What if Marriage Was Never Meant to Make You Happy? | More Than a Game | Week 1

Look at this in the book of James, all right? James says this, he says, come now, you who say, here's your plan, today or tomorrow we're gonna go to such and such town, you know, spend a year there, make some trade, make some profit. Here's what he said, you don't know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? You're like a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. In other words, how many of us have told ourself, I know I need to get to that, I know something needs to happen, something needs to change, I need to pay attention to that, I know it's important, but right now I have some other stuff that feels more pressing, more urgent, more important. So I'm gonna get to that, I'm gonna work on that, her, him, us, tomorrow. James, the author says, be careful. You don't know if you get tomorrow. In other words, don't put off until tomorrow what you need to pay attention to today, because again, you don't know if you get it tomorrow. A lot can happen between now and then, right? And we experience that. And there's no other area of life that we tend to use,

I'm gonna work on that eventually, more than the area of life that we're gonna look at over the next four weeks, and that is marriage. Okay, now, here's the thing. When I said we're gonna look at marriage for four weeks, a bunch of us leaned back, like we talked about a few minutes ago, and you just checked out, like I'm going camping, right? This isn't my deal, and for several reasons. And I'm gonna talk to, I think, all the segments of the room. Some of you thought this. You go, thanks, I'm not married. This is irrelevant. I'm 15, not married, it's illegal, all right? So, or some people thought this. I'm not married anymore, I'm divorced, and I have zero plans of jumping back into that ever again. So let me speak to the people in the room that aren't married, especially to those who say, I'm not married yet, but maybe, all right? The best time to work on what kind of marriage you will have tomorrow, which will be based on what kind of husband or wife you're gonna be in that marriage, the best time to work on that is not after you get married. Right, it's before, because there's gonna be hard truth. There's gonna be so much hard truth. Some of you get so uncomfortable. It's my spiritual gift, bothering you, okay?

So whatever kind of person you are now does not change once you stick a ring on one another's finger and then make some well-intentioned, you mean them, promises to one another, right? Who you are now will be the kind of person that another person is gonna trust their life to, their happiness to, and in a large part, they're gonna hook up with you, and it's gonna influence how they walk with Jesus. They're gonna trust you, not just with their body, but with their hearts, not just with their minds, their whole future. They're gonna put their trust in you, and their life and what kind of life they're gonna experience will be inseparably linked to you, and that's heavy. That's a heavy responsibility and a heavy load to carry, so you might wanna get started, I don't know, now. Because here's, you're gonna get an amen on this. None of us knew what we were signing up for when we got married, amen? It's like, oh, crap, what have I done? Which is why we make vows, right? And we mean them, all right? We say like this, hey, I'm not going anywhere, for better or worse, and we don't know what we're talking about, because we promise for worse, all right, no matter what happens, here's my promise. For worse is gonna feel worse than you thought it was gonna feel,

which means that you start getting ready now so you can be ready to face whatever this world is gonna throw at you today, tomorrow, right, right? Like, hey, high school students, if you're cheating on your girlfriend now, you'll cheat on your wife, because you're a cheater. If you're lying to your parents, you're gonna lie to your husband, because you're a liar. Something needs to change now, does that make sense? Say yes. All right, so I don't know if I mentioned this, I started riding horses a couple of years ago. Have I mentioned that, all right? I bought a new horse, honestly, I got two horses now, Hank. Anyway, but somebody told me this, I should put this picture up there, he's really handsome, but somebody told me it takes 2,000 hours in the saddle to not suck at horse riding, and I know that's true, because I've spent several hundred hours, and I've gone in several competitions, my average score is zero. I mean, I keep getting, like, Jim, please leave the arena. Like, thanks, all right, right? Translated, I still suck at it, right? So if that's true on something comparatively as trivial as riding a horse, how much preparation do you think it might take to saddle up for life with another person in the most important relationship you'll ever have this side of heaven, and not suck at it?

