How To Reduce Stress In Your Relationships

Welcome to church today. We're so thrilled you're here in Yorktown in Newport News in Virginia Beach where they're setting up and tearing down in the rain. Come on Virginia Beach of course. Welcome to our online family all around the world and to the men at Indian Creek. We're so incredibly glad you're here on this special Sunday. We're concluding today our series on relationships and I thought there is no way that I can preach a whole series on relationships without bringing up the expert herself, Tabitha Hodges everybody. It's time. Expert. It's time for you to drop some wisdom on these people babe. Tell them what it's all about by the way can we do a wide shot I just got to talk about this right away because many of you don't realize this but I got to tell you that every time Tabitha teaches on this stage we made a deal and the deal goes like this if she's going to teach I got to buy a new pair of shoes for her. All right. So babe. That's right. Tell them. These are brand new. They're brand new. Brand spanking new. Tell them and me were they on sale? No. Okay. Do they need to be? I mean. That wasn't part of the deal. This is a very. I'm going to have to start a GoFundMe for this very expensive deal that I have made

with my wife but we are we're so excited today to be able to teach together we're in a series we're calling the elephant in the room and really what this series is about is it really is just trying to uncover some of the difficult frustrating challenging unmentionable topics that plague so many of our relationships but so often we just kind of sweep them under the rug and pretend like they're not there and so we've been doing that all series long I think it's been a I think it's been a great series. You've done great. I think people have really enjoyed. So good. You've done great. Tell it. Tell it babe. Tell them how good I've done. You guys have done really great. You guys should go back and listen if you haven't heard the messages before. Well thank you. But today will be the best. It will be. Everybody knows that already. It's going to be the best. There is a verse though that this week I ran across in my study that I think just really highlights what we've been what we've been doing these last several weeks and I want to I want to show it to you. Really to set up today's today's message. I think it'll I think it'll help you understand our heart as we step into today's message. The Bible the Bible says this really really powerful verse. The Bible says but everything exposed by the light becomes visible. Now here's a pop quiz for you. All right. A pop quiz.

The light. What is the light. The light is. The Bible. The Bible. Don't play with me like that because I thought you were going to fail the pop quiz. Yeah. The word of God. The word of God is the light. So everything. So what the scriptures say. Everything that that is exposed by God's word and that's what we've been trying to do in this series. We've been trying to let God's word shine as a light into our relationships into our marriages into our friendships and into into our working relationships to let the light of God's word shine and illuminate some things bring some things to light because so often we we just push those down we don't even pay that close attention to a lot of the things in our relationships. So when the light of God's word shines in our relationships look look at the result it says this it says and everything that is illuminated will become a light. So God's word is the light it shines it illuminates things and then everything illuminated will become a light and that's been our prayer that as God's word shines into our relationships that our relationships will actually become a light to the people around us. I think the world is looking for some lights to shine brightly and I think I think our relationships can be those lights our marriages our friendships. I think those can be the lights that shine so bright in our relationships and that really is what we're praying today we can help you do is to leave from here with your relationship shining bright. Yeah. That's such a good verse.

It is. I wish you would have thought of that on week one. That was so good. So good. You did great. Thanks for that. So today today we want to we want to Number one final, elephant in the room. And we wanna try to help you know what to do about it. We wanna shine the light on it and hopefully expose it. And this one's a little tricky and that's why I needed your help because we actually see this a little different, you and I. We see this elephant in the room just a little different. Maybe it's the male, female thing. Maybe it's the difference in our personalities. We see it so differently, y'all, that we actually had an argument about what to title this elephant in the room. And so we're gonna let you pick. We're gonna give you both titles and we're gonna let you pick the title that you like the best or that fits your situation the best. I'll start with mine, which is a pretty good title. And then I'll let- Then I'll say mine. Then you'll say, yeah, yeah. Then you'll say yours. Right. And this isn't like a competition

because it feels like you're trying to set up a competition right now. It's always a competition. This isn't. This isn't. Always. This isn't a competition, but you might like one of these titles better. The title I'm giving this elephant in the room, the final of the series, I'm just calling it this, pretty simple. I'm calling it Relationships Are Stressful. Relationships Are Stressful. Three of you agree with me. And if you don't agree with me, it's because you're scared of the person you're sitting beside who is in a relationship with you. Relationships Are Stressful. Most people, I would say, most people would say, yeah, that's true. My marriage or that's true in my friendships or that's true with my kids or that's true at work. That in general, most of our relationships are stressful and rarely do we talk about that. Rarely do we shine a light on that and try to understand the why behind that. And so we're gonna expose that elephant in the room today. That's my title. Relationships Are Stressful. That's a nice title.

