Marriage

I remembered what it was that I was forgetting. I also wanted to thank you for praying for my wife and I. It's been a tough two or three years. That's what we've had, a tough two or three years. I just wanted to thank you because I know that you do pray for us as very much needed. I want to remind you that we pray for you all the time. As I said, everyone, even the babies, and it's such a pleasure, such a fine thing to be able to serve you, and to what degree we can. Along with that goes the fact that I did talk with David Jones two or three times now. We're setting things up. He's going to be making a pre-moved trip out here in September. As far as having some help and having a trainee, he's the only one we have, and they sent him to me, which I'm very thankful for. Thank God knows I really need him.

I told Mr. Kubik, well, I'll believe it when I see him drive up in my driveway.

Because I called him up one time, now this is definitely on, right? He says, well, yep, right now that's still the plan. That's still the plan. It wasn't too incurring. It's gone on. We're planning a pre-moved trip, and everything is in order. I'm starting to believe it from that standpoint. But, very excited to come. His wife's name is Joy. I think he is 40 years old, if not very close to it. His wife's a little bit younger. They have two kids, a seven-year-old and a two-year-old girl. That's about all I know. We've met them at the conference. Very nice people, and they're really anxious to get out here. I just wanted to comment on that.

Progress is being made, and also that I just want to thank you for your prayers, and please do continue them when your peers, and I think all of us are doing about twice as much at least than we were doing three years ago for all this business leading up to the split a year and a half ago came. At a time when you're supposed to slow down at 55 or 56, I did I read a study of Xerox Corporation, and then it was duplicated with the same results in Ford Corporation. When you get to about 55 or 56, you're supposed to start slowing down. The idea was how long you work compared to how long you live. Some people have said, the longer you work, the longer you live. They found that that is not true at all. The longer you work at the same high level of stress, the shorter you live. But at about mid-50s, 55, 56, if you slow down and turn it over to your son, or whatever you might do, and take a lighter load, then with that, especially if you're doing what you enjoy, and you can kind of offload some of the things that you don't enjoy, and the stressful things, then that causes working at that level does cause you to live longer. So at the age of 56, I was transferred to having four churches, and many miles, and so on. I just really have felt that God has given me extra strength many times to do it. And at this point, I've just decided I'm going to do less and try to get my rest. Maybe I'll be more help if I stick around a while. And then, when you have two or three or four contemporaries, guys you went to school with, and so on, keel over with heart attacks in succession, then you say, well, you know, I better put my money where my mouth is, you know, put my intake action. So I'm trying to do that, and right then, about this time, they tell me that there's some help coming. So we're looking forward to that, and I truly thank you for your prayers, which you have mentioned at times, and that's much appreciated. Okay, today I would like to speak on the subject of marriage. You kind of have it on the mind this weekend, anyway, because we got Jamie's wedding this afternoon, and then Felicia's tomorrow. And so, I pulled out my folder. It says, marriage sermons, in a severely fat folder, and, you know, seminars and so on that I've done over the years, and many sermons, Bible studies, and so on. You collect them, and I said, it was discouraging. I can't possibly say all this. What I like to do is, well, the title of it, just make the purpose statement out of the title, marriage is a matter of the spirit, and give several points or specific principles about this fact. But that's the purpose of the sermon. It'll be good for all those who are married, and all those who aren't married, and all those who are planning to be married in the future. That pretty much covers everybody, because, you know, some people do not marry. There are some famous people, like Jesus Christ, for example. Our example, you don't have to be married, period, but you don't have to be married to learn all the lessons of marriage.

That's a mouthful. You do not have to be married to learn those lessons. Jesus Christ himself set the perfect example. However, marriage is a tremendous help in our spiritual lives. In fact, marriage is a matter of the spirit. So, I especially wanted to, like I said, this is good for everybody, but most especially, I wanted to give it to those of you who are the teenage set. And, you know, lower than about 12, you can give a sermon on marriage, and a lot of it bounces off. There are some precocious 11-year-olds, I guess, that have more understanding, but the teenage years, let's say we could extend to 11, right in there. That's when you need to study and learn about marriage, because a lot of people don't. And they grow up and find themselves 20, 21, 22 years old, running to the right person, or at least when they think it's the right one. And God has put natural law in order. And I didn't actually write this down, but you know the Scripture and Proverbs, they're amazing things that I ought to read it. Today is no time for me to be relying on memory.