So, not married yet people, take notes, file what you hear away, so when the day comes, you don't get bucked off and trampled, deal? And I promise, all right, not married people, every week, I will bring the truth that we're talking about marriage, I will bring that into your current world that needs to be true in your life before you get married, okay, all you not married people, say amen. Okay, so lean in. Another section of the room, here's what you got, you heard me say we're gonna talk about marriage, and you just went, we're fine, we're doing great, all right? We don't really need any help in this area of life. And here's what I would say to that, amen. I hope that's true. I really do hope it's true. But I've been doing this pastor again for like 40 years or so, all right? I have lost count of the number of couples who had a bomb dropped on them and they went, well, I knew we had some problems, but I didn't see this coming. Don't raise your hand, look straight ahead, right? And again, I hope you're right, I do. I hope you have a picture-perfect marriage. Like when God says, I got an idea, I hope it's your marriage, that kind of marriage. So lean in and use this series.

Maybe it's a time of confirmation. Maybe pick up some pro tips to make a good thing even better because most good marriages don't go bad one day. Most good marriages become not good because one or both of you stopped paying attention, took marriage and took one another for granted, got distracted by the craziness of life. You fell asleep at the wheel and woke up one day in a crash and then you act surprised because you didn't see it coming. But most likely, it's been coming for a long time. You just weren't paying attention to the right things. My hope, great, super married people, I hope that you don't learn anything new from this series because you're already doing everything right. You never have, you never will make a mistake. You've kept every one of your vows perfectly until the day that death separates you. If that's you, then this will be nothing more than a way to go, keep going. And by the way, come up later, you should be teaching up here. Because I've been married for 42 years and I can tell you, some days, yesterday, I can tell. I can say it but she just looks at me and I can read it in her eyes. Why did I marry you? And my response is, I'm not sure, right? So even if you think you don't need this, lean in. And if you are, how about this? Now I'm gonna get in your business.

If you're one of those married people that heard that we're gonna be unpacking marriage and you kind of, I'm gonna say it, condescendingly nodded your head and thought, good, some of these people need to hear this. Here's my question, first of all, did you both nod your heads and look at each other and go, we got this? Or did one of you nod your head and the other one just look straight ahead and think, oh, crap. This is gonna bring up stuff I thought we wouldn't have to talk about. We're going camping, all right? So how about this, all right, married people? When you get in the car truck later on the way home, before you get home, whoever has the biggest courage, ask this question. Hey, we're looking at several decades of doing this marriage thing, you know, that's our plan, right? Is there any area of our marriage that you think or that you hope or that you want to get better? I'm not saying it's on fire, it's not bad, but hey, there's this one part, I think we could do better at that. And if you can't think of one thing in your life that needs to get better, you're the first couple in the history of marriage to get it figured out perfectly. But more than likely, I think you're just not being honest.

I'm not trying to create something where there isn't anything, I'm just trying to make sure that something that doesn't feel like much today doesn't grow into something more tomorrow. Is that fair, married people? Yep, well, three of us. The rest of you, I'll pray for you. All right, so here's the other part, all right. The other segment of the room, this is where you get kind of, all right, might have checked out because here's what went through your mind. Hey, Jim, thanks, our marriage is dead. It's so lifeless, it's so hopeless. Basically, we're roommates and we live separate lives. Right now, we're focusing on the kids, but after that, I don't know. And deep down inside, you're thinking it's a matter of time till one of us files for papers. We talk about it all the time. We threaten each other with it all the time, like our parents did, like most of our friends have already done. It seems inevitable. I mean, you've sat through marriage series before. You've gone to a marriage conference before. You've tried counseling before and you're just sitting there going, it didn't work. Nothing changed, and from where you're sitting, you don't see any way for this marriage,

be that we're openly fighting and screaming and yelling at each other, all the way to, we just don't talk anymore, it's silent. I don't see how it's ever gonna get better. You might be right. I haven't asked. It's a big, it's a risk. I haven't asked from you, all right? Would you be willing to take whatever you're feeling, could you, I don't wanna say put it on hold, but could you just sit it over here and kind of suspend it for the next four weeks, and would you be willing to pray this prayer? Hey, God, I think this is it. I think this might be our last chance, but I'm here, I showed up. I'm willing to open myself up to the possibility that you might wanna teach me something I've never considered before. So, God, my mind is open, my ears are open, my heart is open. I'll look at whatever you want me to look at if you'll show it to me, and at the end of this series, you can always go back to your old plan. I told you it's not gonna work, but see, when it comes to God, all right, things that seem hopeless, I better get an amen on this, all right? Things that seem hopeless and unfixable and impossible become possible when God gets involved.

