[SPEAKER_00]: But first Wednesday, it's a chance for me to talk about all things home and the relationships within that home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we want our homes to be this place of refuge.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want it to be like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Refuge from the storm, a place of peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we have to build that into our homes year after year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if we don't do that, it remains just another war zone.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want the home again to be a place from the war zone, but if we don't build into it one brick at a time over the years, it won't be that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of when you go to a, if you ever see someone's garage and the garage is so well ordered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like everything has a bin, everything has a hook and a hanger, and it's so clean, you can probably eat off the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to know someone is tending that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone is really meticulously tending that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And keep it in order garage is much easier than building your home, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I give you that example because I want you to understand that upkeep is necessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: A wonderful home environment is something that we continually work on.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just doesn't happen overnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: And oftentimes we can get discouraged, but it happens little by little as we are pressing into the environment with things of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I want to talk about tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last month, if you were here, we talked about the goal of every relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal of every relationship is to complete each other in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's a friend, whether it's a sibling, a spouse, your goal is to complete them in their faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: Doing whatever you can to make them more Christ like.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not relationships are not for you to get your love tank filled up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have the best opportunity to fill that thing if you get your mind off of yourself and onto others without expecting anything in return.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really that principle found in Acts chapter 20 verse 35 that it's more blessed to give than receive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to find
[SPEAKER_00]: the secret of that, because it is so true.
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as you are thinking about it's got to be even, perfectly even, the reality is, it never feels even.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels always like you're the one giving more.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're the one thinking you're giving more that you're probably not, but, so you just be careful, it's more blessed to give, so keep giving.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the greatest thing is, over time, blessings are going to come wave after wave, especially in relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I want to talk about tonight is the subject that probably should have went first.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can I find satisfaction in the relationships?
[SPEAKER_00]: How can I enjoy my closest relationships to the fullest?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the answer to that is, only by being satisfied
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, some of you go, that's the churchiest answer I have ever heard in my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's so true, it is so true and I mean every bit of it, restlessness, discontentment is a destructive force in the home, in the marriage, in the family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you're going to have unrealistic expectations upon everyone in your home, which they cannot fulfill.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can bring a satisfied heart, contented heart into the home, it is going to have life giving principles a day after day, month after month after year.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just going to change the atmosphere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always, you know, my dad was a lot of great things, but what he did though that was really hard, he brought all of the pressures of life and all his complaints home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that home was not a place I wanted to be if he was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just said to myself, I don't want to be that person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be that person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to give to my family just this life-giving that dad loves God, he loves,
[SPEAKER_00]: People, the relationship, and he loves life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that gets down to the core of being satisfied with Christ first.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's something you nurture.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something you nurture deep within.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is, let me read the passage.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's found in Hebrews chapter 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: So go to Hebrews chapter 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was chapter 13, starting with verse 4 and going to verse 6, and it gets right at marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, marriage isn't the only relationship in the home, but it is the key relationship in the home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let marriage be held in honor among all, let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and the adulteress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: For he said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not fear what can man do to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's my question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I probably asked you this before, but as you think through your own life, your own soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would people say that you're a boat anchor in the home, always pulling people down, or are you life-giving?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you make everyone in the home care you, lift you out of a funk, lift you into a happy state?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you make everybody else do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you a grumbling person?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you could multiply your attitude in the home, with the home be better, or worse, if it was just you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you have to take responsibility for you, for your soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has effect in the entire home, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: No one is trying to be grumpy.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one tries to be grumpy, trying to be depressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the default mode when you're not
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm often shocked to learn how long Christians will let themselves stay in a grumpy state.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like how long they will stay in that grumpy state.
[SPEAKER_00]: Often they feel like they have a right to stay there because they're monthly cycle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their body doesn't feel well.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's financial problems, extended family problems, financial problems, children upbehaving, and their spouses asking too much of them, again, all of these are trials, no doubt.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you don't move your shoulder a better place, your attitude will be corrosive, like battery acid in the home.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just have to understand that so you take responsibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can create this environment where everything grows and is healthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like it's always like Disneyland.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, my home is not like Disneyland the whole time, all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it is work, it is always work, but you just don't stay in this grumpy spirit because all it's going to do is pull everyone down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone has to take responsibility for the home, especially mom and dad, especially in the marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and certainly, I would say, certainly you don't expect everything to be given to you on a silver platter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life isn't like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stressors get newsflash.
