Wedding Story And Reality Check

God's given us. So I'm ready to preach God's word. Are you ready to receive it today? The year was 1993. And I'm going to tell this story almost every week of this series. Because it is one of the days that was so incredible. I uh it was the day February 27, 1993, the day Urshan and I were married, united in holy wedlock by the authority of the state of Michigan and the authority of the Word of God. And uh I I always say that was that was a day I I told it last week, and I just I'm gonna tell y'all, I can remember it as vivid as it was when I was standing at the front of the altar, my brother beside me as my best man, a house full, a whole church full of people. Probably about, I think we had four or five hundred people at that wedding, and packed the house, and we're there for this wedding. And I I mean, I've been to a lot of weddings as a kid. I've been to a I've been in weddings as a kid, but then now this was a different wedding, and I was in it. And so there was a little nerves, uh, make sure I say the right thing when I'm supposed to say it, all those things. And then she appeared at the end of the aisle, and I will tell you, the world stopped. Heaven kissed earth, the flat the spotlight hit her, and as she made her way down the aisle, I wept and in joy that I am the luckiest person in the world to get to call her my bride. And in that moment, I was like, man, nothing, nothing could be better than this movie. We're gonna have the greatest marriage. From this moment on, it is all smooth sailing. And then the next morning we woke up the day after our wedding, and we missed our flight to our vacation, our honeymoon, because they had changed the flight and didn't tell us. Our our our real our uh travel agent didn't tell us, and so we started off a little rocky, and then we flew all the way to they had to fly us into a different city, and then they were like, you can drive from there to the other city. We're like, well, what else are we gonna do? We got to get there. So we flew into that city, got a car, started driving, got to our hotel, pulled in. I was like, look how beautiful this hotel is. And I walked inside, I said, I'm here to check in. They said, Sir, we don't have a reservation for you. I said, What? He said, Yeah. I said, Well, I have a reservation right here. And he drove me, and it wasn't quite as beautiful. I'm gonna tell you, right after that moment when I said I do, the real world hit us. And when I was thinking, oh, it's smooth sailing from here, little did I know there was a lot of work involved. And here we are 33 years later. I'm so thankful to say, this year I learned if you want a great marriage, you gotta work for a great marriage. Why don't you lean over and tell your neighbor, you gotta work for it? And the one you've been ignoring all day, just look back at them and just say, I need this more than you need this. I believe God wants to move through this series and specifically for marriages, but I am just proclaiming in all relationships that God wants to, on the way as we experience this most divinely connected year ever, that God wants to restore relationships. He wants to restore marriages, he wants to revive marriages, he wants to reignite the passion and the flame inside of marriages. And I think about it, we've been working this week on uh on the boilers which are which heat this building, and I'd say they're all those boilers are older than all of us. There's not one of you in here that is younger than the boilers we have in this building. So it takes a lot of work. But one thing it does require, with all the work it takes, there is a pilot. It is a small flame that stays lit continually. And that flame, as long as it's lit, when there is a spark from the electricity that is telling that uh burner to turn on, that flame has to be there, that little pilot. And what I'm believing in this series for your marriage is that pilot light is gonna be strengthened, it's gonna it's gonna burn even brighter, even hotter. And for those of you that are in the room, that God's about to do something very, very powerful and change your marriage. But listen to this a marriage won't change until you change something in the marriage. It's like that old saying if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you already have. And the reality is we need to work at this together, and we want to give you tools. That's why I'm so fired up about this series. I'm I'm fired up about the opportunity, it presents itself to change our marriages, to move us forward. And it's it's incredible because here we are 33 years later, and I can honestly say I love her more today than I did on that day standing at the aisle. And and here we are, 30, not perfect marriage, bumps and bruises. You heard the first day after marriage. I mean, all the things that could go wrong have gone wrong, but honestly, together we've made it. I'm so thankful we've made it together. And you may be saying, Well, I hope we can make it 33 years. Some of you might be hoping for three years right now. You might be hoping for 70 years. You might just be like, I just hope we stay together. The reality is, hope is not a strategy. You have to declare something and then move forward in obedience, in action, in putting it into uh play for your life. And James 2.17 says this in the same way, faith by itself, it is not accompanied. If it is not accompanied by action, it is dead. Faith and hope go together. So you can't just hope your way into something better. You've got to act into it. We used to say, even if you don't feel like it, you've got to act like it. So my goal