0:06 All right. Can we can we pray again? Heavenly Father, I don't want to speak anything. You don't want me to speak. I want to honor you. Help me to do so in Jesus name. Amen. 0:24 All right. So, here's a picture of the Mojave Desert out in California. Uh, yesterday, Amber and I celebrated 25 years of marriage. So, I thought it would be good to do a little bit of a testimony and focus on a few principles that the Lord showed us 0:41 um during the last 25 years. Um, you know, not to, you know, not to I can't cover everything in in about 30 minutes. You know, there's so much that God did. Um, but I do want to honor him and and encourage those that are one day married 1:00 and one day seeking to get married or uh or already married. Um, you know, to yield that to the Lord and to allow him to work and uh so I just thought I would go a few uh go through a few things uh this morning and you know with the goal 1:16 of that. So this picture is actually two dirt roads converging together in the Mojave Desert. And that's kind of what the Lord did in our lives. And so the goal of this is really just to thank him. I mean, the title is going to be 1:29 thanking God for marriage. I'm very thankful to God uh for marriage. And I don't know how much time you spend thanking him, but uh I encourage you to if you're thankful. Um there's some some guidelines that I wanted to establish 1:42 from the beginning as I as I was thinking through it. Every marriage is uniquely wonderful. Uh it's different. Um you know, my marriage is very unique. It's not like anybody's I've ever met. And they're all precious. And when God brings two people together, 2:00 each one of them is very special and very precious. And obviously mine is very special to me. And then another thing um that's very important is that they're very personal and intimate. And so when I put the the slides together, I 2:14 I I called Amber over. I said, "Hey, come here. I want to there's some things I want to talk about. Are you okay with this? Can I share this? Um I'm really feeling like I should point this out. What do you did this happen the way you 2:27 remember it?" Because I don't want to I don't want to be dishonest. I want to make sure I want to get as close to the truth as I can because my memory is not great. And so I walked her through it and, you know, made sure she was okay 2:36 with me sharing this because our marriage is very personal. it's it's ours and so we don't u you know like there are parts of it we'll never share with you but there are other parts of it I got permission to share with you 2:49 because I hope it blesses you and helps you and so I think it's important that you know that we talked about this before I just came up and shared it and again it's mostly from my perspective obviously um but at the same time like I 3:01 wanted to because our lives interact so closely together I wanted to be careful not to betray any uh you know anything that would embarrass her or um you know expose expose her in any way. And then also too I wanted to point out that uh 3:16 both of our parents uh sacrifice very much for us you know and I think that's going to be important when I get to one of my points that you understand um you know I'm not blaming my parents. I love them very much and you know some of the 3:30 things uh you know some of the things may appear to put them in a bad light and I don't want to do that. And so I want to say from the very beginning, our parents made many, many, many sacrifices for us. And I think it's good that you 3:43 know that in the beginning. And then also too, I want you to know this. I'm going to focus on some things that we did right. Some things that the Lord showed us from the very beginning that were right in principle, but I'm going 3:55 to skip over many, many things that we did wrong. And I want you to know that like, you know, there was a lot of failure in our marriage. There a lot of mistakes especially me that I made and sometimes when we give our testimonies 4:09 we highlight the good points and I want to tell you there were a lot of bad points some I'll share because I think it's important you know that that the Lord is very merciful that every morning of our marriage his mercies were new and his faithfulness 4:26 was absolutely incredible and so you need to know that and so I will share some of the failures with you but I know there were many, many more, but God was faithful. And so I'll also share some things that we got right and the Lord 4:40 gave us wisdom early on so we didn't have to go through too many mistakes. He's so good to us. So I think that's very important. I want to start uh with Genesis 2:18 because I don't, you know, uh for me, I grew up in in southeastern Oklahoma 4:58 and in this picture I'm I'm 19 years old. I just had a I just fell off a snowmobile and so me and a military buddy went to Yellowstone um national park and we wrote we rented some snowmobiles and I fell off and he decided this would be a great time to 5:15 take a picture. And so this was the Lord preparing me to be part of a church that has many photographers and loves to take pictures even in embarrassing moments. So I I praise God that he's working in my life years and years and decades 5:28 before I would ever come here. And this is one a good example of that. But I was 19 at the time and many of uh I would say my my best friends from high school were already married. They were already married at this point 5:42 and I was ready to get married. At 19 years old I was ready to get married. I really believe that to till now I believe it because I believe this verse that it's not good for me to be alone. You know what? Other men may feel like, 5:56 "Yeah, I can I can I can get with marriage. I can take it or leave it." I was not that man. I did not feel it was good for me to be alone. I needed a companion. I needed a helper. And so maybe there were stronger men. Maybe it's because of my weaknesses. 