Christ Centered

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. Last week was Vision Sunday, okay? And if you miss Vision Sunday, I made some pretty bold claims this year about the direction of our church. We are looking for a new place to meet, not that we don't enjoy meeting here, but we want to be strategic and put ourselves in a place where we can grow, where our setup crew doesn't have as much to do, you know, just a lot of different things.

So, if you had a chance to listen to our Vision Sunday audio or online, if you went online and listened to it, that's great. If you haven't, go back and listen to that. But here's kind of what we're proposing for this year. We're pretty aggressive about this. We're actually urgent about this because we realize that there's a lot of people, that we have something that a lot of people need to hear, right?

We have hope, we have the gospel, and we want to present that gospel to as many people as possible. And just to kind of give you some idea of why are we moving? Why do we want to move when we already have a great school here? Well, we see potential. We see so much more potential than where we are right now.

Now, it's great where we are right now. I love being a small church. I love the family, the community. I love the fellowship. I love the relationships.

And I want to keep that. And if we have to add two or three or four services in the future to keep it smaller, that's great. We will continue to do that so that we can keep families together and make it more intimate. But we do want to reach more people. We want to make a level of impact that God has called us to as a church.

And we're going to do that by moving to a new facility. And I shared with you, we have an open door for Elevation 27. Elevation 27, if you haven't been there, in fact, we'll throw some stuff up online this week so y'all can kind of get an idea. We gave some visuals last week of what it looks like. But here's the deal.

We can move there tomorrow. And our plan is to move there. But we can move there tomorrow. But we need space for our kids. So we're looking for a classroom trailer to be able to put on the property.

And so if we can make that happen, we can make a move to this place. And here's the pros of moving here, just to kind of give you what we see here. First of all, it's a concert venue. A lot of people know about it. It's very popular.

It's getting very popular. One of the biggest music promoters in the nation runs the place. So he knows how to promote his place, right? And he wants to partner with us as a church. He wants to help our church.

So it's a big deal. And we'll have an opportunity to market our church. We'll be around restaurants. We'll be more in the community. We're kind of hidden over here.

And we'll be able to move over there. And we'll be able to open and really just have more reach. We want more reach. And that's why we're doing that. So I put a bold proposal out last week that we need to raise $20,000 to make this move.

$20,000. Okay? And this is going... If we can raise that, we can make this move successful. We can have all that we need to be able to make this move successful.

The market to reopen. Basically, we want to relaunch the church. We're not going to quit having church, but we're going to relaunch the church at a date. We're looking at Easter. We're looking to do it at Easter.

I'm hoping we can get in there before Easter and start making moves towards Easter. And we're just going to go all out, guys. We're going all out this year. This is the year. Amen?

We're going to do it. We're going to reach more people. That's why we exist. Why we're here? Because we are light.

We are salt of the earth. And a little bit of salt goes a long way. And we can make great impact with the little bit we have. This little church on the oceanfront, I say, this little church on the oceanfront can make big impacts. And we're going to use and leverage every tool available to be able to do that.

So in your bifold, I'm going to give you kind of our giving. And we're going to be a little more open about what giving is coming in and our budget for this year. So you can follow along with that. Also, we do something every year. This is a discipleship technique.

If you look in your bifold, and last week I introduced it, it's the 90-day tithing challenge. 90-day tithing challenge. Now, some of you give. Some of you may have a hard time with giving. But this is a great way to take the next step towards giving.

Trusting God, as Malachi says, trust me and let me show you that I'll open up the floodgates of heaven. You will be blessed. It's not a question of whether you will. Will I be blessed? It is you will be blessed.

You will be blessed by giving. And it's good for us to give. And we give to a cause worth giving to, right? Amen. To the kingdom of God.

Amen. And it's exciting. So if you've never given, I want to challenge you today. If that's a hard thing for you, I want you to take that today. I want you to fill that out.

I want you to fill that little card out. And what we're going to do is we'll put you on a list. We'll keep you up to date. We'll send things out to you. We'll encourage you along the way.