We say it around here a lot. With man, on our own, it. impossible, because I don't know how we can get from where we are to the other side, which is true. On your own, in your own strength, with your own thoughts, with your own understanding, some of you are gutting it out. And you're just tired, but you're just hanging on, barely hanging on, right? And you're right, because you can't see it ever getting better, because you've never been there before. God has already been there. But I love what's painted on the walls of my friend Jobi's church down in Jacksonville. It says on one side of the auditorium, if the tomb is empty, on the other side it says, all things are possible. See, God's specialty is making impossible things possible, so that when you get to the other side, and God has done what only God can do in any part of your life, there will be no doubt, God did what we could not pull off on our own. Around here, we just call it the but God factor. But God changes everything. I couldn't do it, I couldn't see it, but God got involved in this part of my life, and it's nothing short of a miracle. So I'm just saying, would you be willing to take a step of faith, it's a risk, I know, and hold on a little bit longer, and then lean in, and if God, not Jim, all right, God tells you to do something, would you be willing to trust Him with one of the most tender, and right now, the most painful parts of your life, and see what God is able to do, if, because He's not going to throw Jesus' fairy dust on you, and everything's going to get better. If you're willing to follow Him, and trust Him, and obey what He tells you to do, if He's your King, follow Him. And if it doesn't work, you can always tap out in October, cool? Now, that is like, I'm really nervous right now, right? That was all introduction, and half my time is gone, and I don't have time to really dig into the

meat, the heart of marriage, all right? It's too important to dumb this down to a TED Talk, all right? I'm not going to do it, but having said that, when I was thinking of like a metaphor to kind of wrap this series around a theme, I was going to call this, we're just calling it marriage, it's memorable, all right? But I landed on the idea of not just a game. That's what I was going to call it, not just a game. I mean, marriage isn't a game, it's more than a game. Our whole life, we game everything. At work, we game out, you know, scenarios. We grow up playing games on video screens, but in a game, whether you win or lose, you just hit a switch, and turn it off, and walk away. There's no real consequences. Maybe you're a little frustrated, a little disappointed, right? But then, you can hit a reset button, it erases all your failures, and you move on to a new game, like the last game didn't even matter, because it really didn't matter, because right this end, it's not real. Here comes an amen. If anything marriage is going to teach you, and I mean teach you really quick, is it just got real. Like again, like on the drive home from the reception, like wow, right? See, this is not a game. There are lives on the line. There are real consequences on the line. People's futures hang in the balance. There's real joy, and there's real pain, like nothing else you will experience this side of heaven or hell. Someone's not going to go to hell. We're living it right now. And here's the other reason we can't reduce marriage down to another game that we play around with. Give it a try, if it doesn't work out, just stick it in the box, move on, go find another game to play. See, when you play a game, then the other person playing the game with you is called your opponent. And the game is an ongoing tally of wins and losses. In marriage, you're going to have an opponent, you have an enemy, but it's not the person you're married to.

And if the two of you aren't on the same team, playing for one another, one of you is going to win, and one of you is going to lose, which means you both lose, and your kids lose, and everybody connected to you loses. Now next month, next month I'm going to kick off a series, Unseen Realm 2.0. Oh, I just can't wait, all right, but I'm gonna hit it really, really, really hard. But your enemy is not the person you're married to. It's not the person that you're fighting with and arguing with. It's not the person who says, you know, they're not giving me what I want or what I need. I know, I'm there sometimes, all right, I know it feels like it, especially when the yelling starts, and the screaming starts, or they're just ignoring each other, when all that starts, all right. They're right there in the kitchen, yelling, they're the enemy, or they're laying in the bed beside of you, and it feels like they're, or he, or she, or we're the problem. Wrong. Because this is true in every area of life, but it's certainly true in marriage. We're gonna hit it in October, but I want to hit it now, okay, because it all ties back to this. Paul writes this, we don't wrestle, we don't fight against flesh and blood. Our enemy's not people. Here's our enemy, against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly, or the spiritual places that surround you. You would be true, leave it up there, you would be true to the text if you took out the world, we don't wrestle again, and replaced it with our marriage doesn't wrestle again. Our relationship, our covenant, how about this? Robin and Jim don't simply wrestle against flesh and blood. Our problem is not, our enemy's not hurt feelings and emotions. and I caught you in a lie and you got exposed. You know, if that's all that's going wrong with your marriage, write this down.