6:11 That's fine. But this I think this is the truth. So this was five years before I was born again. And I already had that longing inside of myself like Lord, maybe there's strong men out there like Paul that can be single. I'm not one of 6:24 them. I need a companion. I need a helper. And I spent many years searching for that helper. And that was a mistake I made when I read the stories of Jacob and Rachel, you know, and Jacob spending seven years, you know, because of his love for 6:38 Rachel. They they went by so fast. I don't I kind of cringe at that. I see it in a different light because I didn't I was searching for Rachel for many years. Started in high school. I was looking for my Rachel. I was looking for my 6:50 companion because it wasn't good for man to be alone. I agree with God on this, but what I should have been doing was looking for God. Looking for him, right? So, I kind of messed up a little bit in that area. But I agree 100%. To 7:05 this day, I agree with these scriptures. I don't think I think there are very few men that are are able to be single their entire life. Very few. And so, I'm not one of them. I needed a companion. And I see something wonderful. Uh, as if 7:19 you're a young person, I would encourage you to reflect on these verses and go to the Lord and talk to him about it. Go to your heavenly father and say, "I don't think it's good for me to be alone. Would you start preparing me a wife 7:29 right now?" And if you're a young sister, say, "Hey, I would like to be a helper one day. I want to get married and help my husband. Would you prepare me to do that?" And this is in Genesis 2. Early in your Bible, you see 7:44 something of God's heart and something he recognizes in us. So he says, "I'm going to make a helper that's just right for him." Perfect. And God gave me such a wonderful helper. So here's how it started. I I put the girl in pink and 7:59 the boy in blue. So I'm Josh. I'm the one in blue and Amber's the one in pink. And so I grew up in Oklahoma, southeastern Oklahoma. Pretty much my whole life. Amber was in California the vast majority of her life. And before we 8:12 got married, the Lord would take Amber and she would go to college in Missouri and she would be there for about four years and then she would come back to California. Me, as soon as I was 18, I went off to college in Iowa. 8:25 Anyway, the arrow goes up to Iowa and then it goes over down to uh Oh, you want to see it? I spent a long time trying to get this right. So, it goes up to Iowa. I went off to college. Then I came down and I went to basic training 8:37 in Texas. Then I went to tech school and then I went to Idaho. Then I came back to school in Oklahoma and then I wound up in California, right? I spent way too much time on that. But that's how it worked out. But the point in all of that is that God was 8:52 working in our lives. Um, you know, Amber's was really quick, but those four years had a lot of trials, a lot, a lot of hard things that she went through. And same thing with me. Some of them were my because of my own decisions and 9:04 own mistakes. And some of them were just things that happened to us in life. And looking back, I can see the way that God prepared us, the way that God took us through some very difficult things before he brought us together. So then 9:16 in in in uh 2000, we're actually, you know, again, I spent five years, you know, looking for looking for my Rachel. And, you know, I thought, well, I'm not going to find her here because we're out in the middle of the high desert in 9:32 California. But the Lord actually, against all odds, I wish she could understand. And there's a joke there that there's a woman behind every tree. Well, it's the desert and there are no trees. So, I thought I would never find 9:45 a wife out there, but the Lord was completely merciful to me. And then in May of 2000, uh, Amber and I, we met and we sat down and talked for the first time. And then by June, we were married. And part of the reason we got married so 10:01 fast is that I had made a vow to the Lord that I wouldn't date for one year. like I decided that American dating was absolutely a waste and it was horrible and I hate it. I hate dating more than probably anybody in this church. And so 10:15 I was like I want to be done with it because it starts in high school and you go through all kinds of heartbreaks and heartaches and I was just I was just done. But then I meet Amber and I told her I can't date. And so we found a 10:26 solution. We'll just get married. And we didn't have anybody in our life that was really honestly there was nobody for us to look up to spiritually. We were kind of on our own completely on our own. And you young people if you have somebody godly 10:42 in your life, thank God for that because we were we were scrambling. I mean it was over we played Monopoly. We actually played a board game and that's how we decided to get married. And I landed on Venture Avenue. She said, "You owe me 16 10:53 bucks." I was like, "If we were married, I wouldn't owe you 16 bucks because I would already live there with you." She's like, "Well, then let's just get married." And I like, "Okay, that pretty much ended the Monopoly game." And then 11:02 and then we, you know, we were in the process of getting married. But we spent hours talking like, "Are you sure about this?" You know, there was nobody godly to guide us. So, we came up with a couple of principles. These principles um were kind of guided 11:16 the discussion and they kind of guided how how did we know how do you know who to marry? I mean, I I I mean, I just met her a few weeks earlier. How do I know, Lord, that this is who I'm supposed to marry? And there were a couple things we 11:31 decided. The first