It's just a great discipleship thing. And here's the deal. Here's the thing. If God doesn't bless you in 90, after the 90 days, we're going to do this through Easter, the Easter season. And if God doesn't bless you in 90 days, this is the challenge.

If God doesn't do something in your life and provide for you everything that you need, we will cut a check back to you for that whole amount you gave for this next three months. That's how much we believe in God providing. So I want you to do that. I want you to take that card out. I want you to fill it out.

I want you to trust God. I double-dog dare you to trust God with your finances for the next three months. I double-dog dare you. Some of you are like, I'm not doing it. Well, fine.

I mean, don't experience it. But I'm telling you, you will experience something with God. God will answer your prayers. We've got multiple testimonies. In fact, we'll share some of those testimonies throughout this year about how God has blessed people in this church.

He brought jobs, brought money into the bank account, healed relationships, even estranged relationships have happened. I mean, just crazy things have happened because people have honored God with their giving. So do that today. And what you can do, you can drop that right in the box back there. Or as we take up our offering at the end of the service, you can drop it right in there.

Today we are beginning a new series called Relationship Goals. It's relationship goals. Thank you. Hashtag relationship goals. A lot of you are probably familiar with that hashtag.

So I'm going to share a scripture to kind of set us up for this series, and this is going to be more of an intro today and just kind of giving you some direction and where we're going in this series. So if you'll turn with me to Genesis 2, 18, it'll be up on the screen as well, and you can look it up on your phone. We do have a Wi-Fi connection in here if you need to hook up to the Wi-Fi, or rather a phone link, a kind of a phone booster. So if you're on the Wi-Fi on the school, let me just let you know this. If you're on the Wi-Fi on the school, you're probably not going to be able to get to certain things, like if you want to post on Facebook or you want to get into certain apps, you may not be able to do that.

So do disconnect from Wi-Fi and hit your cell signal, and it should open right up. We've got something back there to boost your cell signal so that you can go into your phone. Just a hiccup we have with school and, you know, being able to use the Wi-Fi system. It's kind of our solution for the school because it's dead in here when it comes to Wi-Fi. So just connect to your phone.

You can look up the Scripture. You can follow along with us. And it says this, Then the Lord said, It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him. And then going on to verse 21, it says, And so the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep.

And while the man slept, the Lord took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. And then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and He brought her to the man. And then He says, At last! Because up to this point, He had never seen another human. Am I the only one, you know?

And God made another person. A woman. And this one, He says, This one is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken from the man. And this explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife.

And the two are united into one. Some versions say one flesh. Let's pray. Father, we just ask that You speak to us today. May Your Word be a lamp unto our feet and a light to our path.

So light up our lives, Lord, into that life that You give us so abundantly. As we follow You and we're directed in this series. So we give it to You. Amen. So today we're starting this series, Relationship Goals.

And I'm going to talk about four goals throughout this series in the next few weeks. And if you are on Instagram, you probably are familiar with the hashtag Relationship Goals. You know, where you have a picture of somebody, they're kind of kissing or hugging, or they're in this ideal spot somewhere that looks so romantic, right? I mean, and it looks perfect. And hashtag Relationship Goals, don't you want this?

Don't you want this? You know? So let me just give you some. I've got an example of something that was hashtag Relationship Goal at some point. Look at this.

Doesn't that look incredible? Doesn't that look so, like, perfect? It's the perfect moment in time. But can I just tell you, this is, I absolutely do not, even for a second, want this. I am not driving down the road in the cold snow, getting out of a warm car, to sit in the middle of a hard asphalt road with ice and wet, and sit in an uncomfortable position while somebody gets out of the car in this position just right.

And it's just not, I'm just not interested in that. Not at all. Not at all. Here's another one. I don't even know what to say about that.

So romantic, right? Oh, that's just you. Oh, it's so romantic to be in some kind of cargo feel with a shopping cart. And let's try to, I can just imagine when that picture was being taken. Oh, oh, oh, hold still.