is there's three groups of people, I believe, here today. Number one, you have a great marriage already, and I high-five you for that. And if you have a great marriage, my prayer is this series is gonna elevate your marriage to a level you did not think possible. Maybe you're struggling in your marriage and it's difficult, and you're in a season of friction, and man, a little bickering and fighting back and forth. My prayer for you is that in this series, something will be restored and healed and changed. And then finally, for all of the single people in the room, I almost said all the single ladies, but for all the single people in the room, you uh you you this is for you. Even though we're talking about married couples, this is for you because I believe through this series, whether you're single as a young adult, you're you're you're single because of divorce or widowed, but I believe, and maybe you want to be married again someday, or those of you who are single, you aim to be married someday. My prayer for you is that you receive this word and you put it in writing and as a playbook for your life. What you could save yourself by enacting these principles when you go into a relationship, you could save yourself so much trouble. Not that it's gonna be easy, but you could save yourself trouble. So I'm praying you get the playbook in this. So remember last week our declaration was this this year, with God's help and the power of the Holy Spirit, I declare, I will seek God first. God will be my first priority, and my spouse will be my second. Which is contrary sometimes to public opinion, or like, oh no, it's the spouse first, it's the spouse first. And some of you are like, it's the kids first, it's the kids first. But the reality is it has to be God first. You don't get a godly marriage unless God is first. So the second declaration is this. Are you ready? I'm gonna give it to you, and then at the end of the service, we'll declare it together. This year, with God's help and the power of the Holy Spirit, I declare I will intentionally pursue my spouse. Familiarity breeds complacency, complacency leads to decay. So I will fight complacency with an intentional plan. That is the declaration, because I know it's crazy that you that this would happen, but in marriage and in all relationships, there there's this thing that causes us to drift. We have busy schedules. Some days I'm out before Ashana is out, and I'm running and I get home late, or she gets home late, or we just have all these things to do. And when we had kids, it was all the things with the kids and all of that, and can we just catch our breath? And then we realize we wake up, we're like, how did we get here? And you might be in a spot where you're like, I don't even know if we're gonna make it. And the reality is that this the space is so real, and I'm gonna tell you why we have that drift in relationships, why we have that drift in marriages is because we are crazy intentional about what we don't have. When I was looking for my first motorcycle when we moved here, man, I man, that's all I did after all the work was done, dinner was done, kids were in bed. I just opened up and started looking through page after page of sale ads, motorcycle, motorcycle, all over. And I would take the twins with me, and we would drive across town. And we didn't really know Chicago very well, so a lot of times I went the wrong way, and we would take long trips all over town, all the way up north, all the way out west, and we'd look at the motorcycle and I'd look back at the twins and they'd go. They were like, I think they finally just said, just pick this one so we don't have to do this anymore. We have to drive with you every time. I'm like, yeah, it's a service to your mother for you to not be in the house right now. But the thing is, once we get it, then we settle. We become complacent. And complacency will lead to laziness. And Proverbs 24 says, a farmer too lazy to plant in the spring has nothing to harvest in the fall. Well, we're talking about farmers. No, we're not talking about farmers. The Lord challenged me in this as I was preparing for this message for me, and as I was reading scripture, I started reading scripture through the lens of married couples. And I realized if a farmer is too lazy to plant in the spring, he will have no harvest in the fall. It is the same thing. If you're too lazy to pursue your spouse, you're not gonna have a great marriage. You just can't fall into a great marriage. It takes intentional, intentional pursuit. And and by the way, it's easy to drift, it's easy to be complacent, but what other area of your life can you be so complacent and still expect it to be so successful? I mean, think about work. I dare you to not call the boss and tell him you're not gonna be in. I dare you just spend a few days and do whatever you want and not communicate with your boss. You're not gonna get promoted, you're gonna get demoted. It's called you're fired. Your body. You can't just, I mean, you can eat whatever you want, not do anything, not be active, but you're not gonna be, you're not gonna be doing that very long. And and you're not gonna have a six-pack. And you're like, oh, I got a keg, baby. I know it's it's not. It's not the same. It's not the same. You gotta take care of your body. And what about driving? When you're 16, I got my license, man. It was 10 o'clock, two o'clock, eye on the road, hands on the wheel, music medium loud, driving, knowing, like careful, careful, speed limit, careful. Drive for two weeks. Man, two in two o'clock and ten o'clock. I don't need that. I just put the lean on, turn