one was this. We both agreed that we would never divorce. We came up with some guidelines on it. What, and again, this is the thing I wanted you to know about my parents. So, both our parents were divorced. And both 11:44 our parents remarried. And so, you got, you know, a divorce and then a remarage here, remarage here, remarage here, remarage here. And we watched the pain that it caused and we watched the heartbreak and it was awful. And I wouldn't wish it 12:01 on anybody. I wouldn't wish it I watched, you know, we as kids I was older. I was like 19 uh when my parents uh divorced and but Amber was much younger. She was four, I believe. And so you just watch this and it wasn't just 12:15 our parents. It was it was aunts and uncles. It was rampant. And honestly, like the reason we even came up with this is not because we were super spiritual. We were barely born again. I think Amber and I had probably been born again less than a year when we 12:28 decided to get married. So it's not that we were super spiritual and we were grounded in these principles. It was just like we were very selfish in a way. We don't want to go through this. And so we made up some rules. We said we 12:41 will never threaten each other with divorce. We will never talk about it as if it's ever ever an option on the table. and we will never joke about it. It won't even be a thing for us. We're gonna we want to do it different. Again, 12:57 I praise God for that. Now, I'll tell you there's a there's a deeper principle that I would come to later. The goal after 25 years is not for us to just go, look, we made it. We're not divorced. There's something far higher than that. 13:12 And that that I praise God for as well. It's not just to say, "Yeah, we endured each other. We we put up with each other." That's not the marriages I want in this church. I'll tell you, I don't want, you know, it it bothers me when I 13:25 hear couples just they they kind of do their own thing. They're not one. They just kind of like it's like a partnership and they just they stick it out for whatever reason. There's something far better in a marriage. But this is the light we had at the 13:39 time. It was one of perseverance. If we do this, we're not going to quit. And I praise God for giving us that. Here was another thing. Both Amber and I tithed. You know what tithing is? You may not because we don't preach on it a lot 13:54 here. But Amber and I, each of us independently decided that 10% of everything we made would would go to the Lord. We would give it to him. And again, we don't we don't teach that. We teach give him everything. Give him a 14:11 100%. Give him your body every piece by piece. give him your body. But one thing that that that did, it showed that each of us wanted to prioritize God. Even with our limited knowledge, as as immature and carnal as we are, there was something in us that 14:26 said, you know what, I want to put God first. And it gave us that confidence in the other one that, hey, I I don't know much about this lady, but I know that she wants to put God first, and she's even willing to sacrifice to do it. I 14:41 think at the time we made about $30,000 a year a piece separately. So that means about $250 a month a piece. So $500 a month in 2000 that would have bought you a nice that would have been a nice car payment. 20 or sorry did I say 2,000? 500 $500 a month 14:58 combined. 250 250. So when we got together we wanted to Lord to be our priority. We wanted him to be first in our finances at least. even if we didn't have light, that he should be first in every area, at least when it comes to 15:11 money. And so, that was an important principle that early on we we each were willing to sacrifice. And I I tell you, if you're looking for a husband or wife, this is a great place to start. Lord, give me somebody give me somebody that 15:26 is willing to sacrifice for you. I tell you, that'll be far better than how good-looking they are. You got to trust me on this. I know we tend to we tend to be attracted to good looks. We tend to be attracted to personality. They're so funny. They're 15:42 so witty. They're so whatever. I tell you, you won't regret. You won't regret if you pick somebody that puts God first in their life. And the Lord gave us that. That gave us enough confidence in one another. So that was 15:55 in the beginning in 2000 when we got married. In 2006, there'd be another principle that we would we would come across. So this was the first time that I'd gone away. We had kind of separated. We had our first assignment after California. 16:10 We moved to Texas and I was an instructor in Texas and that was a golden assignment in the military. It was like more of an 8 toive job. We were home. We got to spend a lot of time together. That's where when uh that's where uh Isaiah was born. So in 2006, we 16:27 had kind of the first test where we would have to split up for a year. And I'm very sympathetic to husbands and wives that have to be apart. I know sometimes there's immigration issues and visa issues and I'm very sympathetic 16:39 because I went through that and I kind of understand after what I went through. And so what was happening is that, you know, guys that would go to Korea and leave their families at home were doing stupid stuff. They were drinking like crazy. They were 16:56 cheating on their wives. And I remember having a conversation and this I had to check with Amber on this. We had a a conversation over the phone and Amber had just talked to one of the wives that had been cheated on. And Amber was in 17:08 tears because she felt the pain of that wife. And we were talking about, you know, Lord, you know, we were humble enough to know that the same thing could happen to us like, you know, we're not, you know, like how do we how do we prevent this? 17:24 And in the conversation, one of the