You move in. You move out. Let me try to kiss you. You know? That's absolutely not what I want.

I want. So I put in this third picture to kind of give you an idea of probably what really happens. As you're riding down the road and you're fighting, you're talking about things, you know, oh, no, we're going off the road. Come on back into the road, right? That's probably a little more realistic.

But what I'm trying to say here is that so many people see the highlight reels of people's lives, right? On social media, on Instagram, we see it and we want that. Say, I want that. I want that relationship. But that's not real.

That's carefully planned. It's edited. It's a moment in time that someone has put together to communicate something. But it's not real. It's not real.

And if you ask somebody and they say, you want that? They say, yeah, I want that. I want that. I want that in my marriage. I want that.

And often if you ask them what that is, they can't tell you what that is. What is that? Well, you know, love. You know, that's love, right? Like by a fire in our place and our pajamas on our pottery-born couch with a nice Hallmark, you know, background.

That's kind of what I want. Or, you know, a romantic meal after romantic meal being by the fireplace, walks on the beach, things like that, you know. That's what I want. But is that real? Is that 24-7 real?

The truth is it isn't real. I think about Miranda and me, and I'm going to put Miranda on the spot a little bit today. So get ready. I can do it to her because she's got a good sense of humor and, you know, our relationship. I think a lot of people kind of look at us and they're like, man, y'all get along so well, right?

I mean, we just have the perfect marriage, the perfect relationship, except when we're up here on stage trying to get ready for worship. Then you see the real thing come out, right? But do you want what Miranda and I have is the question. If you really want what Miranda and I have, it's available for you, but let me be clear, okay? Our marriage is awesome.

Our marriage is excellent. Our marriage is so good. I can say that with complete confidence. We have a marriage built on absolute trust. It's rich.

It's meaningful. We have intimate conversations. We joke with each other. Even in church, we can joke with each other. We share long, intimate conversations about God and our family and where we're going, and we both have a heart for others, hence Salt Church.

The reason we started Salt Church is because we did have a heart for others. She practices godly submission to me. I practice the best I can to love her as Christ loves the church, and we are absolutely blessed, and I would not want to be married to anybody else. We have a great, a great, great marriage. We have a great marriage, but what we have is not a destination.

It's a journey. It's always been a journey. We have a great marriage, but we have significant challenges as well, as any marriage does. We're both stubborn. We're both opinionated.

So you can imagine how some of our conversations go, right? I'm demanding. I can be demanding. I can be harsh sometimes. She wants to set the record straight immediately, you know, so she's going to come at you and blow up.

I've got to sit back, and I wait, and I'm kind of passive, and then I'm aggressive, right? So we've got that going on in our dynamic. Our road has been filled with massive miscommunications. We've had painful misunderstandings about one another. We've had hurt feelings.

We've had intense conversations. That's pastor language for fights. There's been yelling. There's been door slams. We've hung up on each other from time to time.

I literally got so bad one day, first couple of years in our marriage. I had a brand new awesome water bottle I was proud of. I got so angry. I slammed that water bottle down in the kitchen, and it went everywhere because I lost my temper. We fought about house stuff, junk around the house.

We fought about dishes in the sink. I like the sink to be clean all the time. She doesn't really care until like at one moment when she throws everything in the sink. On the other hand, she is really, really passionate about a clean bathroom, and when I don't clean the bathroom or I fail to clean the bathroom, I don't think about cleaning the bathroom. It's on, so I have a problem, and I say this because I don't want her to throw anything at me, but I don't like her driving.

See, but she gets upset because I won't use a GPS or a map, you know, when I'm going anywhere because I want to figure out where we're going. I know where we're going. I'm not looking at a map, right? We fought about the lights in the house. I like all the lights on.

I like the lights to be bright. I like to open up the windows. I like bright rooms, and Miranda, let's cut off the lights. Let's just cut on a few lamps. Let's make it warm and cozy.