I have to have a couple of weeks of sleep, I think. I think I can find it in Proverbs 30.

The words of Agar the son of Jacob, the prophecy, and so on. And so this was gathered by Solomon.

Here we are. Verse 18 of Proverbs 30, there are three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four, which I do not know. I can't, or can't, I just, I don't get this. You look at it, and you just can't get it. And so, first of all, the way of an eagle in the air, flying.

We have so much science available today, people think they understand a lot.

And we don't really. Do you know that scientists do not know what makes airplanes fly?

You've probably seen it in the books. You know, the wing cuts through, and the top wing is more curved than the bottom of the wing. And it makes the molecules farther apart because they have to fly, or they have to go different speeds. And therefore, it's a lower pressure on the up, and therefore there's pressure on the bottom.

But airplanes fly upside down. There's another factor there, and that is the angle, you know, like a fan blade. But I was talking to my brother who studies these things into aviation, and he said, when you get down to it, the scientists admit they don't really know.

So, our buddy, Ager, here, the son of Jakey, was pretty well right on. We're not too much ahead of him. He said, you look at evil, how they fly, and it's just, you can look at it, and it's wondrous.

And so then, better not take too much time on this, but the second is the way of a serpent on a rock, or let's say a side winder in the desert. You look at it, and it just continual movement, and it's moving along, and there's no feet walking. You know, so he points out that that's an amazing thing that God has put into physical creation.

The way of a ship in the midst of the sea, I'm not sure exactly what he means like this, about this, but I think it has to do with the other two, you know, visually seeing something, and not quite seeing it happen. It's an amazing thing, because God has done, and the way of a man with a maid. There's something, we call it chemistry, and we have other names for it.

At the right time in life, when you get up to about a year, and this is all the way through about four, your mind is growing, and it needs language. You stick that little, you know, two-year-old in any house in the world speaking any language, and they'll just pick it up. It's just built to happen. And then there's several things go along, and you come up to, you know, somewhere in your late teenagers, late teens, pardon me, and but then you kind of go through that for a while, and then it's time. And Song of Solomon said, do not wake love up until it's ready. Don't get started too early, because it'll foul things up. But at the time, then there are laws that happen, and you have boy plus girl, and put them together, and where they're talking every day, and there's, and you're going to have romance. It's going to break out all over. And this is a glorious good thing. We appreciate it. We love it. God has made it, but you have to be learning about it beforehand. So you want to know about marriage starting when you're about 12, because that's part of adulthood. And so all that was just to make the point that this is good for teenagers too, even though it's about marriage. So okay, what are the purposes of marriage? There are a lot of purposes. What do you think is, just go ahead and write down a couple of purposes, or think of a couple of purposes.

Here's what marriage does, and why God gave it to us. And there are a lot of them that I've heard, but there are some really big ones.

Okay, I'll... I just wanted to give a few seconds to cogitate on that. Okay, purpose number one, that is in this list. I'm saying it's God's purpose number one, but this does, I think, come close anyway. The physical family created by marriage is a pattern of the spiritual family.

All of the physical creation is to teach us about what is spiritually true, about the family of God.

And so it's about the kingdom, or the family of God. Now, that's a great, broad statement of the purpose of the family, the reason we have family. Secondly, the purpose of marriage is to produce and help to survive and train children. Second purpose is children. God could have made it so we... you know, you get married or do something if it wasn't marriage, you know, and then you're qualified, you buy a license, and you go out, you're allowed, you know, you pay your fee, and you walk into the garden behind gate, you know, and you look around among the children trees, and you pluck the one you like, you know, take him home, or you know, take him home. You know, I think that's a ridiculous fantasy, but God made it so that we produce children, and we are so emotionally invested in our children, that parents will give their lives, and they'll sacrifice all kinds of things for their children.

Let's say you're sitting at... we ate breakfast out here a while ago, and you're sitting in a restaurant like this, and somebody takes a bite of his over easy eggs, you know, with the yolk running all over it. Some people just love it that way, and some people can hardly stand to look at it. So he slurps up about half, and he has to run, and you hate to see waste, so you run over there, and you eat the rest... with his spoon that has yolk all over it, and you eat the rest of his eggs, three or four bites. Anybody ever do that? Not me! Anybody ever do that with your own children?