things I said is I told Amber like, "I am more afraid of God finding out than I am afraid of you finding out." And so we talked about that. This was a principle because we would spend a lot of we would be apart 17:39 many times over the next I don't know almost two decades. And one of the things that we established is that we would fear God more. We've been more concerned that God found out something that we did than our our spouse found 17:54 out something we did. And I praise God for that. I'm talking about marriage, but the fear of God is critical to a marriage. You need to fear God more than you fear your spouse. And if you do that, you will have a blessed marriage. Trust me, you have to 18:13 fear God. A lot of husbands and wives have that. Oh, I hope what if what if your wife finds out? What if your husband finds out? It could be anything. You know, brother, sister, do you do you does your conscience sensitive enough to 18:27 go like, "Ah, I'm not even concerned about them. What what if God what does God think? What if he finds out?" And that was very important. So, that was right at the beginning, right as soon as I left. That was like a month or two in 18:39 it into it that we kind of were we're seeing a lot of this happening. A few months later, I'd been listening to a lot of Zack Punan messages for finally, you know, it was interesting because it was like I got a chance to be 18:51 single again after uh after walking with the Lord for a few years. And I didn't want to do what a lot of guys would do when they deployed. So, I I listened to Zach messages and boy did I become smart. And boy, was I full of all kinds 19:06 of Bible knowledge and new covenant truths. And I was the perfect man to tell my wife all these truths. But she didn't seem to be so receptive to it. What's wrong with this heathen woman I married? I thought we were on the same page. You know, she's not as 19:22 excited about these things as I am. I would send her Zach's teaching on money. I was teach send her all these and I was like, "Hey, hey woman, did you listen to it?" And she'd be like, "No, I didn't get a chance." And in my mind, I would 19:35 think, "Oh, what a what a what is is she even trying in her spiritual life? Is she even pressing forward the way that spiritual guy like me is? This is what was going on. I didn't quite wasn't aware of it as I am now. And I remember one time like I sent 19:52 her a message, a teaching on marriage. I was so excited because this is it. This is what we've been looking for. This was the guidance we've been missing. This this Indian preacher named Zach Punan preaches from the Bible the guidance 20:03 we've been lacking for six years. I was so excited. So I I sent an email to my wife and I was like, "Okay, sorry about all the money messages about from Zach. Sorry about all these other me. Forget about all those. This is the one. Listen 20:18 to his teaching on marriage. We need this." And so I waited a couple days because I was in Korea, she was in Texas. And we waited till it lined up because there's a 14-hour difference. So it was like I was into the next day and she was coming 20:31 home in the evening. And then we get on the webcams and I'm like, "Sweetie, well," she's like, "Well, what?" I'm like, "Did you listen to that Zach's teaching on me Zach Pun's teaching on marriage?" She's like, "No, I haven't 20:45 yet." And I was like, "Oh, who did I marry? Why are you not even trying spiritually?" And she she goes, "Josh." And because she could tell I was getting visibly upset. I was getting very irritated with this wife that I'm dragging along 21:00 spiritually. And she says,"Josh." And I said, 'What? And she goes, "When?" And I go, "What do you mean when?" She goes, "When do you want me to listen to it?" I was like, "In your spare time. I want you to listen to it." And she goes, "When's my 21:13 spare time?" She was so patient with me. She is not always patient with me. Ask her if she's always patient with me. But she, this time, she was so patient and she walked me through her day. She had two young babies. me, I would I would have, you know, I 21:29 would work about 10 hours a day and then the evenings were my own and I would have most weekends all to myself. If we weren't doing a Kim Gear exercise or something like that, then uh then I had the weekends. Every day she had no weekends. Every day 21:44 was two boys that needed to be fed and changed and they needed baths and they needed constant attention. If you've ever if you've ever had a a baby from like 0 to 4, you understand. And she's like, Josh, when when do I She 21:59 said she walked me through every hour of her day. And she said, "Yeah, about 9 9 or 10:00 at night, I get some free time." And she said, "If I listen to a message, I will fall asleep." And suddenly it hits me, brothers and 22:10 sisters. The first thing that hits me is like I didn't understand my wife at all. And so this verse in in 1 Peter 3:7, if you're a husband, I encourage you to meditate on this verse that you are to live in an understanding way with your 22:26 wife. And most husbands just say, you know what, I just give up. I don't get her, she doesn't get me. We'll just do our own thing. Husbands, listen, you got to live in an understanding way with your wife. And I realized that I wasn't. 22:38 And she was telling me, I was like, "Okay, okay, okay, okay." She was doing more dying to self than I ever was. She was giving up her life. She was laying down her life for her for those two boys that I had gone off, you know, 22:51 to work. So I realized, wow, I'm learning all this stuff, but I'm not living it. That was the second thing. Acts 1:1, in following Jesus, we need to live it first. I was skipping steps and preaching to my wife. I wasn't living it. And it hit me 23:11 and I couldn't start living it in front of her yet. I had to I had