We fight about that. We fight about the temperature of the house, right? I come through, and I cut it up, especially right now. I don't know why I'm so cold. I'm just cold, right?

And she cuts it down. I put it back up. She puts it back down, and we're just going back and forth on that, so we fight about that. She argues about my preaching sometimes, especially when I pronounce something wrong or I say something wrong or I say something that she feels probably wasn't a very good thing to say in front of a church. That happens from time to time.

She gets aggravated when I leave my phone in my pocket, in my front pocket when I'm up here, just simple little things like that. She tells me every week, even before I went up for worship today. She said, take the phone out of your front pocket. It looks weird when you have a big bulky phone in your front pocket while you're preaching. I'm looking at it all the time.

We talk about things like that. We fight about little nitpicky things about that. We've fought about worship style. She's a Gaither Homecoming Hour girl. Yeah, she would bring back the old, and because he lives, you know, we would just roll right into that and sing that all day long.

I'm more of a progressive type music guy. I like newer stuff, and obviously I went out because we fight about things like that. We fight about what to watch, who to hang out with, where to eat, when to eat, what to eat, who cooks, who cooks better, my wife. So I give her all the cooking. She's like, you need to be cooking a little bit.

Stop expecting me. She spoiled me. So if you want that, make sure you know exactly what that is. It's a journey, not a destination. It's a journey, not a destination.

There's been a lot of arguments, a lot of hiccups, a lot of things around the way. We're growing. We're growing, and we have something different. We don't have the normal. And I'm glad and I'm thankful that there are people who hunger for more than the normal, because you know what the normal is today?

The normal is built on fear. The normal is built on hurt. The normal in marriage is built on regret, jealousy, selfishness. In many cases, it ends in divorce, and that's where we go. That's what the normal is built on.

But I don't want the normal, and I know you don't want the normal, so we want better than normal. We want the right way to do things, right? So we're going to look at some relationship goals through this series, and there's four relationship goals I'm going to hit on. The first one is a Christ-centered marriage, a Christ-centered marriage. I'm going to talk about that today.

And just because you're a Christian doesn't mean that you're Christ-centered in the way you live. Let me say that again. Just because you call yourself Christian or you're a Christian doesn't mean that you're Christ-centered on the way you live. So we're going to look at how to live Christ-centered, a Christ-centered marriage. The second thing is mission-driven.

We want a mission-driven marriage. We are two rivers that converge and go one way. We are not going separate ways. And in a marriage and in a covenant, and when you come together, you are one person. The two will become one flesh.

So your mission, your vision for your life, your mission for your life is focused and direct and straightforward, and you're together on it. The third week, we're going to talk about this being a devil-stomping, a devil-stomping marriage. A devil-stomping marriage because our battle is not against our spouse. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but there's things happening beyond us in the spiritual realm that wants to kill our marriage. It wants to hinder our marriage.

It wants to hurt our marriage. And it's happening all the time. Whether we see it or not, there is a demonic force working over our marriage. And boy, have I seen it this year. I've seen it in marriages, I've seen it tear marriages apart, and sometimes you feel like you're losing the battle.

But we're going to learn how to be devil-stomping people, devil-kicking, devil-fighting, putting on our dukes, and going at it with Satan. We're going to save our marriages, we're going to have the best marriages because we're going to learn how to walk and be devil-stomping people. And thirdly, we're going to talk about covenant-keeping. We don't enter into a contract, we enter into a covenant. So today, let me talk about being a Christ-centered couple, a Christ-centered marriage.

I want to talk a little bit about that today. And hold your horses if you're single. There's a lot. I try to make it go both ways in this because you'll learn a lot from this because you are expecting to be with somebody someday, I'm sure. And you want to do this the right way.

You want to start off the right way with this. So what does Christ-centered mean? And that's a fair question. Well, it starts with acknowledging that we all are centered on something. Our lives are centered around something.