It is, so nice. It's a nice title. That's right, that's what I was going for. Yep, yep. But I got, because relationships are stressful, but I got a good one for you guys. And I think that you brought me here to like represent the ladies in the house, right? So the title that I would call it is, You're Stressing Me Out. That's what I would call it. I think the ladies support that. Yeah. And I think I just won. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's a different title. So you take your pick, all right? You take your pick. In a couple months, in May, Tabitha and I will celebrate 29 years of marriage. 29, 29. Yes, we were just babies, all right? We were just, in fact, can you throw the picture? Throw the picture so everybody can see it. There we are. Wow. There we are. Look at that.

29 years ago. Nothing's changed. Look at that. 29. I think we've gotten better with age. I think, yeah. I think we have as well. And yes, Tabitha was barely old enough to be legally married at that stage of our life, 29 years ago. People sometimes ask me, they're like, hey, why'd y'all get married so young? And I always have to tell them, well, it's obvious, isn't it? She couldn't keep her hands off of me, everybody. So that's why. That's a 29-year-old joke. It's so funny. So good. It is really, really funny. So good. 29 years of marriage, and here's what we've discovered. We've discovered, yes, relationships are stressful, and yes, I do stress you out. All right? We've discovered both of those things. And that's really, honestly, listen, that's true of any of your relationships. I know it is, but that wasn't God's design.

And that's where we wanna start today. In fact, if you really wanna know what God's heart is for something, take it back to its purest form. Go back to the beginning. Go back to creation. The beginning, we see God's desire and His plan for relationships. Right after God creates Adam and Eve and puts them in the garden, right after God institutes this beautiful covenant that we know of as marriage, this is what the Bible says. God says, and this explains, this is why there's marriage. God says, this explains why a man leaves his father and his mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into, say the word with me, everybody, into one. And that's the word you gotta dial into today, into one. God's desire, God's plan, God's intention. for marriage specifically is two becoming one. And let me teach you something about one, okay? When there's one, there is no stress. Did you know that? Think about it. When there's one, there is no stress. I don't stress myself out. You understand? When there's one.

When Tabitha's home alone without me, she's not stressed one bit. There is no stress when there's one. And so God's plan from the beginning was two should become one, which means God's plan was there would be no stress. Hakuna matata, everybody. That was God's plan. He didn't want there to be stress in our relationships. And that's God's picture, perfect, ideal for relationships. It's why Jesus, when he was on earth, that's why Jesus showed such amazing grace and such unconditional love to the people he came in contact with in his relationships. And it's why even when he was praying one of his final prayers, one of Jesus's last prayers, he prayed here on earth to the father. This is what Jesus prayed. He said, I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. He was talking about the disciples' message. So really Jesus was praying for you and me. He's praying for us. He's praying for those who would believe in me. And he says this, that all of them, that all of us may be. And here's our word again, that we may be one. And this is what God wants from our relationships. But here's what we've learned. Not only in our own marriage,

but we've learned this through helping so many others in their marriage and pastoring you in your marriages. And through just a lot of reading and research and study, what we've learned is that one isn't a word that describes most relationships. And it doesn't describe most relationships because stress comes in as a nasty little elephant in the room, stress enters the room. And stress doesn't unite us. Stress actually, it actually divides us. Yeah, yeah, one isn't, like you said, it's not a word that we often use when we talk about relationships and peace isn't either, right, when these are stressors. But God wants us in relationships with peace. He wants our relationships to be peaceful. And I love this verse, it says this, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. So honestly, if you're saying, you're stressing me out, or if you're saying, this relationship is stressful, you're not gonna really be able to have peace in your relationship. And you're not gonna be able to live as one. And so that's why we're having this service today to talk about, hey, the elephant in the room. Right, so we can expose it and drive it out and bring oneness and peace to all of our relationships. And so today, here's what we wanna do. We wanna teach you today what we believe