Just go find a book. Go to the bookstore and read a book on marriage. Find the right counselor. Go to another one of those five steps to a better, this is not that. It's not that easy because it's not about Robin and me just working out our junk. There's a spiritual attack targeting your marriage and whether you're a Christian or not, you feel it, don't ya? Don't ya? Yeah, it's like everything's formed against us. We can't win. Why? Because marriage was and is and always will be God's idea. God said, I got an idea and it's marriage and nobody gets to change it. My idea. And it is on a spiritual, mystical, not simply flesh and blood level. Marriage, because God made it this way, marriage was created to image God and our relationship with him. Think about it. Marriage is trinity. Husband, wife, united, glued, God is the Hebrew word, united by the Holy Spirit and Satan can't attack God. He tried that once, got kicked out of heaven, failed.

So if he can't attack God, he's gonna go after the image. He'll attack you and destroy the image, your marriage, certainly your children because he knows that if he can destroy your marriage, it not only steel kills and destroys you, that's his only plan for you, he knows that it breaks the heart of God. So whenever Satan, and that's who it will be, whispers in your ear, you deserve better than this. Well, what about you? What about your feelings? This isn't fair. What about your needs? You don't have to take this anymore. That's Satan and he's not looking out for your feelings or your needs or for you. He's lying to you because he wants to destroy you. Anything he whispers to you that is for your own good, isn't. But by the time we figure it out, it feels unfixable. And then here's what happens in the heavenly realms we just mentioned. Satan laughs at you and mocks you because he suckered you into the painful mess that you now live in or feel like you have to run away from. There's a spiritual attack from Satan on your marriage and on God and anything that says to you, move apart and isolate and give up, is not from God. But on the spiritual level, something else is going on in the spiritual realm in your marriage as well.

And it's good, and I know that because he's good, the one who's doing it. Because Jesus keeps his promise, we just say it. He keeps every promise. Here's his promise, to give you his Holy Spirit in you and to be the glue that has the ability to hold your marriage together. Sometimes when the Spirit gets involved in your life, again, it's not all roses and all, sometimes when God gets involved in your marriage, it's gonna be really painful. Sometimes it's gonna be really uncomfortable because the Spirit always reveals things that we don't want to look at in ourself. So I wanna throw out a couple of ideas or phrases for you about marriage that you might not have ever thought about it this way or considered, and I wish I was this smart, but this is taken right from the pages of our marriage ministry called Reengage. We're gonna launch it again. It's going on right now. We're gonna launch it again in the spring. You don't wanna miss it, right? Look at this. Marriage is less about your happiness and more about your holiness. God's biggest desire for your life is not, the sun will come out tomorrow, all right? A few months ago, I taught this when we were,

I was teaching on determining God's plan and purpose for your life. I wanna know God's plan for my life, but my life is a mess. I don't understand what's happening. Here's what I taught, right? Nothing, this is a hard teaching, too. Nothing touches your life, good or bad, unless it crosses God's desk and he allows it to happen, not the end of the thought, all right? Hold on, all right? The only things that God will allow, even if it doesn't make sense, you don't understand it, it hurts, and you stomp your foot and go, I don't like this. The only things that God will allow to enter your life are the things that he has predestined can be used for something good for those who love him, or he wouldn't let it touch you. Meaning the thing going on in your marriage right now that is anything but happy. God promises that if you're willing to hold onto him, not her, or him, right, him, and trust God, he will use all things, even the not happy things, to mold you into the kind of holy man or holy woman of God, not to turn you into a better husband or wife, that's an outcome. I want you to turn you into the holy person that you were created and meant to be.