[SPEAKER_00]: This will always be throughout your whole life.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's going to be stress throughout your whole life.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the only thing you get to choose is your attitude toward it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the only thing you get to choose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Will you honor the Lord in the trial?
[SPEAKER_00]: by keeping your heart satisfied in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you go, well, what does this got to do with relationships and finding satisfaction?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the key to finding satisfaction in relationship is finding it ultimately in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And related to that, it is finding satisfaction in our daily grind in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: they interact.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you see a grumbling heart down at the bottom of it is a pity party.
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't get what you were hoping for.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when a relationship is strained and you're in a funk because of it, it's often a pity party.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't do what you wanted them to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have created more work for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They disappointed you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Newsflash, they will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every relationship will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone, now because romance is intoxicating, the expectation of marriage is high, too high at times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you're married to a sinner.
[SPEAKER_00]: a flawed person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I just want to look at Hebrews now for slow, for some help, for some help.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, here's point number one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep marriage and high esteem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this is the central relationship in the home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep marriage and high esteem.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see that in verse four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though you've married a sinner, who's going to hurt you sometimes,
[SPEAKER_00]: Marriage is to be revered and honored, honored.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, how do we do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you wanna foster an environment in your home that reveres marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: That your kids look at that and go, I can't wait to, I get married.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna be married someday.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, you don't have to have a perfect marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what they, they will see the normal sea of some things in your marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: But are you coming with a contented heart?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's going to be really key in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And keep, keep marriage and high esteem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch out what you say about your spouse in public.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because those who rip into their spouse publicly, they need to be flawed.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should not do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not keeping marriage in high esteem.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've got something against your spouse, you go to them personally.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't tell all your friends, you don't tell it in public, you don't have jokes about marriage, and it just...
[SPEAKER_00]: Deplore the marriage and the marriage vows keep it in high esteem, speak of it with honor Because what you're doing is create an atmosphere in your home, and I want that in our church Where the people growing up at Redeemer, they can't wait to get married Like It's not a great advertisement these days because people and you wonder why they're waiting so long.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's because
[SPEAKER_00]: Oftentimes, they don't hear a lot of good things about marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just avoid jokes that tear down the respectability of marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Marriage is in the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sin is.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's two centers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sin is a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would just say, OK, so single focus, you're not being married.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would just say to you, resist the urge of being annoyed when a preacher talks about marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I have to speak about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm gonna raise up the honor and reverence for marriage as God has asked me to do, I have to speak about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we all have to learn how to rejoice in another person's gain without envy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all contending our hearts with what God has given to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep marriage and high esteem.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you keep an honorable attitude toward marriage and you speak of it in honor, it's going to help shape your soul in satisfaction in the relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's training your heart to think about it differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are obedient steps of faith that will benefit the home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, not immediately, you're going to create an atmosphere and a culture which takes time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep marriage and high esteem, and number two,
[SPEAKER_00]: keep sex sanctified."
[SPEAKER_00]: I said it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep sex sanctified.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 4 says, keeping the marriage bed undefiled.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is talking about sex.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the author is wanting monogamy, which is throughout the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless sin and death break the vow, you are to have one person for life.
[SPEAKER_00]: which means you have to find satisfaction in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ultimately, as you wait to be married or while you're in marriage, you keep sex sanctified.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because boy, this is probably the hardest thing in the 21st century when you have everything that you're disposal that can ruin you on this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, sex is given and taken so casually, it's paraded in front of you on every TV movie, social media, you can have whatever you want, but keep in mind, God's attitude toward marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Deuteronomy 2222 says, if a man is found lying with a wife of another man, both of them shall die.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man who lay with the woman and the woman so shall you purge the evil from Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: A adultery is a capital offense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Boy, I mean, that is like light years from where we are now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a capital offense for the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: Further in that chapter, chapter 22 verses 28 and 29, listen to this, I know it's fraught with some things we'd have to explain, but listen to what it's saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: If a man meets a virgin who is not be-trothed and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman, 50 shackles of silver,
[SPEAKER_00]: And she shall be his wife because he has violated her.
