0:00 Um, good afternoon everyone. We just heard from brother Sil about Jesus's attitude towards the temple, towards the church. And one of the things we saw in that picture of Jesus chasing out the money changers is he wants a pure 0:12 offering in the church. So let's start there. So please turn with me to Malachi 1 and verse 11. What is the type of offering that Jesus wants from us and from us as a church? Malachi 1 verse 11. 0:30 And I'll read it. It says, "For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, my name will be great among the nations. And in every place incense is going to be offered to my name, and a grain offering that is pure." And that's the 0:46 word I want to emphasize, pure. When we see that word pure being used in the Old Testament, it was used to, for example, describe the the the lamps that they were made in in the the tabernacle. It was made of pure gold. So imagine for 1:00 example gold that's 100% pure. Not a single trace of dirt, not a single trace of impurity. That is what it means to be pure. And that is the type of church that Jesus wants us to be. And we heard from this pulpit about two weeks ago a 1:15 tremendous challenge to our church. And the phrase that really stuck out to me from that that challenge was, "Will NCCF decline? What will happen to NCCF when Jesus comes back? What will he find in this church? Will he find a pure 1:29 offering? Or will he find a church that's backsliden and is no longer pure? And that's what I want to talk about today. And I believe that one of the most important areas for us as a church is our family life. Because when you 1:44 think about a church, the church is like building a house. And when you build a house, you use different bricks. And every brick, you could say, is a representation of every family unit. Yes, we have individual brothers and 1:55 sisters here, but largely this church, you could say, is made up of a family units of a father, of a mother and its children. And those are the bricks that is used to build up a church. And if those bricks are strong, if those family 2:08 units are strong, then the church will be strong. But if those family units are weak, then the church will be weak. And so that's what I want to emphasize today as we think about Jesus coming back one day and our desire that NCCF should be a 2:22 pure church that Jesus should find when he comes back. What is really important is that family life and we have a really strong marriage. That is something that could be very pleasing to the Lord. So I want to show you this picture here. So 2:34 tech team, if you could pull up the the first image and what you see here is a picture of two houses. And I want to ask you take a look and see if you can find a difference between these two houses. Okay. >> Yeah. So, so yes. 3:03 >> Okay. >> Okay. Yeah. Very good. So, the plants are a little different. You could say even the pattern of the bricks might be a little bit different, but largely I would say these houses are basically the same. It's got a door, two windows, you 3:18 got a chimney, got a roof. It's basically the same. And I feel like this is a picture of us as a church full of different families in a sense that we all believe the same doctrine. We all have the same doctrine. We have the same 3:30 uh beliefs. We come to the same uh church service. We do a lot of things that from an external perspective you could say looks very much the same. Now, tech team, if you go to the second picture, what I'll ask is, what if we 3:41 took an X-ray and we look through the walls of that home, what would we see? Okay, and this is the difference that I want to emphasize. And you can see here the home on the left, there's a couple, they're having dinner, they're smiling, 3:54 having a good time, laughing with each other. And then you have another couple on the right, and they're they're fighting. And my fear is that when we look at us as a church and we look at the different family units, I don't know 4:06 what goes on in every family unit, but if Jesus were to come and he were to do that X-ray into every single family, what would he see? If we have 20 families in NCCF, would it be mostly the families on the right or would we have 4:19 mostly families on on the left? And so that's why when we say we want NCCF to be a pure church, that marriage, that family relationship is really, really important. And so what I want to share today are some key biblical principles 4:35 that's important for a Christian marriage. I mean, we all strive towards to be like that family on the left because that would be the family that pleases the Lord. So the first principle I want to share today is that Christ 4:47 must be first in our marriage. Before we start talking about the the husband and the wife relationships, the first thing that's really important is that Jesus must be in the center because that's foundation for a Christian marriage. So 5:01 tech team, if you go to the next slide real quick, this is a picture that I I had a version of this at my wedding actually. So this is a picture of Jesus walking with his disciples on the road to Emmas. And it's a beautiful picture about the way our 5:17 Christian life should be. The Jesus should be in the middle and then you have the husband and the wife talking to each other. And that is I would say the way it should be. But what happens that over time things can can change. And 5:30 what can happen is if you look at this picture, maybe in the future there's a a baby that pops up and then another kid that pops up and then the family's having a good time and they just keep on walking and then just imagine Jesus 5:41 maybe he took a break and he stopped but the family is having such a good time that Jesus is left in the back and the the people just keep on walking down the road. And if you imagine that for a second, that can happen in a marriage. 