I have. You don't want to waste it, you know, I clean up the plate, and people eat after their own children all the time, and there are jillions of other sacrifices we make. So God did this in such a way that the parents would be 100% invested in the benefits to their children, and it lasts all your life. So that's the second purpose of marriage, and, you know, God in his brilliant design, in his wisdom, in his divine insight, and he made it this way. It's just perfect, because there again, it represents the kingdom, and it makes more members eventually of the kingdom. Third is character growth.

You put two separate but symbiotic species together. That would be males and females.

Then they've been described as two separate species who have brief moments of high compatibility, and otherwise have to cope with the differences. So you put them together, you know, opposites attract, but that doesn't say they get along so well when they get together, you know. Magnets get along pretty well, slam together, you know, and stay there, but humans, you know, we're much more complex. So character growth. We develop a symbiotic relationship with somebody that thinks totally different in some aspects, but it's so subtle that you think that you think alike.

And so there are many, many arguments that come up, or are genuine, well, upsets or things are taken as insults when they're not meant that way at all. And that's because she is thinking, well, if I had done that, I would be in a rotten attitude, and it would be a hateful act. But he's not thinking that. And, you know, when it acts, it's more subtle in some ways, but men are very, very, very sensitive.

And basically, they will just clam up and shut down and back off in those cases where women will get loud and cry sometimes. Not always. There are so many differences. But you've heard this, you know, when the tough gets going, the tough... No, the going gets tough, the tough go to the garage. So, and that's a good way to put that, because men are very easily hurt, and they will clam up and suffer what they consider to be insults or disrespect, you know, for years and just put up with it, because you would have to admit that you're hurting.

And we can't have that. And this is really true. A woman who understands that has deep perception. So, character growth. There's so much. There is so much in that area we have communication. And a lot of the stand-up comics get their material from the differences between men and women. And people roll in the aisles and cackle on He-har because they recognize, you know, in the element of truth, you blow it out of proportion.

Like Bill Cosby, who was a master at that. But you recognize that that's the way it is. We are very, very different. And so, God put us this way for character growth. And the idea is that God, who is balanced, and He is just everything and all in all, He put certain of His traits into... He divided us into two genders. Who would have thought? The idea of just creating humans was brilliant.

But reproduction. Where did God get the idea to reproduce? They make more of Himself. That's astounding. And then, to divide us up into two separate species. You know, almost. It just shows God's supreme intelligence. But He put certain of His traits, His tenderness and His kindness, and His feminine, soft traits, which are so very important for all of us to have, into the feminine gender. And He put other of the traits, which have to do with, we generally say, strength.

But that's kind of outward strength. Because women have to be just as strong as men, just in different other ways. But what we generally consider the masculine traits. What's more, He backed it up with estrogen and testosterone. And really, that's just one of the biggest differences that makes us feel that way in whatever.

You know, if there's a threat, well, I have one example. My mom gave a perfect example of feminine reaction. This may be perfect, but it was a good example. Funny story, anyway. We're driving home for the feast. I was kind of in a daze, almost cross-eyed, because of hanging over the front seat.

This is before seatbelts, you know. Just looking out. Huge rainstorm going through Texas. Straight road. And there were gullies every, you know, quarter mile. So we had these bridges. There was one especially long bridge. And somehow, somebody passed us and hit a bump or something. And Dad lost control of the car. It's a real good driver. And the car started drifting, except it was sliding, turning around. And at one point, Mama thought she was looking straight at the edge of the bridge and going off in the river or whatever it was. Hard to see. And it whipped around.

And we just continued going straight. Did a 360 right in the middle of the bridge and kept on going. And there was, I know, there was this car right behind us. And Dad hit a bump. I don't know. And he doesn't know how it happened. But I think God just saved us. There would have been one family out in the middle of the desert and possibly don't know whether it was survived at all. When the car finally passed, all the passengers were looking at us. I remember that. But what was interesting is my Dad sharpened up.