are the five biggest stressors in your marriage, the five biggest stressors in your marriage. Now, we realize not everybody here or watching online is married, and that's okay. That's great, because the principles we're gonna teach, you can apply to any relationship in your life, but we're gonna do the work of applying them specifically to marriage. And my guess is that you could probably figure out what the five are, because you live with these five in your marriage already. The five biggest stressors, and this is what I'm calling, listen, I'm calling it a starter sermon, all right? We do these sometimes. I intentionally plug them in. It's a starter sermon, which means we're gonna do five big ideas, and how many of you know that we ain't got enough time to solve all your marriage problems today? How many of you know that? You're like, yeah, there's not enough time in the day. So we're gonna hit five topics with the goal of helping you have some conversations on the way home. Yeah. Get fired up, somebody. Woo. All the men said, yes. No man in the room's excited right now. I just took the wind out of his sails,

because fellas, what that means, starter sermon means this, when you get in the car, expect to talk about it, all right? That's what it means, because I'm gonna give you some big ideas. We're gonna give you some scriptures and some thoughts, but the hope and the goal today is this, that this is where it starts, not where it ends. So you're gonna leave from here today with some conversations to have, some work to be done. And I know that at least one of these five big stressors that show up in our marriages, it's gonna end up in your life. impact and affect you. Here's the first one. And we simply are gonna call this one conflict and communication. Conflict and communication. Some of you are looking at me like, wait a minute, I thought you said there were gonna be five and this is number one, but it actually is two. And I understand it's a buy one, get one free special, everybody, all right. So it's combined. And the reason we combined it is because in our experience, most conflict stems from communication problems. Most of the reason that Tabitha and I enter into conflict is because of communication issues. And if we could learn to communicate better, even if there was conflict,

we would actually conflict better as well, which would result in a less stressful situation. So Tab, what is it that makes conflict and communication so stressful in a relationship? Yeah, I mean, I think it's what you said last week when you talked about, we don't put the other person first. We don't think about their needs above our own. We don't communicate with them in mind. And I'll give you an example, okay? So when you, and I actually think this is most men, men need words of affirmation. And so that's your need. Your need is for me to give you words of affirmation. And there's sometimes when you load the dishwasher. Okay, wait, wait a minute. And you see how I. I don't think we needed this example, to be honest. This is a good example, this is a good example. All the women will agree. But sometimes when you load the dishwasher, it's really wrong. It's like not right. And so I have a choice to make. In that moment, I have a choice, okay? I can meet your need, which is words of affirmation. I can affirm you and be thankful. Or, or I can tell you how you're doing it wrong, right? I can do that. So we know, so we know the right answer, right ladies?

We know the right answer. We can, we can choose that in that moment, that we're going to stop worrying about my need, which is how the dishwasher is being loaded. And I can worry about his need. And I can worry about the dish loader. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I can, yeah. It's a good example. It turned out to be a good example. Yeah, it's a good example. I didn't know where it was going, but now I know. I like it. And I can use my words to affirm him. The Bible says it like this, the tongue has the power of life and death. Think about that for a minute. Our words have the power of life and death. And that's really with every single relationship that we have in marriage, at work, with our kids, our words have power and they can bring life or death, but especially in marriage. Yeah.

And I think that's really true, especially like, you know, when we fight. Yeah, we don't call it a fight. We call it a sanctified discussion. Yeah. A holy disagreement. Yes. And, and when, and when we, and when we have those, we actually had, we actually had one last night. All right, we had one last night about this sermon. Okay. We had it, we had a fight last night about this sermon and it wasn't because we thought we needed a good example so we can stand up here and tell you we fought about the sermon. We just fought about it, y'all. And, and one of the things that I think really surface, surfaces when we argue and it, and it did again last night is, is the way we communicate in an argument. It's the way we use our words, the tone in which we use them. And, and fellas, this is particularly important for us, the timing in which we say them. And this is a great verse. This would be a great verse to memorize. This would be a great verse to work on as a couple. It'd be a great verse to print out and put on the bathroom mirror. This would be a great, great verse. The Bible says this.