the music up louder. For me in my day, pretend phone to talk in. Why? Because you get complacent, you get comfortable and you get lazy. Like if you're driving, you're not gonna take your hands off the wheel and lay the seat back and take a nap and just uh we'll get there somehow, some way we'll get there. No, you're gonna get an accident. Of course, unless you have an autonomous driving car. But let me tell you, there are no autonomous driving marriages. You gotta you gotta pay attention. You gotta stay in it, stay working. And so that leads us. If your marriage is in a wreck, I would say it's probably because you've taken your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road. And you've gotten preoccupied with other pay other spaces and other people and other other ideas. Listen, I'm get your eye back on the road. Put your hands back on the wheel. And let's focus and let's be intentional in our marriages. Look at our key verse for this series. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Again, I told you last week that four times the scripture is repeated through uh the Bible. It's an important scripture. But look at this one word in here. It's so powerful. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united. Everybody say united. I love the Hebrew language because the Hebrew language is such that you don't just get a definition, you typically get a word picture. It's almost more of a phrase for what the word means than just uh uh the dictionary to tell you what it means. You get a picture, a word picture of what it means. And that word united in Hebrew is debak. And debak in its original and in it's got two meanings. The first meaning is this to cling, to cleave, to hold, to be glued together. So here's the word picture. It's it's to be have the closeness in a marriage that everyone desires. Uh one one one uh as I was reading through some of the Bible study helps, I read one in an interesting word picture. It's like the scales uh of a fish that are like you you just they're you don't know where they start and where they end almost. It's just they're right there, and that's that's how close a marriage. That's how we desire our marriage to be that close. But the second part of the meaning of debac is this to pursue, to hold on to, and to catch by pursuit. Meaning the closeness everyone desires in a marriage requires intentional pursuit of your spouse. So you might be sitting there going, well, PC, we don't have a pursuit problem. You know, we we don't have a pursuit problem, there's no way. We just we've just fallen out of love. And I tell people that's that's that is honestly when I pastor, when I counsel couples, that's one of the first things they'll say, well, I guess we just fell out of love. And my my challenge is this that love is not an emotion. Five hundred and for one times in the New Testament, love is an action word, it's a verb. So you don't you don't fall in and out of love. What's happened is you fall in and out of acting lovingly. Got lazy. So I want to help you to be intentional. Number one, to be intentional in your marriage. Number one, focus on your gaps and not theirs. Meaning, husbands or wives, as you're sitting by each other, you're not thinking, oh, I'm so glad we're here, so he can hear this. He needs this. God, he needs this. Matthew 7, 5, Jesus said, Why are you so concerned about the speck in somebody else's eye when you have an entire log out of your eye? See, see, you're not going to change anyone in your marriage except for you. Oh, I'm a change. Oh, we're gonna I tell couples all the time, when you get married, you will not change the person you're marrying. But you can change. You can change. And you have to you have to lean in because you you have to you have to invest in this time to be intentional, to be intentional. So focus on on your gaps and not theirs. Mark 10, 45, Jesus came not to be served, but to serve. So that shows us the second, uh, the second area is this. The second point is this. First, you have to be intentional, you have to what? You have to focus on your gaps and not theirs. Number two, you have to learn how to serve. So listen, you have to learn how to serve. And what I believe is we we sometimes get things out of alignment because we we know God's word says the husband is the head of the house. Well, that doesn't mean he's the domineering head. That doesn't mean he's the jerk in the head. That that doesn't mean that doesn't mean he he just like whatever he says goes. Single people, single young adults, listen, remember this. When you get married, you don't work all day and then get home and you just go sit on the couch and prop your feet up and expect your wife to cook, to have the house clean, to have taken care of all the kids. You gotta learn how to serve. In fact, Jesus, the strongest person in the room, knelt on his knees with a towel and washed feet. And Jesus is the example of the groom to the bride, which is the church. So even though you've worked all day long, guess what? So has your spouse. And if she doesn't go into an office and work hours there, she is working at home. I don't know who taught me this, but I learned when the when the kids were young, I learned like my best time coming home was to help with the bath in the bedtime. Man, we got four kids. It's not because I love kids. That's a lot of bath time. So, but I I that was my time. And then I would get them in bed, and then I would say, man. That is so amazing that you helped me that way. That's thank you. I said, Oh yeah. It's my pleasure. And then years later it changed. It went from doing the bath time at night. Now