And what could he do? But anyway, as soon as it lined up, he lined up and kept going. His senses were sharpened. And my Mom did everything she could do to help contribute to the situation by screaming bloody murder and putting her hands over her eyes. So I offered that as one contrast. I know that doesn't happen all the time. But I thought it was interesting. But a lot of times, just because of the size and shape and strength, a woman will wisely step behind the tree or back off her head, or where a man, perhaps wisely, perhaps not, has an automatic...

There's something built into us to protect. And we will step out and fight. And I'm not talking about personality or a lot of other things. This is something that's hardwired. We are different and we think differently and it's a good thing. We have to work on how we go about those things. But just to point out, we're different and God slams us together.

We have this extreme attraction of romance. We want each other. And we get each other. We get married. And then the work starts. The character growth. And it's joyous, but there are also trials in this. And that's the third big reason, character growth. So a pattern of the spiritual family and then production, survival, and training of children and character growth.

One that isn't part of this, but the orderly expansion of society, the opposite would be absolutely anarchy. And you have marriage there, which settles everybody down. And then you become slaves for 20 years. Because you must take care of these children that you love so much. So God has that to stabilize society in general.

And then survival in general. And I guess you could add a couple... Well, living in pairs, in other words. Ecclesiastes 4, 9, 2 are better than 1. One falls, the other picks them up. It's just better to be together. It's not good that a man be alone, he said in the beginning.

Survival in general, and I thought of a couple of others just to make it 7. Number 6 would be fun. It's so much more fun when you have a companion. And you want to be with your sweetheart. And so God is just provided... Oh, he's so good. Just fun. And love and support and all those things. And let's see. I had number 7 in mine, too. But I won't quite bring it back.

It wasn't very good. Just trying to make it 7. And I think you could add a lot more. Okay, so those are the big purposes. And they're worth it for us to think about. And I think especially when you're young and not married yet, and aren't ready to get married, but you anticipate doing that someday. And so that you have a bank of knowledge as you go toward that. And you grow an understanding of it. Because a lot of people get up to the time and wham, they're in love, and their heart takes over. As you get married, because I'm in love.

It's just natural. It ought to be. Well, there are laws that God put into our minds.

And this is how you feel, whether it's the right person or the wrong person. That's the heart. The idea is to use your head before your heart gets involved. Sometimes that's very difficult to do. But if you let your heart get ahead of yourself, if you let your heart get ahead of your head, of your logical thinking, then you know what you'll end up... you might have a happy marriage, and we would hope so, but you'll end up with more conflicts and more difficulties. It's so much better to logically think it out along with your feelings as they grow. This is well put, as you fall into love, because there's a certain point, and God made it so. It's just wonderful that when you do commit, and this is supposed to happen just coming right up to marriage, you're married, and that just seals the commitment. There's actually a lot of research about this.

If you have built good character before this, and you haven't been lustful, everybody's lustful. God put that drive in us. But let's say if you haven't allowed that to take over your mind, and we're in a society, it's basically called a Corinthian society, but if you allow that to take over, like one particular example I'm aware of, who from the time he was in junior high, just was filled with lust, and he just focused on that. And without going out into any details, that caused him problems all of his life. I was explaining this to Dorm 3B at camp. They didn't expect it, but I gave them the old sex lecture, you know, just before the dance.