[SPEAKER_00]: He may not divorce her all her days.
[SPEAKER_00]: The point that I'm trying to make is, premarital sex is treated as the consummation of the marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not recreation.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were to marry.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they were found, sleeping with one another, having sex before marriage, they were to move this couple together and get a married for life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that's what God thinks about sex.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what He designed it for.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the glue for this relationship to stay all throughout life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if that be the case, men, I mean, no sex outside of marriage, avoid everything that fires the engines.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, if you're married, don't act like you're not by flirting or roaming eyes and other things that will get you off track.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what it's doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's making you dissatisfied with the spouse or your future spouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's making you dissatisfied.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you need to work very hard to be satisfied and cry so that you can be satisfied in your marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep sex sanctified.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're going to have deeply satisfying marriages, it requires spirit and power to self-control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Women, your heart has to be committed to one man,
[SPEAKER_00]: And anything that fuels dissatisfaction in the heart has to be avoided, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like for the man, it needs to be avoided.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just some of the things I think about is perhaps romance novels that get you off into fantasy land or romance movies that can move your heart in a wrong direction if you're not careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just have to be careful because storybook men are far more interesting than the common type.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because those guys, they have the perfect word, they look perfect, they say the right things, they're tender, hard, they're not off on Lala Land, thinking about something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, they're perfect, but that is not realistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, if you are to be a satisfied with your man, you can't wish for something else or someone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to be very careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: and keep your spouse at the center of your earthly affections so that you keep sex sanctified.
[SPEAKER_00]: Practical?
[SPEAKER_00]: Also how you present to your spouse, like men, your own groom yourself a little bit, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Clean up, get a haircut, stop wearing the grunge clothes and dress up sometimes for her sake.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I mean, think about what you did when you were dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were thinking about the other person.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't just stop when you get married.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should be working hard to love, to care, to be attractive, to the opposite to your spouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Women, same goes for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, presentable to your husband when you see him at the end of the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make some kind of effort.
[SPEAKER_00]: And both of you, you know, you should get in shape for your spouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should think about physical presentation, give attention to those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, they should love you regardless, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They should love you regardless, but it does help when you give some effort to these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: It communicates love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Self-love means, I don't care, we're married, it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Loving the other person says, well, let me think about it differently then.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, no one's gonna be, you know, this model look, no one is that, but you're just thinking about presenting yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep sex sanctified, which means you're trying as much you can to love your spouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the third one, finally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Satisfy your heart with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at first five and six again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep your life free from the love of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you, no forsake you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can say confidently, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear, what can man do to me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, interesting that the author talks about sex and money here, probably the most powerful sources of pleasure and the greatest competition to satisfaction in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: These two sources have a power to destroy our relationships unless God is central to our satisfaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not money, not sex, God, and then the relationships don't get destroyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: With money, no one thinks, no one in this room thinks they love money too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guarantee no one thinks they do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the people who have no money, but yet love money, point to their lack of things as proof that they don't like, don't love money.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the people with a lot of money and have a lot of things, but love and love it too much, point to their heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: to prove that they don't love money too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like we have to be careful because we live in the land of plenty.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to watch over your heart brothers and sisters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And from this, we don't want to become the policeman of other people's spending habits, because the bottom line is our heart, our jealousy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch over your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, someone else is your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because restless, dissatisfied people are always looking for the next toy, the next purchase to cure boredom.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you understand how destructive that is to relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because contentment with what you have carries over into the relationships that you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, they're connected.
[SPEAKER_00]: A grumbling heart will always be in a place where I never have enough money.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have enough sex, and every relationship is not where I want it to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: through out their life, you have the power to change that through the power of the Holy Spirit, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: That has to start here being satisfied with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you saying, content with my rotten marriage John or content with my meager poor salary know, content with your great wealth?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I want you to be content with, because he himself said, I will never leave you and offer sake you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be content because you have me, God says, that's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be content because you have me, you have great wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're looking at the wrong things and you're being dissatisfied.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you bring that corrosive spirit into your home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be very careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that sounds like anti-climactic to you, that oh great, we have God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you need to realize something God wants to do more than save you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants to satisfy you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you are satisfied with him, when he does that, you will enjoy your relationships to the fullest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you have the capacity for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm going to end there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to put