they're older, they could take care of themselves. Now I was responsible for the morning time. And then I I handle that time. And now they they live their own lives, and they come in and tell us what they're doing and ask, they're so polite to ask, can we go do this? I'm like, you don't have to do that. You're you're a young adult now. You can do it. Just let us know who you're just let us know you're still alive. That's all. But now I'll change, like I'll empty the dishwasher. And I know, I know that gets her. So sometimes I'll just clang dishes around. She thinks I'm emptying the dishwasher. But you gotta learn how to serve. The question, the homework for this week, for you to ask your spouse this week is how do you want to be served? Because how I think she wants to be served may not be right. Like every time I walk through the kitchen, I pat her on the little on the behind a little bit. I'm like, hey baby, I pat her. Maybe that's not how she wants to be pursued. You gotta ask, how do you want to be pursued? Let me help you as your pastor. Here's the thing, ladies. I'm gonna talk to you first. Guys, the general rule, and it's joked about often, the general rule is that guys' number one need in life is physical touch. Thank you. One honest man in the room. Y'all are like me. For married men. But let me tell you that that's that is that is important, and on the list it would rank right up there. But I'm gonna tell you what's more important, ladies, is affirmation. For you to affirm your husband. Because I will say this most men, most of us, and I'm included in this, most of us are more insecure about things than we let on. In fact, sometimes we overcompensate with a real, a real confident attitude when inside we're wondering, how am I gonna get through this? What am I gonna do about this? And ladies, you can build your man up or you can bring him down by what you say. And if you'll learn how to affirm what he is and where he's going, rather than focusing on the trap of what he is not. You don't want to say it. You don't want to say, well, my husband's not this, he's not a leader, he's not spiritual, he's not all of this. Listen, don't say the negative out loud. Don't say, if it's negative, bring it to the altar and lay it down and leave it there. There's no waste at the altar. But begin to affirm who he is and where he's going. Baby, I love it when you gather us at the table. When you sit down with us at the table, I love it, man. That really that that turns me on when you do that. Baby, when you just take the trash out and I didn't have to say anything, that's amazing. How you keep the yard so nice, I don't know how you keep lines in the grass, but you do it. Wow. Find something. Find something to affirm. And you will build your husband up. And and I promise you, if you're not affirming him, somebody is. Philippians 2 says this. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility. Value others above yourselves and not look into your own interest, but each of you to the interests of the other. So that is just God's word for us. To humble ourselves as a husband and a wife, and give the very best we can to serve the one that's by our side. You see. Take the trash out, empty the dishwasher. Like put the kids in the bath, you take the you take that shift, whatever it is. But it's it's it is that act without expecting anything in return. Because how many know, guys, we're like this? Or Sean will come in and say, hey, the light came out of my car, it needs the oil change. Oh, I'll change your oil, baby. Oh, hey, could you go? I left some bags in the car. Can you unload the carpet? Oh, I'll get I got you, baby. I mean, it's just it's in our nature to do that, but the reality is, like, probably what your spouse, what your wife wants most is non-sexual affection. Man, we're having a retreat in a couple of weeks in February. We have so many great things that we're gonna be sharing with you. I don't I don't even want to give it away, but I just get excited about sharing some of these ways that you can be practical in serving one another. And if you need help, there's a book by Gary Chapman called The Five Love Languages. And you should get that book and read that book together and talk about what it means to each of you, and then ask at the end of the book, how do you want to be pursued? All right, so those are the first two things. Number three, don't leave it to chance. If you're gonna be intentional, you you gotta have a plan. It's not just gonna happen. So don't leave it to chance. And I'm gonna give you three things quickly. We're just gonna fly through these, and guys, you can come up so we can close. Are you ready? Here we go. Number one, encourage each other daily. Daily encourage each other. Hebrews 13, 3 says this, but encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. Listen, sin wants to get into your marriage and tear it apart. Because marriage is such a model of Christ's love for his church, it is one of the strongest and the healthiest things that can happen in our community. Not the only thing, but one of the things that makes a strong community are strong marriages. You don't have to preach me down on that, but it is the word and it is the truth. And what I know is this that sin wants to get into your marriage and tear it down. But if you'll start encouraging each other every single day, you're gonna build a wall of protection. My parents used to say it this way, a hedge of protection. And you're saying, well, I mean, you just encourage. I look I've been this series has me excited, but I try to really be an encourager every single day, and Ursana will