And I'm gonna tell you this, all right, so the victims all go away here. Your husband and your wife doesn't have the ability, cannot keep God from doing in your life what God has determined to do in your life. Unless you point at your spouse and say. and blame them as, well, I would be in God's love for my life if he was different or she was different. Not true. I'm gonna give you another phrase that will explain this even better, all right? Marriage is a discipleship relationship, a refining tool God uses to expose idols, wounds, selfishness, pride, fear, and unmet longings in you. More than any other relationship in your life, marriage reveals what is already going on inside of us. We're gonna blame the other person, but almost always, I'm sure this is accepted, almost always what they just do, they're just triggering something and revealing the brokenness that we brought into the marriage, brokenness that probably we didn't even realize we were carrying, we thought we were over it. We thought it didn't matter, we had moved on, until they do something or they say something. You know what I'm talking about, right? And it brings up all this hidden stuff, stuffed down stuff, and why am I so angry, right? I thought I was over that.

Your husband and your wife, more than any other person on the planet, is gonna bring that up in you. Now listen, I'm not saying you sit back and go, like, it's really, really bad, but I just gotta sit here and take it, because God's, no, no, save that email. Am I expected to? We'll get to that in a minute. No, let me talk about the person you're married to, and don't say amen, all right? You're married to an imperfect, fallen, insecure, carrying their own bag of wounds, stories, unaddressed brokenness, denial, and fears. That's who you're married to. Look straight ahead. I'm saying that, unlike anything else, God will use your imperfect spouse to dig out and expose and reveal the junk in you that he wants to see healed and forgiven in you. Sometimes, man, marriage just feels like a lot of pressure. I'm gonna tell you what this marriage series is not. I'm just not gonna beat up on husbands. If you get your head out of here, the whole world gets better. Hey, ladies, you're messed up, too, all right? Can we all say amen together so nobody knows what we're talking about? Amen. Robin's watching this online.

I'm like, we'll talk later, babe. So here's a phrase from Re-Engage. It says this, the pressure doesn't create the cracks. It exposes them. See, you're gonna wanna argue with this, but you're wrong, and here's what I mean. Your walk with Christ and your marriage are mirror images of one another. What is true and going on in your relationship with God will show up in your relationship with your spouse. Here's what I mean. If Robin and I are doing good, I bet God and I are doing good, and if God and I are doing good, I bet Robin and I are doing good, but if God and I haven't spoken in a long time, this is a mess, and if something's going on here, the last person I wanna hear from right now is God. See, Paul, who earlier points out that our battle isn't with flesh and blood. Our primary enemy is not our spouse or our parents or whatever, right? It's a spiritual attack. So because of that, if it is a spiritual attack, we'd better be ready to fight, because it's a war. So Paul says this is what every person has to do in any area of life, but it certainly applies to every marriage has to do this, all right? So if all that's true, that we have this spiritual attack

on our lives and our marriages, here's what he says. If that's true, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, the worst days, and then having done all, at the end, stand firm. Now, I've preached this sermon three times. I've preached it at Rocky Mountain Men's Summit. I've preached at a men's conference in Indianapolis. I've preached it to students up at camp. There's one sermon I've adapted around the same theme. The key phrase goes like this. I'm not going down without a fight. I'm not. I'm not surrendering. I got it tattooed on my arms, all right? I'm gonna fight. I might get bruised in the fight. I might get bloody. I might get knocked down. I might feel like I'm the only one out there fighting. I might die on the battlefield, but I promise you one thing. That enemy is gonna know they've been in a fight. So when all this, that's the best, damn right, that's amen, that's right. I love this church, all right? Here's where you go, all right? So when all is said and done, and you wanna just work that through

with your kids in the car, right? So at the end of the day, even the evil days, the hard days, and you want to still be standing firm together when the attacks come, you're gonna have to fight. Not fight her, not fight him, but fight for them. Paul says if you're gonna have any chance of not just surviving, listen, the marriage that God has in mind for you is at least we're not divorced. At least you're not yelling anymore. We just don't speak, all right? Now Jesus said I came to give you not just life, which means not dead. I want to give you an abundant life. Listen, if you're gonna fight for your marriage, fight for your husband, fight for your wife, fight for your family, you're gonna have to put on the whole armor of God. Now put that back up there, all right? Look at it closely, all right? Therefore, take up, what's it say? Therefore what? Take up the whole. that you, if you'll do that, then you may be able to withstand the evil day and have it done all, stand firm. Look at it, you know what it doesn't say? It doesn't say God's gonna put his armor on you. It doesn't say that.

