, I don't know if that's me or not. If you're hearing things when you go home, like, hey, you work all the time.

That should be a trigger. And that should be something in your life that, hey, maybe you are putting your career or making money before your family. You see, we have priority problems all all of the time. And we have to prioritize God above one another. Listen, a right relationship with him puts you into a right relationship with your spouse.

A right relationship with him puts you into a right relationship with your spouse. You say, how in the world do I need to to seek God? If you in Chapter six, we don't have to read all of this. But if you look earlier in Chapter six, Jesus in the same sermon, he says to go and get into your into your closet. And he says, that's where you pray. It's private spiritual disciplines.

Yes, this is elementary. But I'm telling you, I've been you know, we've been married 14 years and I've seen marriages and I want you to understand this. If you're trying to to be the best spouse that you can be without a relationship with God, you're doing it wrong. And the way for you to have a successful, healthy, spiritually thriving marriage, it starts with your daily relationship with God. You say, what do I need to do?

I don't have one of those. Well, if you're not saved in today, that's where it begins. It starts with salvation, but it does not end there for you to have a good marriage. It starts with your relationship with him.

You say, what do I need to do? I'm already a Christian in here, but I don't have that daily relationship with God. My challenge would be for you is to get in the closet with the Lord and have a daily relationship with him through through a dose of God's word into your life, allowing God's word to get into you so that you know exactly how he loves you.

So it'll help you love your spouse. It's a daily relationship with him through not only Bible reading, but through through prayer and through fasting. You see, private spiritual disciplines are usually the catapult to to getting to a place where one day you're sitting in a service and you've been you could stand all the way up into 60 some years of marriage. Wouldn't that be awesome? Wouldn't that be awesome if you're sitting in here and you say, man, I would love to make it to that point.

What do I need to do to get there? I bet half these couples that stood for so long would say, hey, if you want to get there, it's because somebody years and years ago, they they taught me how to read my Bible on my own. They taught me how to pray on my own.

They taught me how to talk to fast about certain things. And when I started doing some of those things, I found that the Holy Spirit of God began to work in my life where then it became easier to put my spouse before myself. Then it became easier to love my spouse.

It became easier to sacrifice for my spouse because I had my relationship with God where it needed to be. You see, that's the main thing. Prioritize God above one another.

You have to prioritize your relationship with him. The second thing that you have to do is this. We have to prioritize the gospel in our life. Now, we hear the word gospel. We say, what exactly does that mean? The gospel simply means good news. It's good because of who gave it.

God. And it's good because, listen, when you have good news, you have to have a bad news. And listen, there is a very, very bad news. But the gospel is good news because it's good for for every single one of us. You know, the gospel is is what Jesus has done for you here in a few moments.

We're going to take the Lord's Supper and and we're going to remember what Jesus has done, done for you and for me. But for you and I, we have to prioritize the gospel in our life. You say, I thought the gospel is what what saves you. Yes, the gospel.

It definitely is what saves us. But we the deeper that we go in understanding the gospel, the more it will help us understand how to love our spouse. You say, well, what's that?

What's kind of in a nutshell? The gospel first. It's this. Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you.

Think about that. Think about the the love that Jesus has for you. We all know the verse John three sixteen for God so loved the world that he gave that he gave his only begotten son. You see, this is Jesus way of loving you.

And and the scripture says that you should love your spouse the same way that Jesus has has loved you. So so let's look at the way that he's loved you. He loved you so much that he he gave.

It's an agape form of love. That's a sacrificial love. You see, he gave everything. Jesus sacrificed heaven, a perfect heaven to come and live on this earth for over 30 years, just to die to take the sins of you and I and the whole world away. That's what Jesus has done for done for us.

And so as we prioritize the gospel in our life, we have to think, OK, the gospel says that Jesus loves me. He sacrificed for me. And, you know, the beauty of this is that you and I, we didn't have to clean up our life for him to love us. You didn't have to slowly become perfect or moral or or do a lot of good things in order for him to love us. No, you see, the Bible says that Jesus loved you and died for you in spite of you. He loved you just the way that you were. You don't have to clean up your life to come to him. He came to you in the midst of how bad and screwed up your life already was. That's the kind of love that that Jesus has shown for you and for me.

He loved you just the way that you are right now. The good and the bad. You say, what does that have to do with my marriage? Here's what I'll tell you. A healthy, thriving, spiritual marriage loves everything about their spouse. The good and the and the bad. Let me remind you that your spouse is not perfect. Thankful I got no amens. That's good.