It says a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. And I bet if you could think about the last five sanctified disagreements you've had in your house, particularly in your marriage, I bet you could look back and I bet you could trace all five of those to a harsh word and not a gentle one. And that's something we can all learn. Because when we use our words to conflict well, It actually moves us forward. But when we use our words to conflict poorly, it actually stalls us out. The other thing that I think we've learned to do in conflict in communication is we've, and we don't always get it right, but we try to always believe the best. We believe the best. Like when you speak to me and it might have a little bite to it, I'm trying to believe the best of, oh, you didn't mean it that way. When I say something dumb, I'm asking you to believe the best because dudes sometimes say dumb things. Ain't that right, fellas? Sometimes, we don't know any better. We just say dumb things, but believe the best instead of jumping to a conclusion. Shanti Feldman is a researcher and social scientist. She's done a ton of research on men and women

and relationships, and I love her work. In a book she wrote, which would be a great book called Highly Happy Marriages, Highly Happy Marriages, this is what she determined. She said a prerequisite, and she studied all these happy marriages, and what she discovered is a prerequisite, a starting point for a happy marriage, well, it is to choose to believe the best about your spouse's intentions even when you are legitimately hurt. That's good. So one of the things we'll sometimes say to each other in a loving way when we're kind of moving down a trail toward an argument or a disagreement in our words is we'll sometimes say same team, same team. We gotta remember we're on the same team. We're fighting for the same thing. We want the same result. We're on the same team. So we ain't gotta use our words to hurt each other. We can actually use our words to conflict well to move beyond the conflict. Conflict and communication, it's a big one. It's a big one in most of our marriages and a lot of our relationships, and a good starter, a good starter would be this. Hey, what are some gentle words I could use? That's good. What are some non-harsh ways that I could communicate?

Because you're putting the other person first in your communication. Take us to number two. Number two, stressor in marriage. Number two, stressor in marriage is money. Money, money, money. It's probably not a surprise to you guys that money is a stressor in marriage. Money and how we approach money can be a huge stressor in marriage. Now, I will say one of our stressors is communication and conflict, but money has not been, which we celebrate. We're very thankful. We're winning, we're winning. Yeah, yeah. In 29 years of marriage, I can tell you one time that we've argued about money, and that was more about what we were going to give rather than what we were spending. That's right. So we really weren't, it was an argument, yes. Holy disagreement, isn't that what you called it? Holy disagreement. But we really don't fight about money. Right, it's not really a stressor for us, and it hasn't been in 29 years. No, and it's not because we've always had money. It's not like we've had plenty of money flowing over the month.

Right. It's not that, because when we first got married, we were so young, and y'all, we were like broke, broke. We had no money. This is how broke we were. I remember coming home one day and walking in, and I saw you, and I thought you were about to put ketchup over the noodles and call it spaghetti. That's how broke we were. We weren't that broke. Come on, that's funny, y'all. That's broke, though. If somebody puts ketchup over noodles and calls it spaghetti, that's broke. Y'all act like y'all didn't get that joke, that's funny. It wasn't that bad. No, but we, I mean, I'm telling you, the first, our first married Christmas, one of my favorite gifts that we got from my mom was a basket, and it had canned goods in it, and that fired us up. We were so excited. Groceries for Christmas. We were so, we were so happy. You're broke if you're getting groceries from Christmas and getting fired up about it. Yeah, we were so excited. And then the other thing that we got that year, do you remember this? I do. We got Chick-fil-A calendar.