5:52 That can happen in a family where you start off with Jesus in the center. But then after a while, Jesus is no longer first and Jesus gets kind of left behind in in the back. And that is the thing we must be very careful about that I felt 6:05 challenged about as well that if we really want a Christian marriage, Jesus must be first in in our marriage. And I want to share from our reading in Matthew to illustrate this. So, if you could turn with me to Matthew chapter 25 6:19 and text him, you can go to the uh the next picture. This is the story of the the 10 virgins. And I'll just summarize it really quick is that these 10 virgins were about to meet their bridegroom for a wedding. And one of the things that 6:37 they did there in those days is they had lamps. They didn't have flashlights, but they had lamps. And in those lamps, they put in oil. And what happened was that this bridegroom was a little bit late in coming to the wedding. And so those 6:50 ladies on the right, you'll notice that they ran out of oil and they don't have a a light anymore. But then the ladies on the left, you can see that their lamps were lit. And what was the difference? The difference was that the 7:02 ladies on the left, they had this flask in their extra hand and that was the extra oil that they had so that their lights kept on uh or kept on being lit. And so what is the crux of this this parable? And for me the main point about 7:16 this parable is that this happened because the bridegroom was delayed. Now if the bridegroom came on time, it's quite possible that all 10 of these these these virgins were able to go into the the wedding. But what happened was 7:29 that the bridegroom was delayed and he was late. And because he was late, that exposed the fact that there were some believers, you could say, that had this light and some people that that did not. And these p these believers, you could 7:44 say, these virgins are pictures of believers, you could say, that believe in Jesus because they're not worshiping idols. They're virgins. They're waiting for the bridegroom. But the difference is that some of them, they lost that 7:55 that love for Jesus. And that is the the warning for me because if we were to look at our Christian life and we say, "Hey, what is from the beginning of my Christian life to let's say the first week, we can say all of us maybe we're 8:08 in a very similar state where we're excited for the Lord and we wanted to to follow the Lord and we loved him." But then if we look one year from there and then 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, you could have a group of believers, but the 8:20 type of believers at the end of those 20 years could be very different. Some of those believers could have maybe lost that love for Jesus like they had on the right and others for example might be like the left and their lights kept on 8:31 shining and shining for the Lord. And so that was one thing that really had challenged me because I've noticed that it's very easy to be wholehearted for the Lord so to speak when you're single. There's less distractions but then you 8:43 get married and then you have kids and then it just life gets very very busy. So in the midst of that busyness, what happens? Do we remember Jesus? Do we want to spend time with him? For example, one thing I noticed is that for 8:57 myself, I love my kids. And one way I show that I love my kids is I try to spend time with them. So even though work gets busy, um I try to spend some time with them after work before they they go to bed. And I want to ask 9:09 myself, Lord, in the midst of the busyiness, do I have that same desire to spend some time with you? Now, you might not be able to sit down and read the Bible for for hours, but at least do I have that heart, that desire, Lord, I 9:19 want to spend some time with you even in the midst of a busy day. Those are marks that we can look at to see, Lord, has my love for you grown cold or not? And so, that's the first challenge I want to say to everybody that if we want a Christian 9:31 marriage, the most important thing is that Christ must be in the center and that we need to preserve that love that he has uh we preserve that love that we have for him. So, that's number one. The second principle I want to share and 9:44 tech team you can put that down. Thank you. The second uh principle I want to share is the importance of leaving and cleaving. And so the question I want to ask everybody is what is the first command that God gave after the first 9:59 wedding? Okay. What is the first command that God gave after the first wedding? And so please turn with me to Genesis. Okay, chapter 2 and verse 24. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24. Okay, this is the first 10:21 command. So this is after Adam meets Eve. And the first thing God says there is a command. Chapter 2 vers 24. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And so, this 10:40 whole idea of leaving father and mother and joining or cleaving to his wife is something that's so important that God mentioned it right after that first wedding. But unfortunately, it's something that a lot of marriages, even 10:53 Christian marriages, I would say, ignore. And if we're not careful about that, it can cause a lot of problems in our in our marriage. And basically what this means is it doesn't mean that we don't love our parents. It doesn't mean 11:04 we don't take care of them. We still take care of them. We can call them, spend time with them. But the key point here is that emotionally we should be detached from our parents, especially in the area of making decisions. And so for 11:17 example, in the area of raising kids, one thing I've noticed after being married and having kids is that the grandparents have a lot of opinions and ideas like, "Hey, you should do this for your kids, you should do that for your 11:27 kids." And some of it is good, but some of it I would say is maybe not the way we want to go as a family as Christians. And so the question is what do we do in those cases? Do we allow the grandparents to influence us or do we 11:40 say no, we want to go this way of of Jesus? And this is an area we must take seriously because ultimately the decisions that we take as a family should be between the husband and the wife. They are the primary decision makers and not the influence of our of 11:55 our of our parents. And so I want to share two practical things that have helped me in this area as I'm still learning about this. The first is we should have an attitude where we want to honor not just our parents but to honor 12:08 our in-laws as well, our father-in-law, our mother-in-law to have that attitude. Say, "Lord, I want to respect them even though their ideas might be different, even though I might not agree, but in my heart, I want to say I respect them and 12:21 I want to value what they they say." And one thing I've noticed is that even though the ideas might be different, I've noticed that a lot of times when my parents speak, uh Crystal's parents speak, it's all out of love. They mean 12:32 well for us. Even though the maybe values might be different, but they mean well. And so I can honor them and I can respect them. And the other thing that has really helped me in this area is that when we have a conflict, if there 12:44 has to be a decision that needs to be taken, one thing that I found that's very helpful is it's good for the son to talk to the son's parents and it's good for the um the wife to talk to the wife's parents. And the reason is 12:57 because let's say for example, we take a decision on something and I have to speak to my parents about it. It's much easier for me to speak to my parents about it. They might be unhappy with me or whatever, but at the end of the day, 13:08 I'm still their son. They can't hate me. I'm their only son. They're going to love me no matter what, but it's quite different if my wife goes and speaks to my parents because then that could cause, for example, strain in that that 13:18 relationship between my wife and and my parents. So, that's the other thing that's really helpful for me that whenever we have to speak to our parents, let the the son or the daughter speak to her own own parents. But I just 13:29 want to ask everyone let's remember to keep this principle in mind leaving and cleaving and that ultimately the decisions we must take should be between the husband and wife and not because of um what our parents say. The third 13:43 principle I want to talk about is to seek for a home of peace. This is something that's so important in a a Christian marriage. So please turn with me to Luke chapter 10 and verse 5. Luke chapter 10 and verse 5. And so the context of this story is that 14:01 Jesus is sending some of his disciples out and he's telling them, "Hey, go to these different cities and do do miracles, preach, help others." And what's really interesting is what Jesus says about the type of home that these 14:16 disciples were to to stay in. And you notice that Jesus didn't say to the disciples, "Hey, go find a home that has an extra bedroom. Go find a home that's really big. Go find a home where the food is really good." He doesn't say any 14:27 of those things. What does he say? [snorts] Look at verse 5. Whatever house you enter, first say peace, okay? To this house. And if a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him. But if not, it will return to you. So the most 14:45 important thing that Jesus looks for in a house is peace. And that is the type of home that Jesus wanted his disciples to stay in. So a good question that we can ask ourselves is if Jesus were coming to if we were living in that time 15:00 and Jesus was coming, would Jesus stay in our house? That's a good question for us to ask ourselves. Would Jesus stay in our house? Because there's so much lack of peace in so many marriages. And that's why Jesus says, "If we can find a 15:15 house of peace, stay there. Don't go anywhere else. It's hard to find another place that has peace, but stay there when there's a house of peace." because Satan