Guys are improving. But let me remind you that you're not perfect as well. We need to love our spouse unconditionally the way that Jesus has loved us. I asked Abby last night, I said, what is the hardest thing to love about me?

And after several hours of trying to come up with something, it was much faster than I really was proud of. She said she said this and I got her permission to say all of this. I promise. So some of you who go to Abby and try to, you know, make her like, why, how does he talk about you this way where she approved all this?

I promise. She said the hardest thing to love about about me is that I can be very preachy all the time. You see what I when I bring a three point sermon to you. I have a three point sermon for every problem in my house.

My kids come to me. I'm like, let's sit down and I'll give you three points, you know, and an illustration in the middle to prove it. OK, my wife hates that because sometimes she she comes to me with and she just wants me to listen.

And she doesn't need need a sermon. You see, she she admits. And and we talked about this, that those are the moments that it's so hard to love your spouse when they do something that that is hard to love.

So she said, what is hard to love about about her? And I'm not kidding. That did take us a while. I had to figure it out.

So we finally agreed on one thing. And if you've been around her, she said Abby can sometimes be intense from time to time. OK. And and I said the word intense. OK. And any of you married to somebody that's intense?

OK. Nobody's married. OK. We got a few of you. You guys are awesome.

I love you. You guys are just feeding. You just give me all sorts of good content here today. And but no, sometimes like I am super relaxed a lot of times for the most part. It takes a lot to get me upset. It takes a lot to get me angry.

I'm a pretty positive person. And sometimes like Abby is a little bit more intense than me. So when we're having a discussion, she likes to, you know, that tone to go a little higher than what I'm used to. Right. My tone because of my voice is always at the top.

So there's no question about where I'm at. And so but sometimes that that makes it difficult, you see. But here's the beauty of the gospel is that Jesus, there was tons of things about your life that were hard to love. You know, he shouldn't have loved you, but Jesus, he loved you so much that he was willing to sin. God loved you so much.

He was willing to send his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life, something that you could have never done. And then to die the death for you. He didn't just die for you. Let me remind you, he died instead of you.

He died in your place. That's the gospel that Jesus loves you. He loves you in the midst of who you were and in the midst of who you are. And that's the way that we have to treat our spouse. We have to love them through the good and the bad. Not only does a healthy marriage love everything about their spouse, a healthy marriage sacrifices for their spouse, sacrifices for their spouse. You see, he gave his life. Listen, you need to sacrifice for your spouse.

It might not ever become life or death in the way it was for Jesus for you. But listen, we can do some small sacrifices from time to time. I've been around couples who, you know, they don't sacrifice enough and then it leads to problems. Listen, your schedule, you can say no. You know what? I can say no to a game every now and then to sacrifice and do something that my wife wants to do. That's OK. You can be willing to sacrifice and put the needs of your spouse ahead of your own. How about this?

What you eat or where you eat? Oh, that's a big one. Right. OK. Am I am I stepping on a toe or two in here?

You go like, whoa, whoa, you are. Listen, we can sometimes sacrifice or what you watch on TV, how you spend your your weekends or even how you spend your your money. You see, these are things that that we can do. If Jesus was willing to sacrifice his life for you, you should be willing to sacrifice things for your spouse because your relationship with your spouse should reflect Christ's relationship with the church.

That's the that's the point. Jesus loves you. Jesus forgave you.

First John one nine. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us. Listen, we should be quick to forgive.

Ruth Graham, she said that a happy marriage is the union between two really good forgivers. Listen, I don't know about you, but sometimes it's hard to forgive when you're when you have a fight. Right. Or when you have a discussion. Sorry, we don't call them fights. OK. Let me tell you about our most recent argument. You guys like these stories. I feel like you guys.

Listen, if you want to feel really good about yourself, come to Union Grove Baptist Church on the weekly and you will. The most recent discussion that we had was on Christmas Eve. You think holidays, you know, listen, holidays are not always what Hallmark makes them out to be.

Right. It's just not, you know, Hallmark's just it makes me sick sometimes because I'm like, that's just not real. And and so but Christmas Eve, we we there was something with our family and everything that didn't go as planned. So we all got we got upset about it and we got we got mad and we were in Florida. And so we were arguing and our in-laws are there. And have you ever tried to, like, argue with your spouse without the other people around you knowing that you're arguing? You ever been there? It's really hard, but it makes everything uncomfortable for everybody in the room. Have you ever just been in a room as a bystander, just living your life? And there's a couple in the room that are mad at each other.