Basically, it had to do with respecting, you know, respecting girls. If you're only thinking about the physical and physical beauties, and you do this, well, it's fun, the first place. That's why people, you know, this whole society, sadly, is that way. But what happens is people don't understand it until sometimes a long time after they're married, and then they realize, they pray to God, and ask for love, and genuine affection, and so on, and help to deal with problems in their marriage. And they have all this other garbage in their head. Maybe they haven't even done anything physically, but they have garbage in their head, and it hurts them, and they wish they hadn't. So the idea is, control your mind, and think of the person, this lovely person, and not just the physical, and her feelings, not just your feelings, and respect the girls. This was a universal message to all the guys at camp, and, you know, throughout. But I just gave them an extra strong dose, you know, because a lot of times they won't get it. So I had the opportunity, so I did. And it made them, well, it made them very uneasy, but also made them think. And we talked about other things, too. Anyway, I guess that was the, that followed point seven, which I couldn't think of. Just had five here. Big important purposes of marriage. And it's worthwhile to just stop and think of the overall purposes, whether you're married or not. Okay, the greatest purpose of marriage, Ephesians 5, 32, and I'll just read from verse 31 of Ephesians 5, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined into his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. So the greatest purpose of marriage is to teach about the relationships in the family of God, and that kind of covers all of these different purposes, specifically the first one, showing us a pattern of the spiritual family, to teach us about the relationships within the family, and that's what it is. Now, I was interested to find out, oh, it's been quite a few years now, that until about the 1500s, maybe the 1400s, in the days of old when nights were bold, and and so on, the old, stupid third grade poem goes, but in the Middle Ages, in Europe, when you had knights and ladies, and the knights would go out and would possibly carry a woman's scarf, a lady's mark, so he was fighting for her glory. Almost always, those were married ladies, because they were in the court, and so on, but that didn't bother them, you know, they were knights, and so there was a lot of things that were wrong about this, but the idea is, it was for you would do everything, you would go out and do great things to sacrifice for your love, because you were in love, and it was romance. And I did not realize until, oh, like I said, probably 20 years ago, but that the idea in human philosophy, that you should get married for the reason of being in love, that is, we, well, it's like the old song, the 70s song, it's too late to turn back now, I believe, I believe, I believe, I'm falling in love.

So that didn't help a lot of people, I'm sure, because you need to keep your head and say, well, until I'm sure it isn't too late to turn back. But some people are afraid of that embarrassment, or whatever, and so a lot of grief has been caused by that. But the idea of getting married, since people understood better what, apparently better what marriage was, life is a lot of work, and so you're, it's a business partnership, and you're going to be building a family, so there's going to be a lot of work with kids, and all those practical things, and then there's always money in how well, you know, families would dicker, there would be matchmakers, and they would arrange a marriage, and it was based not on romantic love, the idea was, and this is basically the Eastern model, I will love the man I marry, whereas the Western model became, I'll marry the man I love. And in many cases, it wasn't marriage anyway. We'll have an affair with whoever you fall in love in, with, because love is so great, and so it was not, when this idea was concocted, it wasn't based on God's law or righteousness at all. Much of it was based on just plain old lust, and the idea of romance, and then it turned into, well, you should marry who you fall in love with. Bad idea! It's, God has put the laws in there, if you take care to choose a good person, for a good person for you, then those laws kick in, and you do grow in love.

That's a big subject, but I won't go into it further with that, but it's really, you can see how important these things are, especially when you're in the teenage years. This is so important to understand these basic principles, because they help you to have a really good life, and that's the idea. Okay, so that's the greatest purpose of marriage, is to teach about relationships in the family of God, and the idea of romance alone, and that kind of love, is just wonderful. It's one of the, it's like the cherry on top of the ice cream, you know, but it isn't the substance.

So, what is the substance? I actually should mention, first of all, the definition of love, because it has so many definitions that, you know, you might think of romance, but you might think of the love for your pizza. Actually, I talked to a Greek professor, and he was actually exercised. He really hated this about Americans, so I gave it back to him about Greeks, you know.

I didn't know enough. I didn't know much about Greeks, but I gave it back to him anyway.

That's an exaggeration, but he said, you know, Americans are so inarticulate.

They love their children. They love their wife. They love their pizza. They love their dog. They love the carpet. They love, you know, they don't know what they are talking about, he said. So, I said, we do too. We just, if we don't have a word for every little twinge like the Greeks, that's okay. So, in my opinion, he was very intolerant.

You might have thought that about me. Anyway, so definition of love, friendship. You know, you just, you have close sharing, fulfilling each other's needs for fellowship, for acceptance, for support, all those things, friendship. Then there's romantic desire and attraction. We call that love too. That's very important. That's a big one. There's friendship and then there's romance.

And then there's a bigger concept. And we talk about God's love, which is also many splendored, a lot of meanings, but generally, outgoing, positive concern for the welfare of another person or persons. Or we just say, outgoing concern. That's God's love. Concern that is outgoing and is incoming. Friendship, that has to do with mutual need fulfillment. As a matter of fact, you have friendship like a marriage. And one is always giving and sacrificing, but the other is always taking. And, you know, because of friendship, the friendship kind of not being maintained both ways kind of fizzles over time. My wife and I have two friends far away from here and we have noticed this relationship. They're great buddies, but one of them always sacrifices for the other and the other almost never sacrifices.