It doesn't say you just pray a prayer and God's gonna hand it to you on the couch on a silver platter, here's a good marriage. No, if you're gonna fight the fight that you need to fight, it says you're gonna have to pick it up, take it up, and you're gonna have to put it on, the armor of God. God is gonna supply everything you need, everything you need, make everything you need available to you, but you're gonna have to get off the couch if you're gonna, if you, if you, what you want and what you're gonna need, if it's gonna become a reality in your life, you're gonna have to go get it. You gotta take it up, put it on, learn how to use what God has made available to you. That's the only way you're gonna win. Not today's fight, not the latest battle, but I'm talking, I wanna win the war, victory over the enemy. The spiritual battle that wants to defeat you personally, your marriage, fall out on your kids, because his bigger goal is I wanna break God's heart, and if you just fight out of your own flesh and hurt and feelings, and some of us, that's what we're doing, and we don't know how much we have left in us, but if you fight with the full armor of God and his spirit, in the end, you both have the best chance of still standing. Like, what do you mean? Like, the sword is the word of God.

He's just not gonna put Bible verses in your head. You gotta be on your knees every day. You gotta be in the, in his word every day, reading things that don't make sense, and then something happens, you go, it makes sense now. You know, there's different translations of the Bible. I don't even remember which one this comes from. Malachi chapter two says this. God hates divorce. Take a breath. This is what it doesn't say. It does not say God hates divorced people. It's not true. I don't care what you've done. God does not hate you. He's not surprised. He's not disappointed. You know, he didn't go, I didn't know you were gonna do that or I wouldn't have said, no, no, no. No matter if you're single or married or divorced, regardless of who's faulted, the problems in your marriage is, God loves you. He doesn't hate anyone. God hates divorce, and just watch. Just watch some heads nod. God hates divorce, not only because of what divorce does to a person, but everybody attached to that person, but he also hates everything that you've had to go through, that life you had to endure to get to the point that our only option is divorce.

God hates divorce because he loves you. So if you're gonna have a marriage that's more than, at least we're not divorced, or divorce feels like it's our only option, it's a matter of time, if you're gonna have a marriage that is what God designed it to be, a picture of his love for you, and it's the closest thing to heaven that you will experience in this life, that's why he thought it up, he gave you a taste, then you're gonna have to show up every day and fight. Every day, against the real enemy for one another, and write this down, and never, never, never, never, ever give up. I wanna make an agreement with you. I don't know what your fighting has been like in the past. Do not introduce the word divorce ever again. I'll divorce you. I don't have, right? When you speak it out loud, you make it an option now. It's like my Navy SEAL friends, like did you ever think about quitting? Nope, never entertained the idea. If you entertain the idea, it's a matter of time till you ring that bell. I'm not going down without a fight. And at the end of the day, and you look back in your marriage, can you say I left it all on the field? Now, I was gonna say I'm almost done, but I'm not.

All right, so two quick things. I'm gonna tell you a story, and here's our plan moving forward. And then we're gonna hit this really hard next week, okay? So, story. A few weeks ago, I know what I'm dealing with at Flatirons, okay? A few weeks ago in the host spot, Carl stood up here and he said, hey, Jim's gonna be teaching a series on marriage when he comes back from summer break. Remember Jim? He used to preach here a lot. But anyway, I'm back. I'm back. I'm preaching like nonstop till Christmas. All right, here's how. So if there's anything that you hope he covers in that series, either text that question or that suggestion to 80857. Jim will read through them, all of them, and then make sure that he addresses it, okay? And you all responded. You did, all right? You have very strong opinions, all right? We had several, like 300, 400 responses. But out of all those, I hope Jim talks about this, you know not one, not one of those responsive requests, not one, not one person asked, how do I identify anything in my own life