to wait. We weren't together. We were still apart and we still had a long way to go. And then in August, I came home. Fastest month of my entire life was August of 23:26 2006. And in that middle of the year, the the uh the Korean government actually subsidized airline tickets for us to fly back to the US because I guess they were happy having American forces in in South Korea. So, they helped pay 23:40 for our tickets and then the Air Force would give us they gave us one month to go home to our families. And I'm telling you, it flew by like anything. Fastest month of my life. Now, they're all the same amount of time. So, you guys 23:53 understand what I'm saying, right? It wasn't literally accelerated time, but it felt like it. And so, one of the things that I remember, I asked Amber if she remembered the story. She doesn't. So, we had already left once, right back 24:06 in February. I'd already said goodbye. And Amber remembers that goodbye. She remembers like, you know, we're, you know, tears coming down our eyes and, you know, I'm telling the boys goodbye and telling her goodbye. We'll see you 24:16 see you in August. And then, and then, you know, I go to get on the plane and and so and Amber turns to Solomon like, "You okay, buddy?" And he's like, "Let's get something to eat, you know, like what are we going to eat?" Like, he 24:27 totally didn't even know I was leaving. Just totally missed it. But this one was different because these truths that I had been listening to were starting to become real. And that month of being with my family and getting to practice 24:37 and live them out was was a reality. And then I had to leave again. I'm telling you, it tore me like anything. We drop the boys off with at at a friend's house and Amber drives me to the airport, Dallas Fort Worth. And I remember just 24:50 balling. For the first time, there was something different in me. I genuinely loved my wife. I think before it was just, you know, I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved her with an earthly love, but something was had changed. And I 25:08 remember sitting there, I remember like my head was in her lap. We're in the middle of an airport and I'm balling like anything. And I didn't care. And I was very self-aware like, "You look like an idiot. You look like an idiot." You know, just 25:24 crying in your wife's lap. have some self-control, man. You're supposed to be a military guy. I'm telling you, all these thoughts were going through my mind and I was like, I don't care. I love my wife. The Lord had changed something in my 25:43 heart. And this was really the first, this was different. This was different. And I still had to leave. I still had to go get on that plane. But I'm telling you, that was hard because of something that the Lord had changed in my heart. Again, that 25:57 month flew by. After that, after Korea was over, we would get back together and I put some of these wonderful, beautiful pictures from Italy. We visited all these places. I look at these pictures and what I remember is one of the most difficult 26:13 breaking times in my life. These three years in Italy, the work was so stressful. The job was so demanding. It took every bit of me. like I'm wanting to come back and learn how to be a husband and a father. And the Lord had a different 26:28 plan. He's like, you need to be broken some more. You're not broken enough. And so the Lord allowed me to go through more breaking. And Amber was right there with me. You know, she wasn't at work with me, but she was there when I got home. And 26:44 so I thank the Lord for this season in our life. And it was during this time that we decided, I can't do both. I can't be the husband and father that I'm supposed to be and be an active duty mil military member. I just can't. It's too demanding. I'd 26:58 moved up in rank and it was it demanded everything in me. And I didn't want to give it to that. I wanted to give it to the Lord. And I really felt him pressing on me to that my priority was not to be a sergeant in the military. It was to be 27:12 a husband and a father the way he wanted me to be. And so we decided to get out. So we came back in 2010. and we moved back to Texas. And so we're we're still in the military, but we're we're transitioning out and we're really seeking the Lord if 27:28 we're making the right decisions. Because when you leave the military, one of the nice things about the military is you don't really have to seek the the the the will of God too much because the military, he'll just do it through the 27:38 order system and you'll go to this country or you go to this country or go to this station. So this is really the first time that we're having to search and say, "Lord, what where do you want us to go?" And so, you know, I was 27:50 planning to get out and some I met some brothers there at the military base and they were also gripped with Zach's teaching and they said, "Hey, we're going to go to RLCF. We're going to go up to Colorado. Zack Punan's uh talking 28:02 up there." And I'd never I listened to a lot of Zach's message, but I never heard him in person or I never thought that I would maybe even get to meet him. And so I came home and I told Amber, I said, 'Hey, bunch of guys are going up to the 28:15 uh Colorado to hear Zach Clinton preach. I'm tell I told you I'd tell you my failures and I'm telling you I'm about to tell you one. And I said, "Hey, we're going to go." And she goes, "Can I go? I want to go, too." And I immediately 28:31 turned on condescending mode. I was like, "Really? You want to go listen to 12 hours of preaching over a weekend? you want to sit there and listen to preaching and it was I'm telling you it was horrible. I should have never done 28:43 that. Instead of rejoicing that she was finally listening to these messages and getting getting gripped with them, I decided to talk down to her. I'm sorry. Shouldn't have done that. Sorry. We're so proud. 