Who remembers the old Chick-fil-A calendar? Old school, old school Chick-fil-A calendar, print it out. Yes, and on the calendar, every single month was a free coupon for something on the menu. Yeah, and we both got one. We both got one. So it was like, for the first year, that was like our hot date. We'd go to Chick-fil-A, and we'd get our free fries, and we'd be like, ooh, this is awesome. It was, that was, those were good, good times. I wanna help you though, because here's what I know, here's what I know. Most people, most marriages can't say we don't fight about money. Most marriages can't, and I'm gonna tell you the secret. to our success. This is the secret to 29 years and only one fight about money. And it's because for 29 years, and I mean this genuinely and sincerely, and I really do wanna help you with this, because money doesn't have to be a stressor in your marriage. Yeah. It doesn't have to be a stressor in your marriage. Here's the secret to it. For 29 years, we have lived religiously. We have lived by what we call the give, save, spend,

budget for 29 years, which is why we haven't fought about money and why it really hasn't been a stressor in our life for 29 years. Because before the month ever starts, so before we ever make a dollar that month or before we ever spend a dollar that month, we have together, and that's so important, together decided how much we're gonna give that month, how much we're gonna save that month, how much we're gonna spend that month, and what we're gonna spend it on that month before the month ever starts, we decide together the give, save, spend, budget, and then we stick to it during the month. And let me just tell you where this really came from. This wasn't original to us. We've heard it taught growing up and saw it modeled in our families growing up, but it really boils down to a verse of Scripture that we read early on in our marriage, and the verse goes like this. It says, the plans of the diligent lead to profit, as surely as, or as much as, haste, not planning, leads to poverty. And we just decided as much as it depends on us in our marriage, okay, we're gonna choose profit over poverty. That's what we want. We want profit over poverty,

so as much as it depends on us, we're gonna make some plans. And that's where the give, save, spend, budget came out. Do you want to tell people how it worked for us or how it works for us? Yeah, so really, and here's the thing. I think when you honor God this way, he will honor you. That's right. Like we've seen it over and over and over the years, even when we didn't have a lot of money. God has honored our faithfulness in this, and he will honor you. I'm telling you, you will see him show up in ways that you have no idea. It's the way he wants to bless you. So for us, what we've decided to do to honor God, and so at the beginning of the month, we take a percentage of our income right off the top, and we give it right back to God through the church, through this church every single month. Yeah. So we give, right, and then we save. And we save for a lot of things. We save for retirement. We save a percentage. We choose that percentage and what it's gonna be, but we save for things like home repairs. We've got a, we think we have a bird in our dryer vent right now, so we gotta save for that,

because I think that's gonna cost us some money. Here's what, we're gonna need some help here on this. This is gonna be an audience participation poll. You'll help us solve a potential conflict in our house. Tabitha is really, in case you can't tell, she has really worked up about this bird in the dryer vent, okay? Now here's my take on it. The bird's gonna find its way out and take care of itself. It's fine, it's fine. So my take on it is, I ain't gotta worry about the bird. It's gonna be fine. Tabitha's take on it is we better call an exterminator, come take care of the bird. How many of you think the bird's gonna be fine? The bird's gonna be fine? Yes, yes. That's all the men in the room. All the men in the room are like, don't worry about it. Don't stress about the bird. So we save, sorry for hijacking the moment. Okay, we save for all kinds of things. We save for cars, we save for vacation. We save for tons and tons of things. So we give, then we save. The rest, we choose what we spend our money on, right? We get to choose. So before every month, you and I decide where every single dollar goes. We agree where every single dollar

is going to go in our budget. Even down to the pennies, y'all. We're like, oh, we have a penny here? Oh, we're gonna put that here, you know? We decide that. And we make sure that we're telling our money where it's gonna go before it starts telling us where we're gonna go. Right, right, because that's where the stress enters. Yeah. And so here's a little takeaway, a little, this, remember, it's a starter sermon. It's meant to start conversations. You got six days, six days before March 1st, six days before the start of a new month. So here's an exercise you could do. If you're married, sit down as a couple. If you're single, you can sit down by yourself. You really won't get any argument out of this, all right? So, and have a little give, save, spend budget meeting. Yeah. And just decide. In the next six days, you decide, hey, next month, during the month of March, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna make, so let's name every dollar. Let's decide how much we're gonna give, how much we're gonna save, what we're gonna save it for, and then let's assign a name to every dollar we're gonna spend, and then let's stick to the plan.