wants to destroy our marriage and I want to show you this this picture um 15:27 texting me to pull it up. This is something that welcomed me when I I came home from work uh the other week. So, I got home from work and this is right outside my garage and I saw this little guy looking at me, okay? [laughter] And 15:38 it was a snake. And then afterwards, I noticed that he was looking at me and not only was he a snake, but then he started to rattle and I was like, "Oh my, this is the a rattlesnake." So, I've never seen a rattlesnake in my entire 15:50 life, let alone in my garage looking at me. So, thankfully, we were able to take care of it and everything was fine. But this was a picture for me of, "Wow, Lord, this is what Satan wants to do to my home." And if I were to say, "Hey, 16:04 this rattlesnake is going to come through your garage, going to come to your home." What would you do? I'm sure a lot of you would say, "No way. There's no rattlesnakes. I'm going to board up everything and make sure this snake does 16:14 not come in." I'm sure all of you would say that. But yet when we say, "Hey, Satan might come in through your home." Yet people are, "Oh, it's okay. It's okay. It's just it's just Satan. I'm more scared about the snake, but ah 16:25 Satan, it's okay if he he comes in home." That is the danger, brothers and sisters, that we must be watchful for. When practically, what does it mean? Practically, what does it mean when Satan comes into home? What what does 16:38 that look like? Colossians 3 verse 19, you could turn with me there for a second. This is a thing I believe we should watch out for. Colossians, okay, chapter 3, verse 19. It's a warning he gives to husbands. 16:56 Colossians 3:1 19. It says, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them." So, it's that bitterness. Bitterness is how Satan can can come through a home. And there's so many opportunities of bitterness to come in 17:11 over little things in a home. Maybe this didn't happen or that shouldn't have happened and the food was overcooked or whatever it is. So many little reasons it can come into our home. And if we allow that bitterness to be in our 17:23 heart, what we're really saying is, "Satan, please come on in. Please come on into my home." That little unforgiveness, that little bitterness, Satan, come on in. I don't want the snake to come in, but Satan, you you can 17:32 come on in. So that's what I want to encourage you, dear brothers and sisters. Seek for a home of peace. Anytime there's that bitterness, that unforgiveness that's in, let it go. Let it go. And that's how we can make sure 17:43 Satan doesn't come in our home. So that's the third thing I would say seek for a home of peace. The next principle I want to mention to husbands and I would say husbands to live with your wives in an understanding way. So 17:58 please turn with me to first Peter. First Peter chapter 3 and verse 7. And if you read 1 Peter 3:7, there's two things that's mentioned here about husbands. One is that they live with their wives in an understanding way. And 18:18 then also the second is to show her honor as a fellow heir. So I'll talk about the first part which is husbands live with their wives in an understanding way. And if I were to paraphrase that for myself, the way I would paraphrase it is I would say to 18:32 live with your wife in an understanding way means to make life easier for your wife. That's how I paraphrase it for myself. You know how when um Jesus was about to come, it says that John the Baptist was a forerunner. And one of the 18:46 ways that John was a forerunner was that it says here in Luke 3:5, I'll just read it. It says, "The rough ways shall be made smooth." Okay, so I just want to I like that principle, but I want to apply it to the marriage life. The rough ways 18:58 shall be made smooth. And I think of it like this. What if my wife were to walk down this this road and there's all these rocks and these jagged rocks that's there? It's very hard for her to to walk. But what I could do as a 19:09 husband is I could try to make roads smooth for her. So in other words, I could go ahead of her, remove these jagged rocks and whatnot so that when she walks it's it's smooth. And that's the attitude I believe that we as 19:21 Christian husbands should have that we should try to make those rough ways smooth for our wife so that life is easier for them. Cuz one thing I've seen is that wives have to deal with so much. I've seen how my wife has to deal with 19:35 the kids, the housework. there's so much that they have to deal with and my responsibility as a husband is to make sure that I can make life easier for her and if that means I know cooking if it means doing the laundry whatever it is 19:47 the type of help that I can any type of help I can give her practically in the home that's how I can make my my life easier uh easier for my wife so I would encourage uh dear brothers to to take that seriously and to be sensitive to 19:59 your your wife's needs are there things you could do in a home to make a life easier for her to give her a break that is one way we can have a good Christian marriage That's number one. And then the second thing about this this passage we 20:11 see here is that Peter says that we should show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life. So