29:01 We learn something and we think, "I know God better. I know these truths and we look down on other people. May it not be. I did it. Sorry. But she came with me. We had a wonderful 29:21 time. It's not enough to know these truths, brothers and sisters. You've got to live them. Don't ever think that you're you're somebody because you know them. They're worthless if you don't apply 29:39 them. I was still proud. So I I let her know that it wasn't a great weekend. I had still had moments where I thought I was the spiritual one in the family. She was patient with me. 29:56 God was patient with me. So we came out of it. We went to we went to that conference and the Lord confirmed that we were to we were to leave the military. And so over the next couple years, we weren't sure what to do. Where did we 30:12 go? We knew that we were we had these teachings, but we needed to be part of a church. We knew it. We just didn't know how or where. And so later in 2010, we're in we're in the green dot. We're living in Witchaw Falls. There's a 30:27 military base there. That's where we got out uh of the military. And so it's a longer story, but we visited Austin. We came here for both a conference and couple weekends of fellowship. We visited Dallas. I remember Amber and I 30:41 in the car and we just gone to a meeting with some of the brothers and sisters in Dallas. And we thought, hey, you know, maybe we can just drive down to Dallas and this can be our church and we'll have fellowship here. We went out to 30:52 RLCF in in California or sorry, NCCF in California. And there's a conference out there and we're looking, we didn't know what we were looking for. What should church be like? Because one of the things that we had decided is like for 31:04 us to continue to grow as a couple, we need a church. I can't tell you how we knew that. Maybe it was Zach's teaching, maybe we heard something, but we knew we had to we had to find a church. So, we went up to Canada and we observed a 31:15 church there. We weren't necessarily looking to move there, but we were we wanted to know what we're supposed to be looking for. Then we went to RLCF in in uh in Colorado and then we went to Atlanta and we spent 10 weeks there and part of the 31:28 Atlanta fellowship. We were all over just looking, Lord, what do you where do you want us to go? Not because we were going to serve because we were needy and we did we needed we knew we needed to be part of a church. If we were going to continue to grow in 31:43 our marriage and our family, we needed to be part of a church. And so in 2012, the Lord moved us here. And it's interesting. I was thinking about that. 2012, that means we've been part of this church longer than we weren't in our 31:57 married life. That we've been part of this church for 13 years. And I praise God for it. We've grown even closer because we're part of this church. We've grown even closer. And one of the things that I want to finish with is 32:13 just thinking about the Christian life. One of the things that has really come home to me is this Zach illustration. There's a lot of Zach illustrations that have blessed our marriage. I think this is probably the most important because 32:24 it's it was important in the past and discovery and it's important right now today and it's going to be important for the next 25 years and in mark your calendars for June of 2050 because I'll come back and do part two of this 32:37 message. All right? And it will be just as important then. I believe and the the it's the Christian life. Your Christian life is like a three-story building. The foundation is critical. The foundation of your Christian life 32:54 needs to be how much God loves you. And you're like, "Okay, I thought we were talking about marriage." Well, we're talking about marriage. The foundation needs to be how much God loves you. And I I sense that most people, yeah, maybe they know it, but 33:09 they're not gripped with it. And if you're not gripped with it, you're always going to be insecure. There's going to be an insecurity. There's going to be an anxiety. There's going to be a fear until you're absolutely sure that God loves you. That 33:25 is the foundation of the Christian life. And then the first floor, again, still talking about marriage. first floor of your Christian life is walking daily with the Lord. It's hard enough in a marriage when the Lord brings two selfish people together, 33:44 but it's wonderful if they're both walking with the Lord and hearing his voice every day and and sharing every moment with him. Even the things they can't share with each other, you share with the Lord. And then the second 33:57 layer, the second uh floor is marriage and family. And this is where um this is this is where it comes into play. And again, very important. You see the way that the church is built because the third floor is the is where the church is built. 34:14 This is where ministry what happens is a lot of new Christians come, you know, they're born again and they immediately want to start ministry. And I'm telling you that I don't think that's right. I think that you need to walk with the 34:27 Lord and then your family comes second and then the Lord will build the church. and thinking about that second floor because that's what I'm talking about the 25 years of marriage and the Lord helping us have a solid second floor. 