But they get along pretty well, but we have noticed that it has kind of died out. It hasn't died out, but it's just become less of a friendship. And that certainly does happen in marriage at different times, you know, comes and goes. So those are the three big ones. And then this the third one here, outgoing, positive, concern. We usually use the word agape or agape, which is Greek and refers to God's kind of love, which is outgoing and not incoming. And Christ talked about this when he says, give no thought to what you're going to eat or what you're going to wear, you know, your physical needs. Don't worry about that. Seek first the kingdom of God, and God will add all these other things. And this is a big thing to learn. It takes all our lives.

The idea is you trust God to support you, to supply your needs, and you do the best you can.

The most important part of your life is to develop the relationship with God, and it takes a long time. But that's that agape or godly love, positive, outgoing, concern for the welfare of another person or persons. Okay, I threw in a fourth here, and this is a good way to define love, too. And this also has many definitions. But love has a fourth definition, and that is it is a verb. It's an action word. You can say, oh, I love him.

And what you mean, you're talking about your feelings.

But what love, the proof of the genuineness of your feelings, that it's not just a passing feeling, is your actions. And so if you love someone or God, who is someone, but if you love a person or God or whoever, you will want, and your actions will reflect it because you will do things that reflect outgoing concern for the other person or for God. Also, in addition to being an action word and a verb, it's called a choice, which is a different way of saying the same thing. It indicates action. So, last week, didn't I speak on faith is active?

Just getting my... I remember the sermon. I just was getting my weeks mixed up.

So, it's the same thing. If you have love, you have actions that show how you feel or how you believe. Now, love behaves in ways that demonstrate concern, friendship, attraction, all these definitions of love. Love does good. It gets back to Matthew 7, 12, the golden rule.

One of the biggest things in marriage is one of the biggest things just in life in general.

That's kind of the point of the sermon. Marriage is a matter of the spirit. Marriage is just being a Christian in this relationship between two. Because what's required of us and what produces a good marriage is the same thing that produces a good relationship between ourselves and God and between ourselves and other people that we're not married to. Matthew 7, 12, of course, you all know the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.

I guess I laugh more than everybody else there, but, you know, this has been corrupted. And it's kind of funny. There's some truth to that, but it's sure not the golden rule that Christ was talking about. That is, do unto others that you have them do unto you. So if you take that basic law of life and apply it to your marriage, you just have a wonderful guideline. And trouble with that is we get involved in the specifics of the situation and don't always think about that. But that really is the golden rule of marriage as well as the golden rule of life or anything else.

So there's a corollary to this, and it's just another state of putting it a different way.

And that is that a married person's responsibility is to behave in a way that is so lovable that his or her spouse can't help but admire, respect, appreciate, and love him or her back.

And that's really true, and it's the same thing as the golden rule. It's a corollary to the golden rule.

I have a couple of stories. One particular, one wife said, she said, what do you mean submit? You know, says women should, wives should submit to their own husbands and reverence them even. So she said, what do you mean submit? Most of the time, I want to help and support him. He's a nice guy. I love him. He says, well, yeah, rarely I guess I have to submit. But this goes back to learning about marriage way before you're married. Because you need to pick out some guy that you don't mind or that you really want to help and serve. And so step back and say, now look, how mature is this guy? You know, and how does he treat his mother? And how does he treat other people that he doesn't have to treat? Well, it goes both ways. The guys should, when you take out a girl to a restaurant, see how she treats the waitresses or the waiters. If she's kind to them. I know a man who did this, we had a friend in Kansas City, and he just took, he said, he looked very carefully. And there are three or four girls that he knew at a certain point were very high prospects. And he chose to marry the one that was always kind to people. And especially, he looked at how they treated, you know, the waitresses or the waiters. It's a good rule for both genders to take a look at. But this one wife had chosen somebody, you know, first of all, she respected and really liked and she wanted to help him. And so it was rare she did admit, well, yeah, there are times when I have to swallow hard and just do it his way. But it's nice if you don't have to do that very much. And most of the time, you just really enjoy being a couple.