in other words, I don't look at my wife and say, "Oh, she is below me. I'm more I'm more important to her." But no, she's a 20:23 fellow heir. So the way I like to paraphrase that for myself is to say we're like teammates. Okay? We're like teammates. And one of my favorite sporting events is happening right now and it's the the US Open. I love playing 20:34 tennis. And one of the events that they have there is something called mixed doubles. And what they do there is they have a a male and a female and they play the match as doubles as a pair. [snorts] And what I love is whenever they win the 20:48 champions, they get the the same check and they split the prize money. And so it's not as though the woman is just like picking up the balls, but the man is the man and woman, they're both playing. They're both playing equally. 20:58 They're both fighting. And that is the picture I see when I think about my my wife. We're both like tennis players, mixed doubles, tennis players. We're both fighting. We both have an equal um role and we have a responsibility to try 21:11 to win this match. And so practically, what does that mean? If I were to say I treat my wife as a teammate, I think one of the things that's really important is that I value what she has to say. I value her opinion and I value for 21:23 example her Bible sharing. So for example, if I were to ask you, dear brothers, when your wife shares about the things she gets from the Bible, what is your attitude towards it? Or do you say, "Oh, I'm actually more interested 21:34 in hearing the brothers share in the meetings or what the the elders share or whatnot." Is that what you're more interested in? Or would you say, "Wow, my wife is sharing this. I really want to treasure it. I want to value it." 21:44 Those are indications, for example, to say, "Hey, do we actually treat our our wives as a fellow heir, as an equal?" And then the last thing I'll just say here, and and again, it kind of ties to what I said earlier, is a good principle 21:57 to keep in mind is to be thankful. uh be thankful for our wives and to have that spirit of of gratitude. Again, our wives do so much, but brothers, it's good for us to say thank you often to our wives and to appreciate her. And not only, I 22:10 would say, we say it, but also be an example to our children for for saying thank you to to mommy for what's what she does. Uh we do a little thing here in our home where we have a little chant and whenever uh mommy does, you know, 22:22 something good for the kids, we we say, "Mommy the best. Mommy the best." And like, you know, all the kids are like chanting, "Mommy the best. Mommy the best." So, it's a little fun thing, but it's really important for me to tell 22:32 them that you must learn to appreciate mommy when you're little. Okay? Learn that lesson, dear dear children. Learn to appreciate mommy and this this be thankful for her. So, again, those are some key principles for husbands that we 22:43 should keep in mind. And then lastly, may just end with uh one word for the sisters. And the principle I want to challenge the sisters with is sisters, learn to submit to and to respect your husbands. Especially that word, learn to 22:59 respect your husbands. And if you look a little bit earlier at 1 Peter chapter 3 and 4-6, Peter talks about the type of person that that God values, the type of person who's precious in the sight of God. And it's the person who is the gentle and 23:16 quiet spirit. And he also gives the me the example here of Sarah. And Sarah here it says obeyed Abraham calling him Lord in verse 6. And so you think about that for a second wow Sarah you called Abraham Lord. But think about what Sarah 23:33 went through with Abraham twice. Abraham told this king that hey this is actually not my wife. It's my sister. Please take her. This didn't just happen once. This happened twice. And yet we see how did God remember Sarah as he she was someone 23:50 who called Abraham Lord. So you see that respect that Sarah had for Abraham despite of all that. She didn't say, "Oh, this husband of mine who's a liar, this husband of mine who got me in trouble." No, she called him Lord. So I 24:04 want to challenge you, dear sisters, two questions. One, how do you speak to your husband? And secondly, how do you speak about your husband? So when you speak to your husband, is there a respect that you speak to him with? Big things, 24:18 little things, is there respect? And when you talk about your husband to others, if they ask, do you say, "Oh, this good for nothing person." Or do you speak with him, speak about him with respect? So I want to challenge you, 24:29 dear sisters, have that attitude of respect towards your husbands. And I want to end with a message of hope. So tech team, go look up that last picture real quick. I don't know what um your marriage situation is like right now, but I just 24:43 want to share this beautiful picture and promise that even though we might look like a barren wilderness in our marriage in the left, there's a promise that God can make it as beautiful as the Garden of Eden. And brothers and sisters, may 24:54 we seek for that so that when Jesus comes back, he can find NCCF to be a pure church full of solid homes and and marriages that can be pleasing to him. So, thank you for letting me share.