Everyone knows it. So just put it out there or go to go to, you know, your own space, because that's how I felt. We were in the living room and we're kind of getting everything ready for for Christmas morning. And and so we're there. And it was one of those things like, you know, we're trying to act, you know, Christmas Eve ish in front of my family or in front of her family.

But we are upset at one another. OK, so we're kind of, you know, you say, what does that look like in your life? It means that we, you know, kind of huff every now and then when each of us come by, you know, it's just kind of like she walks by. You know, you just make a noise.

I don't really know what that means, but that's kind of what it looked like for us. And and and then if like she kind of casually asked me, hey, can you hand me this gift to put over here? You might act like you didn't hear her. You know, it's just kind of like, you know, I'm looking around or whatever. And my in-laws are like, you know, they know everything's going on, but we're trying to act like it's not.

It carried on. We went to bed and and you ever tried to go to bed mad at your spouse and the bed that we sleep in at my in-laws house? It's a smaller bed. And luckily in our house, if we go to bed upset at one another, you can kind of, you know, put yourselves on each end of the bed and and you don't have to ever touch, you know. And I mean, it was one of those nights where it was kind of like we're laying there. And if our feet touched, you kind of like kick your foot away. No, I'm talking about you've been there. OK, that's kind of the night we had on Christmas.

Christmas Eve night. You're like, man, get your foot off me. And that's kind of what what we did. We were upset. And finally, we came to our senses. We're like, this is ridiculous. Right.

This is ridiculous. And we apologized and we got everything everything right. But here is what we what we realized. And we joke about this today. We realized that every time we are slow to forgive one another, it's usually because we don't want to ever forfeit our right to be right.

You with me on that? Like, that's why most every argument happens is because you're not willing to forfeit your right to be to be right. And so what I want you to know is in a relationship, you know, Jesus has forgiven you of of every sin that you've ever committed. And so, like, for if you're a Christian in here, you're fully forgiven right now. You're you're past sins, your present sins, your future sins.

They're under the blood of Jesus Christ. And and if Jesus would forgive you of everything in your life, why can't we be quick to forgive our spouse? You want a healthy relationship.

Let me encourage you. Forgive quickly. Forgive.

Be the first to forgive. Fight or argue for for not your chance to be right in a relationship, but argue for the chance of resolution and and seeking resolve. Listen, you don't have to be right all the time.

And by the way, you're not right all the time. And we got to understand that that in a relationship, we have to sometimes forfeit those rights for the for the relationship sake over our our desire to be right. We got to prioritize the gospel in our life. What Jesus has done for us. He he loves you.

The good and the bad. He sacrificed for you. He forgave you.

How about this? Jesus is gracious to you. Ephesians two eight. For by grace are you saved? Listen, we're saved by grace. You say, what is grace? It's it's undeserved favor. It's unmerited favor in your life. Grace is is a love that that he has for you when you have nothing to give in return.

In other words, grace is it is being loved when you are unlovable. And I don't know about you, but there's sometimes in our marriage where I don't deserve to be loved. I don't deserve it. I you know, I'm ugly. I can be a jerk.

I can be mean. And in those moments, I'm thankful that I'm married to somebody who says, you know what? I'm going to try to be like Jesus in the way that that I treat you. Even when you're unlovable, I'm going to demonstrate grace to you. You see, that's the way that Jesus has loved you. He's been gracious and and merciful to you. Even when you don't deserve it, the least you could do is extend the same amount of grace back to your your spouse. Are you the type to give grace back to your spouse?

Or do you resent, carry grudges, bring up the past? Aren't you thankful Jesus doesn't bring up your past? Aren't you thankful that every time you pray?

It's not. Well, this is the 50th time you prayed for that. You're just going to make the same mistake again. Aren't you thankful that that's not the way that he treats us? Then why should we treat the person that we're wanting to spend the rest of our life with that way? You see, we need to prioritize the gospel in our lives. The deeper that we go in the gospel, the more we understand how to love our spouse the way that God loves us. You see, that's the desire for every marriage. You want a healthy marriage? Love your spouse the way that Jesus loved you.

That's the picture. That's what God wants of every one of our relationships so that we can love them the way that Jesus loved us. So let me ask you, how are your priorities? God should be your number one and your spouse should be your number two. Are you prioritizing your relationship with him above anything else? Above everything else? Do you wake up in the morning craving your relationship with him because without understanding how much he loves you, you cannot possibly love the person that you're living with? We have to prioritize our relationship with him and prioritize the gospel. Go deeper. The more you understand what he's done for you, the easier it will be for you to do the same to the person you're spending the rest of your life with. For better or for worse, God should be your number one and your spouse should be your number two. Would you bow your heads with me?