34:42 You know, one of the things that we always need to keep in mind if there's any crack in the foundation, if there's any if there's any tension in our marriage, then the immediate thing we need to do is go examine the foundation and the first floor. I lived 34:55 I b I've owned three houses in my life. The first two had foundation issues. The first one had crack cracks in the brick veneer wasn't as bad as I thought. Um, but it's very interesting like you know when you see the cracks, you know that 35:09 there's something wrong with the foundation. And I remember the second house, the one we had to sell before we could move here. It had it had cracks in the drywall, big cracks in the in the master bedroom. We had to actually get 35:20 is a PRB foundation. We had to actually get lifts to come in and lift the foundation up so that we could sell the house. It was very expensive, thousands of dollars. But if there's something wrong in your marriage, if there's a tension in your 35:33 marriage, examine your foundation. Ask yourself, am I absolutely secure in the love of God? Am I absolutely convinced that Jesus loved me? Do I understand that that John 17:23, do I understand that my father in heaven loves me as much as he loved Jesus? 35:53 If not, there will be insecurity and there will be tension in that marriage. I've experienced it. And then are you walking with the Lord? Are you close to him? Are you spending time with him? Are you in prayer and seeking him and seeking that life from 36:07 him? Because if those two are off, your marriage will be off. I've discovered that. And I've also discovered when those those two are in harmony, the marriage is in in harmony. And it's wonderful and it's very good and it's blessed. And I 36:26 thank God for the helper that my wife gave me. All right, let me summarize. I only have one one thing to summarize. He did it. He took two broken people 36:45 that had been that were so selfish, that had no examples of what a godly marriage should be like. He brought them together. He held their hands in his 37:03 and he led them along this path. And everything we have, this verse, everything we have is from him. There's nothing Amber and I receive that God didn't give to us. Nothing. Every bit of every ounce of wisdom, every principle 37:17 that we stood on, all came from him. Every bit of it came from him from start to finish. And so he gets all the credit. He gets all the glory. He did it. And again, I left out many mistakes. I left out many trials. I miss I left 37:35 out many ways that it it could have gone wrong. But they were there and he proved faithful and he gave us he gave us a wonderful marriage. And again, I trust that I I I hope I honored him. I 37:54 hope that's what you heard is that God can take any train wreck and turn it into something wonderful. And even the things that were mistakes, even the sins, he can take them and turn them and use them for good. And brothers and sisters, like this is 38:13 these are very personal, intimate things. They're hard to share. I get teared up, but I share them because I want everybody to experience it. I don't want I don't want you to have my marriage. I want you to have your marriage, but I want Christ to be the 38:27 center of it. And I want I want him to teach husbands and wives through their mistakes and encourage them and lift them up like he did so many times with with us. But I share it because that is the goal. And don't settle. Don't settle for just 38:45 making it to a milestone. Okay, we made it 15 years, 20 years, 25 years. We've been married for 40 years. Don't settle for anything less than what Christ wants in your marriage. Please don't do it. Please don't do it. That's all I have, 39:02 brothers and sisters. May God bless all our marriages. May divorce not even be a thing ever, even though it's happening all around us. And may Christ be honored by the way we live our lives. God bless you. Thank you brother Josh and also sister 39:31 Amber for giving permission to share from your life. I've been tremendously encouraged to hear your story. I knew the parts of it because based on our conversations with you but now we got a full picture and thank you so much for 39:47 your honesty and transparency and it gives hope for all the marriages. One of the burden I have as an elder of the church is to raise that the Lord will raise many godly marriages in our church. The church is as strong as uh the 40:06 marriages here as a families. Strong families are a strong foundation for the church. And if you have weaker families, the church will be weaker. We have seen this example of uh first floor, second floor, third floor and the foundation 40:22 being God's love. We heard it so many times. It has to be drilled down deep into our DNA. If we miss mess up with the order, uh we are going to have a wreckage. The the building will not stand because the foundation is super important being 40:40 secured perfectly in father's love and walking with clear conscience living before the face of God. If I cannot do these two and then I I cannot have a godly marriage or a happy marriage and when I work on the marriage then I can 40:57 contribute in the church. I can be an example or I can whatever I do God will bless. But that order has to be super important. And why it is super important also is because we have seen that we have seen the fruits of the people who 41:11 have followed that order and those fruits have blessed us. We always um talk about we listen to brother Zach and we talk about the marriage and we are tremendously blessed because of their life and example and God can raise many 41:29 more marriages like them. I mean it doesn't have to be one here, one there. Many marriages God can do that work because in Ephesians we see God could bring a Jew and a Gentile together and make one person and being united and God 41:44 can do the same thing for all of us. We are coming from different backgrounds, different bringups, different we grew up in different states or countries but God can bring two different people, break them and make them one. And I always 41:57 tell people I mean when pe when I talk to people who are singles marriage is not uh man's idea. It is God's idea. It is an institution