that I might not be aware of that's actually hurting my spouse or interfering with my marriage? Nobody asked, is there anything going on in me? Not one. Yesterday at breakfast, my friend Tim says, doesn't count, Tim, you missed the text message. Anyway, but almost every one was some version of this. Yeah, what should I do if my husband won't be the spiritual leader? I've asked him and asked him. and ask him, he just won't lead. What if my wife refuses to do this or that? What are you supposed to do when your husband or your wife, I mean, they're just wrong, they fail at this, they refuse to do what I'm asking them to do, and then winding its way through all of them was an underlying question, it goes like this, how much longer do I have to put up with this before I can tap out on this thing and then blame them and not feel guilty? Pastor Jim, give me a Bible verse. And the reality is, I'm telling you, that marriage is pretty much doomed. Game over. So here's what we're gonna do for the next three weeks, not reducing marriage down to a game, but there are some rules, like rules of the game, of the road, how we're gonna do this, all right? And again, I'm ripping this off from re-engagement history.

I want you to take a picture of it. I think you'll be able to memorize it, most of you, all right? Maybe tattoo it on whatever finger you use to point in somebody's chest. Ooh, okay. So next time you're in the kitchen, you're gonna go like, never mind, all right? Here it is, all right, right? Draw a circle around yourself, step two. Work on everything inside that circle. But what about her circle? Not your deal. So in our worship time, we look at this. The biblical way of saying that goes like this. Search me, oh God. Know my heart. Try me. Test me. Know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous or painful way in me, and then, God, lead me in a better way. Lead me in the way everlasting. Leave it up there. Notice what it doesn't say? It does not say, search my wife, oh God. My husband's lost his mind. Change his thoughts. See if there's anything that they are doing that's causing me pain. Lead her to be a better Christian wife.

Make him a better Christian husband, because if you'll fix him or her, then our marriage will get better. No, it won't, because you're there. Not because, other than, it's not getting better. Not because your spouse is perfect and there's nothing for them to work on. Yeah, they need Jesus as much as you, all right? But I promise, nothing will get better for long, you can fake it for a while, until you start with you. At least that's what God's Word says. So I wanna close this way, all right? I want everybody to stand up, all of our campuses, and we're gonna say this verse. I'm gonna sit down and see how it feels, all right? So we're not gonna say this out loud together. It's gonna be our closing prayer, as we're inviting God to do business with us individually, before we ask him to fix anything in our marriage or our relationships, dating, whatever that is. Because if we don't start with our own hearts, if we don't look at our own broken parts, our own blind spots, this marriage series in the conference in a month, the best analogy is, we're just rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic, right? And it all goes down. Which, bottom line, means this. Life and marriage, and I would include dating in this, are gonna be tough, it's hard.

It's gonna be a battle, even if you both are Christians and have the Holy Spirit in your life, searching and knowing and leading you. But I promise you, I promise you, if Jesus is not your Lord and Savior, and you don't have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, your life and marriage don't stand a chance. Not because you're bad people, but because you're just not strong enough to do it on your own. And how do you know that? Because you would have already done it. So, if you're not a Christian, maybe that's why you're here, before you even look at your marriage. Put your faith in Jesus. And I would add this, keep on standing. Ha ha. Up at summer camp, up in Essence Park, a student, a high school girl came up to me in the parking lot, she says, Pastor Jim, I got a question. What's the most important thing I should be doing in my life? What should I be working on, paying attention to in my life, right now as a high school student? And I said, that's a great question from a very wise, super smart young lady. And I didn't miss a beat.