Let's stick to it during the month of March, and you'll be amazed, I'm telling you, you'll be amazed. It'll be some work on the front end in the next six days, but the month of March will be stress-free when it comes to money. You'll be so happy, you're not gonna argue about it. You're not gonna fight about it, you're not gonna bring up stress, as long as you stick to the plan. Stick to the plan, and during the month of March, money won't be a stressor in your life. We got conflict in communication, we got money. Let me move us to number three, okay? The third stressor in most marriages are those dang kids, everybody. Those kids, those kids. And if you don't believe kids are a stressor in marriage, it's because you ain't got any, all right? That's why, that's why, because kids add stress in marriage. Now, here's what we're learning, though. Here's what we're learning, because this is new for us. Now, we got a grandbaby. Grandkids, we're learning, take away stress, all right? It's awesome, it's incredible, isn't it? It's so great. So grandkids take, in fact, I think grandkids are God's gift to parents for not killing their kids, all right? So don't kill your kids, let them live. One day, they're gonna give you a grandkid,

and that's awesome. But we can teach you a lot, and really, you're passionate about helping, helping you raise your kids, helping you put your kids on the right path. Our church is passionate about that. Aren't you thankful for a church that prioritizes kids and students? So many students getting baptized today. So awesome, so amazing. But I wanna just, I'll give you two principles today that I think will help you keep kids from being the stressor in your marriage. Here's the first principle I would teach you is this, that marriage is the priority relationship. That's the priority relationship. So it's God first, that's how God designed it. It's God first, then it's us second, and then it's kids. It's the priority relationship. And we love our kids. Don't get me wrong, we love our kids. You talk to our kids, they'll tell you, mom and dad love us. They're some of our favorite people to be with and to be around. It has always been that way. We love our kids, but now our kids are grown and awesome and mostly out of the house. And what happens for a lot of people, when the kids leave the house, guess who doesn't? She ain't going nowhere.

I'm not going anywhere. So we're still there. And if you have put God's order out of order, God's order is God first, marriage second, kids next. If you put God's order out of order in your house, the problem is that when the kids leave and they're done, the marriage is too. And you don't want that in your marriage. So I'm fighting today that you would leave from here and have some conversations. Like for us, even when our kids were little, we still had date nights. And when we didn't have money, we made up our own date night. When the kids went to bed, we watched the movie. When the kids went to bed, we had a picnic. When the kids, I'm going to leave it at that. Okay, everybody, I'm just saying. Yeah. Yep, that's what we had, picnics. Yeah. And if you can't afford babysitting, share babysitting with the next door neighbor or somebody, you know, you just figure it out, but you still have date night. When our kids were little, we were in a group together. Every week without kids, we were in a group together. We are the priority relationship. Marriage is the priority relationship. Yeah. All right, what's the second principle?

Here's the second principle. We raised our kids with a shared purpose. And from the beginning, and even today, when we're talking about our kids, our parenting is really defined by our shared purpose, which is we want our kids to know, love, and serve Jesus. Yeah. That's our whole purpose. That's been our priority from day one. That's right. Always. And so, and yeah, before Brayden was even born, we said we want our kids to know, love, and serve Jesus. And really it has become the filter for every single decision that we've made for our kids. So we've asked ourselves, does this decision help them know, love, or serve Jesus? Or does this hurt them or keep them from knowing, loving, and serving Jesus? So when we thought about what, should we allow them to play a sport, or join a team, or do this, or do that? We asked ourselves. Does this help us help our kids know love and serve Jesus when it came to disciplining them, right? We asked the same question the same filter when it came to giving them a phone Yeah And when we were gonna do that, we asked the question will this help them know love and serve Jesus? so every single decision that we made we filtered it through that that question of Our shared purpose, right?