come down and say, Baby, you look beautiful. You look great. I love that. Is that a new dress? And I'm I probably ask that, is that a new dress every time she wears something? She's like, I wore this, or no, or sometimes it's yeah. And I'm like, man, it's amazing. You look great. I want to be an encourager. The way you lead, the way you sing, the way you do that. I love it. You're a great mom. Just words to encourage and to build up. And as you build each other up, encouraging each other daily, you're building a wall of protection. He said it's so mundane, it just seems so so so minimal. But the reality is mundane encouragements over time build mountains of connection. The second thing you have to do, so you're gonna encourage daily. Number two, I'm gonna encourage you to date weekly. Go on a date with your spouse weekly. Now, it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be fancy, but it has to be consistent. When we were dating, think about this, when you're dating your spouse that you're married to, Orshawn and I, when we were dating, we did, man, we, it didn't matter what time of day it was, if there was a moment for us to be able to get together and have a lunch or have a rip beer float or hang out, we we were like, whatever we have to do, I'll go all the other ways to do it. I will find, I will track down, I will I will stop my schedule. So, and and then we get married and we're like, oh, that was great for that, but we don't have to do that anymore. Yes, you do. Be creative. It doesn't have to be expensive, but make it consistent. You don't have to be perfect, make it consistent. Here's a quote from last year's series that I put into this year's series. Successful marriages do consistently what average marriages do occasionally. So be consistent. And then finally, the last one escape yearly. Escape yearly. What do you mean, PC? I mean you and your spouse leave the house, go somewhere, a hotel, an Airbnb, something without the kids. Without the kids. You don't need you don't need to take your kids on every trip. You escape yearly. You say, well, no, no, I my kids need me home every single day. No, your kids need to see the two of you pursuing each other. Your kids need to know they're not the center of this marriage. God's first, and then you are committed to each other second. They're down a little bit lower. They're important, and we love them. But guess what? In 18 years or so, they're gonna be moving out, and what are you gonna be left with? You won't even know who you're married to if you don't get intentional. Encourage daily, date weekly, escape yearly. This is one thing my wife and I we've done fairly well. Get away. Get away. Somebody will take care of the kids. In the dating side, when we moved here, as far as dating weekly, when we moved here to Oak Park, we didn't know anybody. We have four kids, Ethan's 11, the twins are four at the time, and we didn't know anybody. And I'll never forget, I was like, it's got to be February nearing our anniversary. I was like, baby, I I think we need to we need to be able to go on a date. We need to be able to go out for our anniversary. And she's like, Yeah, we do, we do, but what are we gonna do about the kids? I was like, is there anybody? Do we know it? We didn't know anybody in town. No, no, we're a few weeks into living here. And one of the ladies, Arshana had met, said, Well, I'll send my I'll send my babysitter, and we're like, great, send her. She showed up, she introduced herself, we got her phone number. We are so excited, we left, we drove down to the restaurant, we're sitting there. I was like, hey, what's the name of that babysitter again? Arshana's like, I don't know. I was like, me neither, I don't care. I just hope our kids are there when we get back. We needed a date. Get out of that house. Look what Jesus challenges the church of Ephesus with. He says, You don't love, you don't love me or each other the way you did. And he's speaking now to the Church of Ephesus, who had stepped away from loving God and each other, and he says, This look how far you've fallen. Turn back to me and do what? Do the works you did at first. This week we've been praying through reconciliation as a church to reconcile our city, our nation, the world, reconcile our lives, our families. So powerful. But as we've been praying through that, I've I I I've been listening to everyone, and I just want to tell you, reconciliation is to bring the account back to zero when everything was great. It's like whatever, all the everything that went out, everything that came in, we just we look at it, we we balance that checkbook out and bring the working number back to zero. Outside of what you've saved and all of that, but it goes to it should go back to zero. And that's what reconciliation is, and I think that's what needs to happen in some of your marriages. Listen, you can't unchange what's happened in the past. You cannot undo what's been done. But from this moment forward, you can make a declaration and you can change. Listen, you can change you. It's not up to your spouse, it's up to you. It's up to you to change, it's up to you to be intentional. It's up to you to decide. Jimmy Evans said this. He said, Great marriages take great work. So you ready? Let's all stand together. Let's let's make the declaration. Ready to be intentional. All right. Here we go. Ready? Here we go. This year, with God's help and the power of the Holy Spirit, I declare I will intentionally pursue my spouse. Familiarity breeds complacency. Complacency leads to decay. So I will fight complacency with an intentional plan. Amen. Can you receive that word?