Everybody has something that is in the center of their lives. So whatever that is, it does some things. So let me just show you. You have a chart on your paper there. So first of all, whatever is the center of your life, let me see here what we got here.

Can you jump over to center? So whatever is in the center of your life, the reason I stopped there is because I've just found out that I don't have it in my notes. So I'm going to have to go freelance here, guys. So whatever you put in the center of your life is going to ultimately direct your beliefs and your values. And whatever your beliefs and values are, are going to determine your decisions in life, the decisions that you make, then ultimately that's going to make impact and fulfillment in your life.

So say you are the center of your life. You're going to be extremely limited in what? Because your beliefs and values are going to be centered on yourself and your actions and your decisions are going to be decided based on what you want and yourself. And ultimately, you're going to be very limited on the impact that you can make in the world. If it's on your kids and your kids are the center of your life, then your beliefs and values are going to be based around them.

And then your marriage is going to fail because you're going to make actions that are going to cause you not being a great husband or great wife because you're so focused on your children. And ultimately, your impact will be limited in what your family can do in this world. And your success and your career, it could be in your success and your career. Whatever centers, whatever your life is centered on or centered around ultimately will determine the impact that you have. But if you are Christ-centered, if you are Christ-centered, ultimately your beliefs and values will determine, will be determined by what Christ thinks and following Christ and your actions and decisions will be based on a Christ-like direction.

And then ultimately, you will be able to make great impact and there will be fulfillment in your life. And we want to be Christ-centered people. But here's the problem with hashtag relationship goals because we unintentionally reinforce this thing called the one myth. If I find the one, if I find that person, if they're, they will complete me, you know? We see that person, oh, oh, I'm dating this guy and he's so wonderful.

And every time he's around me, all the songs just feel right. You know, they're, they're like speaking directly to us. Oh, he opened the door for me. He is the one, you know? In fact, he went to church like back in 1980.

So, you know, he's, he's got something in him, you know, spiritual. So that's, that's great. You know, he's just so wonderful. And he has a job, you know, he's got a job. So, so he, he's gotta be, you know, that that's the one and he completes me.

And we have this thing called the one myth, the one myth. And to be happy and fulfilled in life, we feel like we've got to have the one. And that's what we're centered on. That's what our life is centered on, centered on. But let me say this, you do not need a person to complete you.

No person can complete you. Christ was single and he had a pretty good run. He stayed single throughout his ministry and he did pretty well with it. What I'm saying today is that you do not need another person to complete you. All you need is God.

In fact, there was a teacher of the law that came to Jesus. He was trying to put Jesus in a, in a, in a situation by asking him a challenging question. He says, uh, uh, rabbi, what is the greatest commandment? And what does he say? He says, uh, he replies, love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with, and with all your mind, with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.

That's it. Love the Lord, make him center of your life. He is our everything. He is the force of life. He is every, every decision, every direction, every motive, everything we do goes through Jesus Christ.

He is the one he keeps, he keeps us. So, so what we want to do instead of thinking, I need to meet the one. Perhaps if you're single, I'm looking for my number two because Christ is my number one. And one day you'll say, I'm going to find my number two. I'm looking for my number two, you know, because God is your number one.

Christ is your number one. And when you have a Christ centered life, you can focus on number one. Now to those that aren't married, I want to say this. If, if, if you want a Christ centered marriage for the future, you got to start living Christ centered today. You got to live a Christ centered life today.

Many have the attitude, well, maybe I'll just wait, you know, when that time comes, I'm, I'm kind of far from that. You know, I'm going to have my fun right now. I'm going to do my own thing, you know, and, and, and later on, maybe I'll start going to church more and maybe I'll start growing closer to Christ more. Maybe I'll find God later on, but right now, but if you want a Christ centered marriage, you begin to be Christ centered now, especially those of you who are believers in here. If you want a Christ centered marriage, you begin to organize, orchestrate your life in order to pursue God.