and it was our shared purpose that we would that we would help them know love and serve Jesus and you know, it It's still stressful y'all. I mean kids be crazy, right? Kids be crazy But here's the reality the stress it didn't break us and it didn't break our marriage because we were same team right because we had our shared purpose and what we were doing as as we were parenting our kids and so So I love this verse that says train up a child in the way he should go Even when he grows older, he will not abandon it. Yeah, that's such a great such a great Command and promise and I think you got to see it as both It's a command and a promise and I know I know there are some parents today Still waiting on the fulfillment of that promise and we stand with you Believing that your child your son your daughter who's in their 20s 30s Maybe 40s who maybe have walked away from faith are gonna return to faith because the firm foundation that you've given to them We believe it. It's a promise But it's a command. Yeah, it's a command and you're training your child up for something So here be a good little exercise. Hey, what are we training our child for? What is it? That we're training our children for what is as a family our Shared purpose because that then becomes the filter and it allows when you're on the same team about that It allows you to take out a lot a lot of the stress okay, let me go to number four, which is my personal favorite topic of of the day and And I'm gonna talk Short about this one because I'm not gonna say much because your dad's probably watching online All right, so I don't want to say a lot and and I'm gonna use I'm gonna use code language I'm use code language because some of you have children in the room with you I didn't warn you and some of you're watching online with some kids. So this is gonna be our code language Okay, the fourth stressor it shows up in almost every marriage the fourth stressor I'm calling the bedroom The bedroom You think they got it the bedroom that's the code language Did they get it? I hope so. I think they got it. I Think they got it. Listen. Listen. God. Let me let me just boil it down like this. Okay? God wants you to

Enjoy being in your bedroom Now he wants you to keep your bedroom clean, that's right But he wants you to like your bedroom Let me let me I can say so much about this the Bible actually says a lot about this because God prioritizes it God says a lot about this if you don't believe me There's a whole book called Song of Solomon go read it tomorrow for your quiet time. You'll enjoy it She gave you one one verse and I want to I want to focus in on two words on this verse That I think you're so powerful. The Bible says this the Bible says marriage Look mawage marriage Marriage should be two words should be honored by all and The marriage bed kept pure and those are the two words. I want to just make sure you get today honored and pure The the word honored means to treat something as weighty To treat it as valuable To you if you got something valuable or weighty, what do you do you protect it you guard it You're you You prioritize it When it's when it's weighty when it's valuable when it's honored and Then that's and that's the way we should treat the bedroom, especially in our marriages. We should honor it We should honor it. Hey, you should prioritize it We should go to our bedroom More often than just special occasions like Valentine's Day and anniversaries That's right. I couldn't agree more. What'd you say? I could Every man likes this woman. They're so happy with me right now. I've been helping him out all day. Yes. I Really do believe married couples need to be in the in the bedroom more often. Yeah, I agree, babe. Good job. She said excellent Yes, you know the bedroom was God's design for marriage. Yeah, and he intends for it to be honored and pure The word pure here means the way something was created to be or undefiled Yeah

And that means that we're gonna have to be really intentional about what we allow into our minds and our hearts We need to be mindful of the movies that we watch we have to be mindful of the TV shows that we watch and We really have to guard our hearts against some of the social media that we watch or scroll through Or other things that you look at on your phone and ladies. We probably even need to watch some of the books we read Because what we consistently take in it will shape what we desire Wow How we see our spouse and what we bring into the bedroom and Keeping our minds pure keeps the stress out of marriage So we can stay focused on the right things, which is connection and trust and oneness Yeah, instead of comparison and distraction. Yeah, that's so good. That's so good I Think I think if you could if you could hear our our heart on this and our passion and The words we're using I want to make sure you get Like all these and this this is this is no different all of these stressors They they exist. Yeah, but you don't have to compound the stress Yeah with the decisions you make and so if you can have some intentional Conversation let God's Word shine the light. Yeah show you some things in your relationship Then it allows you to minimize the stress that this brings in our in our marriages. Here's the fifth and final Stressor, I believe I'm just gonna call it life. All right, I'm just called life because life is stressful Yes, and you bring home stress from work and you bring home stress from traffic and you bring them stress because of sickness and you Bring home stress because of other relationships and what often will happen in a marriage Specifically is you'll bring home all this stress. That's because of life and then you'll look at the person You'll say you're stressing me out or you're saying this relationship is stressful. No, no life is stressful Yeah, it's not you and it's not the relationship It's just it's just life Life is stressful and there's and there's really two places the stress comes from. I'll tell you the first one real simply It's it's it's the decisions we make some of us are inviting too much stress into our lives like Like some of you some of you the reason your marriage feels so stressful is that your calendar has no margin Yeah, and you actually are in charge of your calendar