Then I have a friend whose mother was also a friend, but my mother's contemporary. And I was talking with her husband, a man who was like an uncle to me. And we were talking about how to treat a woman at one time, you know, how do you treat a woman? So we went on for about five minutes. He was in the kitchen there. And finally she interrupted. She says, well, what do you mean?

That how to treat a woman, you know, like she's a fragile, immature subhuman or something. We're people too, she says. And she said, just treat me like a regular person. I'll be fine.

You know, and she was laughing at us. She was so good. She was a mature, a mature person. And she didn't get upset at things. So she was kind of chuckling at our grappling with the problem. She just treat us with a little respect, you know. We're regular people. And of course, at that point, she was ignoring the fact that we're two separate species. But I mean, she's just a great woman. She was mature when she got married at about 24. And I'll tell you a little railroad story about her. I think I have time because we don't have that much to go. But she was, this is a mature, let's say, a statement that came from a mature person, even though she was, she'd been married for less than a year. And he was during World War II, and he was working on the railroad. And he just hated it. He had to be gone for about four days at a time. Then he'd come back. It was schedules all off. And he would come back to their tiny little house out in the middle of nowhere. And they were starting their marriage and starting a family. And so she was all alone a lot. And he was miserable because she was back there, and etc. So one time he had to do like three routes in a row. And he got so exhausted, he could hardly think. So exhausted, at a certain point, you start to go into a dream world. Maybe you've noticed this, and you have to focus to make sure you're thinking about what you're doing and so on. And so he got, I don't know, somebody mentioned something about him. Oh, leave that pretty wife back there all alone for almost a week at a time, so an unkind remark. Probably meant ingest, but not, didn't help. So then he was so exhausted that he started worrying about his wife cheating on him. Well, they were married and in love for a few months, and that wasn't happening. So he came back this one time after about this double stint or week and a half or whatever. So tired, he couldn't really sit down. He'd just go right to sleep. So he was kind of allie and he kissed her. She could tell something was wrong. She said, okay, what's the matter? I didn't tell her. Oh, no, what's the matter? Something's going on. So she got it out and finally he was worried about leaving her so long, and he kind of slid into it and indicated what he was worried about. And she just laughed at him. She says, you need some sleep. You're exhausted. Go. That's no such thing. Go lay down and I'll talk to you when you're sane again. I love you. Smack. Go to bed. He said there was never an old boy so happy to be reprimanded by his wife and shut down by his wife and commanded to obey her. Nobody was ever happier than that, because she was absolutely right. So just a little railroad story. This is an outstanding woman that I know. I think they both passed on, as they say. They're both finished their physical lives now. But both of these women I mentioned had husbands with probably that one or very, very few exceptions who just treated them with respect, you know, honored them. You don't have to do great things and say special things. Oh, how I honor you.

You don't have to compliment them, husbands or wives, in an unrealistic way pretty soon. That gets old and you don't think it's sincere. But anyway, these women pointed out the fact, give us a little respect and we'll handle it. We're happy to be with you. So it was so good for me to hear both of those examples. Okay, the foundation of Godly love or any kind of love is, what would you put? You can use one word or three, whatever you want. The foundation of love, Godly love or any kind of love is, well, I'd say, Godly love and love in general. What would you say? And I will take out loud comments if anybody would like to propose. Anybody like to?

What is it, Lyle? Trust. Okay, that's okay. And then Gene. I have to wait 20 seconds, I think. Gene, go ahead.

I would say, turn. Okay. And anybody else? It's gone.

Okay, and Sandy? Okay, these are all elements except for Sandy who hit it right on.

She said, respect, and this isn't like God's word. This is my word. So Sandy and I are on the same page here. But it's having respect, which is, it needs to be explained further. And that is worthiness. If you have respect for somebody, you think they are worth something. You value them. And that's the way God is with us. He respects us. The word respect, of course, means to ree, means again, and spekt means see. So if you respect somebody, you want to see them again.

You don't want to just go away and never come back. But if you have respect, you want to be a part of their lives. So God ascribes worth and value to us. He tells us about that. And since we are valuable, or we're His children, He gives us His love. It's not like it's cut up into sections.

That's just part of it. So ascribing worth or value to another person is necessary for us before we can love them. When you think about it. Because there are people... let's say you're thinking of somebody that you might marry someday.