created by God himself because he knew it is not good for man to be alone. It is his idea. And one of 42:14 the struggle I had as a ma as in my marriage is leaving and cleaving. Coming from Indian culture that was a biggest struggle. And then in Genesis we see he will leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife. Uh every marriage 42:29 goes through those struggles and the trials. And I realized uh later on through the new covenant teachings the most important thing is if I love God first I can love my wife better. If I love God first I can love my wife much 42:44 better. Uh in the p in the beginning it was messed up and they caused a lot of problems. The other thing is I think Josh covered that being an example to our wives as husbands being considerate considerate and being an example. I 43:00 think he I think it's good to read that first Peter 3 7 again. You husbands live in the same way. Live with your wives in an understanding way as with someone weaker since she's a woman. and show her 43:19 honor as a fellow hair of grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered. Did you ever notice that last part? So that your prayers will not be hindered. And this is I mean we heard about conditions and promise the promise 43:36 of our prayers being will will be will not be hindered or that means will be heard by God. The condition for husbands living in a considerate way, living in an understanding way as with someone is weaker as a fellow head of grace of 43:53 life. I think last Friday, not this Friday, the Friday before, we had a beautiful message on the marriage, brother Zach's uh glory of the new covenant. If you had not been in the Bible study, I I sincerely request you to listen to that. It's only 15 20 44:09 minutes. He covers so many verses and especially this verse and also in from Ephesians. Um fellow head of grace of God and also Ephesians um he talks about husband and wives responsibility in the marriage. uh husbands loving wives just as Christ 44:29 loved the church and wives subject to your own husbands because Christ was also sub submitting to his to the father. By following these principles we bring the the spirit of submission the spirit of love. It is a very characteristic of Christ. So we bring 44:47 the atmosphere of heaven into our marriages and it is possible. When I was a bachelor, I tried to put off the marriage because I did not have I did not see good examples and I was oh anyway I'm going to get married one day. 45:03 Let me enjoy my life being single. But once I came to know I saw wonderful marriages in the church I was attending. The longing for me in mecreased to get married and to build a godly family. uh and then I praise God for the work he 45:20 did in my life and my wife's life and uh yes it is not like we do all the things right at the first time we learn we we God will teach us God is patient with us we work together as a team and uh one thing is recent in the recent past I 45:36 realized how important it is to be united with wife with my wife unity is very very important there is a enemy out there is trying to keep steal will kill and destroy our marriages. I don't want to give any room for him to enter into 45:52 my marriage. I will do my best. I will fall to the ground and die every single day if it that needs to be to preserve the unity in the marriage and God can do wonderful things when we have strong and united marriages and it'll it'll it'll 46:06 be a foundation for a strong uh and godly church. May the Lord help us. Let's look onto the Lord. Uh if you are encouraged and challenged like I am, let's cry out to the Lord. Lord, no matter what, whatever is the current 46:21 state of my marriage, I have a hope that you will make it even better, even sweeter, I will do my part to bring the heaven to my marriage. Uh teach me, rem remind me what I need to do. Help me Lord uh to have a godly marriage, a 46:38 united marriage, a happy marriage. We need so many good examples like that out in the world the marriages so many divorces happening in a marriage we we can in our church we can be different because we are following the instruction 46:54 given by god himself who instituted the marriage we are following the uh we are following the instruction manual given by him so if we obey what he is saying we will have godly marriages let's praying. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what 47:13 we heard today. Lord, thank you for for your uh it is your idea, Lord. Um for us not to be alone but to get married and uh you have shown the husband and wife relationship as an 47:31 example of your love for us in so many ways. Help us Lord as husbands to do our part in being Christlike husbands in loving our wives and for wives to be Christlike in submission that we may bring the heaven into our families into 47:49 our marriages. I pray that you would continue to work in each one of our lives. Uh fill us with your holy spirit Lord and we cannot do it without your strength. Guide us and lead us Lord. raise many godly homes, godly marriages 48:05 in our church. We cry out to you, Lord. Please help us. We want to yield to you. do whatever it takes but give us godly marriages, godly homes where our children are secure, where our children see good examples in mom and dad where 48:23 you are pleased with our lives where you feel perfectly home Lord where in our own homes where you feel rest in our homes Lord please do the work Lord Jesus thank you so much for everything you have done thus far and we commit our 48:41 lives our marriages, our church into your precious hands and ask all these things in the mighty name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you all. Uh that's the end of our formal meeting. We have lunch and for those who joined on Zoom, thank you and 48:59 may God bless you all. Have a wonderful week.