Identity in Christ. See, if you don't know who you are based on what Jesus says is true about you, there will be a long line of people who will try to tell you who they think you ought to be and what you're worth. So, here's how that applies to this series. Let me talk to the not married yet, just dating people in the room, all right? You're 16 years old, I just wanna go to prom, all right? Or you're 40 years old and you wanna get married someday. If you go into a dating relationship, but especially a marriage, and you don't know who you are in Christ, let alone who you're married to is in Christ, you will, unintentionally, you won't mean to do this, but you will unintentionally either try to be to them or expect them to deliver something to you that you can only get from Christ. And neither of you will be able to deliver what only Christ can deliver. And it's not fair to either one of you. Yeah, if you try to be everything to them or expect them to be everything to you. It's a great country song, it's a horrible life plan. Because they'll fail, it's too heavy, you know why? Because they're not Jesus, and trying to be everything or asking them to be more than they were meant to be will crush you and them, and eventually crush your relationship.

The love of your life may be a lot of things, but they make horrible saviors, and horrible lords, and horrible Holy Spirits, right? They're not cut out for that. They're not cut out for that. Fortunately, I know a really good one, and his name is Jesus. So before you go, I mean, listen, before you go on another date, you go, I got a date tonight, break up. Before you go on another date, let alone think about getting married, before you try to live, marry people, one more day as an already married person, if you haven't done it yet, ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, and he will meet you where you are, he will fill you with his Holy Spirit, and even if you're in a pig pen, it's a mess, it's a grave, from where you are, that's where we'll meet, and he'll begin a journey towards the awesome life of Christ that he has for you, even in the middle of your lost and broken world. If you wanna do that today, what are you talking about? Become a Christian. Ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior. Lay down all those obstacles. Say, I need you, before we work on this, I got it, on my own, I can do nothing, I've proven that. So if you wanna, I'm gonna invite you,

this isn't really about marriage, this is about you and Jesus working out some stuff before you're ever able to work anything else out. So during this last song, I'm gonna ask our prayer teams at all of our campuses and some pastors and stuff, this is the closest thing we do to an altar call around here, but they're gonna line in front of the auditorium, if you wanna become a Christian, come forward, and you'll probably say, I wanna be a Christian, and they'll probably say, you already are, you're just coming up here to pray, all right? But they'll walk you through more than that. And here's another thing, it happened last night, in a really beautiful way. I wanna talk to all the married people, even if you're here by yourself, because she won't come or he won't come. Your marriage isn't bad, maybe it's horrible, but maybe your marriage is just like, ah, we just feel some tension. During this last song, come forward, can we just pray for you? And I'm gonna take us one step further. It's gonna get weird, all right? I believe the Holy Spirit moves in his people and in his church, and we're supposed to be in this together. If we have a bunch of people waiting here to pray and God puts it on your heart,

it's like, we're supposed to go pray for them. Don't ask him what's going on, it's none of your business. It's in the name of the Holy Spirit. Just put a hand on their shoulder and pray for them. And some of you are going like, ah, we should, but I don't know, we gotta beat the Baptists at Chili's. I don't know, it's like, that's a preacher joke. If you wanna become a Christian today, invite Jesus to be Lord and Savior of your life, and then he becomes your king, and you follow him. And if your marriage, if you want your marriage to move in a better direction, maybe it's just stalled, maybe it's broken, maybe it's great. And so, you know, we could use some prayer. Then during this last song, this is the, there you are. I'm off script now, I'm just going, I don't care, I'm back. So the last song we sang, I don't know if you've ever sang it here before, but we sang it at the ministry retreat over and over. And it says, I will lay my crowns down at your feet. Now, I grew up in a tradition that's like, all the good things I've ever done for Jesus, all the, you know, all the people I baptized, like, that's all for you, Jesus, it's all for you. And it certainly means that, but here's, in my own life, here's what I've experienced. My fear, my shame, my guilt, my insecurity. I don't have enough fingers. I wear that like a crown, and it's my identity. And it doesn't agree with Jesus,

which means I'm wrong. So I have to make a decision today, is I'm gonna take everything that has misdefined me, misled me, lied to me, but I've lived my life that way. I will take my crown, lay it down at your feet. I surrender, that's the first step. So let's pray this together, and then let's start a journey. Either a journey back, a journey forward, wherever we are. Okay, let's pray this together. Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes. It's Psalm 139, there we go, all right. and make this your prayer just you're not reciting words okay here we go search me Oh God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous painful way in me and lead me in the way everlasting amen amen let's worship together