You're 15, 16, whatever, and you're not ready. But you're thinking, well, now there's a person that might be possible. And then there's some. Not her. Not him. They might be nice. But we're not considering that. It's off the table. You know what I mean. And it's different for each individual person. And so you would have to have ascribe worthiness. They're worthy of some attention or whatever. Or else you wouldn't even think about them. And so God ascribes worth and value to us in the same way.

We are. And he has respect unto us. And that's a foundation for love. And you could say it different ways. I want to bring up this aspect. So if you don't think your mate or your friend or your co-worker in God's work, or in your place of business or have worth, you won't have God's attitude towards that person.

No matter how hard you try to talk yourself into it, your actions and words will show it. Your true belief comes through. And sometimes you run into somebody, and it could even be your own spouse for the moment, who you disrespect for them. They've hurt you, or they've done something. You didn't like it. And so you throw a twit or something. But generally, let's say a person in general, and your respect breaks down, and you're worth ascribing or worth or value, when that breaks down, that's when you act bad.

That's when you act, well, disrespectful and show that your love has broken down. So underlying that is respect. And you've run into people that, like I just mentioned, and you know you have to love them, but you don't want to. Unlovable. And you just want them to go away and drop off the edge of the world and cooperate with you, so you won't have to. But you have to respect them. So the idea is to... there's actually a three-step process to come from not loving somebody to loving them.

And here it is. If my eyes will find it, here we are. First of all, 1 John 4.19. God loved us first, and that's why we love Him back. We perceive that He loves us. So the first point is you perceive and understand God's love and respect for yourself. And secondly, you then are able to develop a relationship there and ask for His help, and you begin to see God's equal love to others, where God loves, for example, your spouse or your friend, or somebody who is maybe your friend.

He loves us equally and gives us all the same opportunity. And then, with that, you can seek and receive God's love and respect for this other person, your spouse or a stranger or whoever. But first, it comes from understanding how much God loves us, each one of us, how much mercy He's had for each of us. When you see that, and you realize, I'm not special, I'm not the only one, I'm one of many, and God loves each other person besides me.

And that step is necessary because after that, then you go and ask God and develop a relationship further and are able to get His attitude towards other people. And so, there's much more to say about respect and love and marriage and everything. I think that'll just about do it for today. And so, we come back to the basic point here, that marriage is about spirit and attitude. It doesn't matter if it's the spirit. And the attitude towards one's spouse is the same thing as God requires towards any other person. And that's, we start with our closest people in our family and our friends, and that's hard to do. There are people, by the way, who love the world. They are so interested in humanity and they, you know, big platitudes, but they can't get along with their personal friends.

Break out in fights all the time. These people don't love the world. They love the idea, maybe, of loving the world. But we have to start close to home. And so, it gets down to being a Christian. If you want a marriage that is a godly marriage, you have to be a really great follower of Christ in relationship to your sweetheart that you married. And when you look back at it, and I have talked to some of you about this, and I'm going to use Lila as an example, who talked about how fine her husband was to her and how good he was to her in several ways. And so, I won't embarrass you further, but that was a great comment, you know.

And there are so many songs about this. I think Anne Murray did one. I just heard it. My wife gave me some CDs of old music. And I think it was Anne Murray, and she talked about how great this relationship was.

And they'd be going along, and then he would do something that was kind to her, and she'd just fall in love with him. All over again. It was such a lovely song. And there were many songs with that theme, and that's what's supposed to happen with all of us between all of our relationships. We are renewed. We have an endeared attitude towards each other, a genuine concern of love that comes from ascribing that respect.

Seeing God's love for me, and God's love for everybody else, and getting the same attitude towards everybody else. So, in reality, marriage truly is a matter of the Spirit. It's just exactly like conversion. Going back to Ephesians 5.32, where we started, this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.

So the purpose of this sermon was not to cover everything about marriage, but just to mention a few things, with an eye to especially to those of you who are thinking about getting married in the next 10 years, or something like that, 10 or 15. Those of you who are young, and right now is the time to be steady in thinking on these things. I hope that review is good and very encouraging. I'll leave it at that. Hope you have a wonderful day. Probably see a lot of you at the wedding. We'll leave it there until next time.