You actually make the decisions about your kid the reason you as a husband and wife don't have time to talk is because you've signed your kids up for 12 different after-school Activities and you're so busy driving them around you don't even get to connect with your spouse But that's a decision you're making So so one of the things we tried to do and we continue to do is we've tried to say hey What is it in our lives that stress we can control? What where are we making decisions as actually inviting? Stress in because we got to get rid of those things a lot of times. It's about being protective over our schedules Yeah, being being aware of what we're consuming because those things create stress and that's stress we control Yeah, but there is a stress That is out of our control in his life, right? Oh, yeah, there's so many stresses that come at us, you know Like when I was sick, we had tons of doctor's appointments and that was really stressful Yeah, sometimes like with church stuff that comes up You know like like snow the last the few Sundays ago. I was so stressed back-to-back Sunday He was stressed You guys know the car breaks down. That's really stressful. The washing machine breaks down. Yeah, that's really stressful But here's what I've learned in many years of life. There's always going to be something Yeah, always it never ends. You're never like, okay if I can just get through this, this will be less stressful No, there's always something in life coming at you that's going to be stressful But here's what I know When life stresses you it doesn't have to break you. That's right, and it doesn't have to break your marriage, right? and That's why in our marriage in your marriage you need something to hold on to and I love this verse in Hebrews. It says we have this hope as an anchor for the soul Firm and secure. You know what an anchor does? An anchor holds something.

Right. An anchor steadies something. It grounds something. An anchor secures something. And for so many of you today, that's what you need in your marriage and in your relationships. More than anything right now, you need something to hold your marriage steady. You need something that will ground your marriage. You need something that will secure your marriage or your relationships. And that anchor has a name. Yeah. And his name is Jesus. That's right. That's so good. And I'll just testify, 29 years, there's been some stress. There's been some stressful things. Continues to be some stressful things, but our anchor has never failed us. Our anchor of Jesus, His Word, being planted in His house. It has been the very thing that has held our lives strong and steady and our marriage strong and steady. And here's what we believe for you. That if you would hold on to the anchor of Jesus, we're confident of this, that He will hold on to you. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's our prayer. Five stressors. And I'm pretty sure one of those five, maybe all five of the five that you're experiencing them in your marriage or a different relationship today, look to Jesus. Yeah. Let Him illuminate that elephant in the room. Let Him illuminate it so it becomes a light for the whole world to see. Because stress, it doesn't have to divide us. When we drive out the elephant in the room, it can actually unite us when we hold on close to Jesus. And I wanna pray that for you, for your marriages, for every relationship in your life today. So would you bow your heads? Would you close your eyes today? Open your hearts to receive the word. Father, today in the name of Jesus, the anchor of our soul, we cry out to you. We ask for healing in our marriages, in our relationships. God, we ask that today would be a day of bold conversations, a day of new beginnings, a day, God, where we look to you and hold on to you as you hold on to us. We're so thankful for your word and how it changes us today.

And with heads bowed and eyes closed today, if you would say, I don't know Jesus, I don't know Him. I don't have a relationship with Him. I'm not holding on to Him. You've heard us sing about Him and preach about Him. You've seen the greatest demonstration of the life changed by Jesus in the waters of baptism. And so today, if you'd wanna begin a relationship with Him, I wanna lead you in a simple prayer. You just pray this prayer silently from your heart to God. He's listening right now. You can just say, Jesus, I wanna know you. I want my sin forgiven by you. I wanna live my life for you. So come into my life and be my Lord and Savior. Father, we thank you for what you're doing in our lives today. We thank you for your goodness and your grace. And we love you, Jesus, more and more. It's in your holy name we pray. Amen. Amen. Come on, everybody. Can you thank God for His word today? ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