God, pursue holiness, pursue righteousness, even now as you pray for your number two, because you don't build a life of righteousness in the future on a foundation of sin today. You cannot build a relationship on righteousness when you're not living right today. So what do I have to do to have a Christ-centered marriage? And I want to give you just really quick, a few things, or there's a lot of things we could say about a Christ-centered marriage, but I just wrote down some things and then after that we'll break and we'll go eat and we'll enjoy each other's company for a little while. But the four things I want to say here is, first of all, a Christ-centered marriage will pursue Christ mutually, will pursue Christ mutually.

In other words, a couple can marry, they can work hard at their relationship, they can learn how to serve, and all these qualities, but that doesn't mean it's Christ-centered. It doesn't mean it's Christ-centered. Practically that means that a husband and wife seek to grow together in their Christian walk. It means that they are inspiring and moving each other towards holiness and towards righteousness. They help each other out in rough times and those occasions when the strain of life, when the strain of parenting, when difficult times come, when it's most difficult, they begin to maybe even slip away or adrift.

The others challenge them to walk closer to Christ, to become more like Christ every day. And when they see spiritual things begin to slip in their lives, the other steers them back. Don't you want someone like that? Someone who steers you back. And each one is submissive to the other on all matters, like church attendance, prayer, and perhaps a gradual decline into sinful behavior.

These are things that we keep each other accountable and mutually we walk together and mutually we inspire each other to grow more like Christ. And we're motivated by each other. Proverbs 27, 17, as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. And we become better when we're together in our relationships, moving each other to holiness and righteousness. Now, it doesn't mean lording over the other, but with Christ at the center, there's a mutual pursuit.

There's a mutual passion. There's a mutual hunger, and there's a chemistry there that I just can't explain for Miranda and I. We both have such a desire to know God and understand God and walk in His grace and walk in His righteousness in this world that we continually push each other to go further in our walk with Jesus. And when we're disappointed with our kids, or we lose a job, or we have a slim bank account through times, we are never disappointed. You know why?

Because Christ is our hope. Christ is our anchor. In everything, we look to Christ who tells us He has promises available for Romans 10, 11, John 3, 3, and this hope sustains us even in the most trying times. And together, husband and wife, we learn to cherish the hope of Christ. We cherish the hope, and we know that this life is temporal, but we can look into eternity together knowing that we have a peace and a hope in them.

Our marriage is most satisfied and fulfilled in glorifying Him. That's what satisfaction and fulfillment in marriage is. Christ-centered is glorifying God through our relationship. The second thing is we serve together faithfully. Ecclesiastes 4, 9, and 12 says, or 4, 9, rather, says two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor, and it's so true that we can't do it alone.

I don't, I've walked through ministry, I've walked through life, and I've seen people try to serve God with all their hearts, and their spouse are not on board with it. And I understand there's unequally yoked relationships, marriages before people came to Christ, and how hard and difficult that is to be in church and to be serving and to be in the community and doing things on your own when your spouse is not there because it's a very difficult situation to be in. So as we're pursuing a Christ-like relationship, we want to serve together faithfully. We do things together, and next week I'll talk about being mission-driven and what that looks a little more, and I'll dig a little deeper into that. But two are better than one, and that's for sure.

They bring a great return. We walk together, we labor together, we serve God together, we seek God together, we serve together, we're in church together, we're ministering together to other people, we're doing it together. We're one, two shall be one flesh. We do that together. The third thing is, we love each other sacrificially.

There's a very simple formula that Paul put out for this. He says this in Ephesians 5, he says, Now as the church submits to Christ, so the wives should submit to their husbands and everything, right? We don't like that. And then husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So there's this mutual submission and love and submission and love.

But the hardest thing, and I believe the Lord understood this, and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he gave it to Paul to the church, and Paul saw it in the church. He saw lots of things going on in marriages. The women, you know, wouldn't let the man lead, and the man wouldn't love the women. So there's this secular effect that happens and grows as beautiful when we can figure out the connection in which the man loves the wife as Christ loved the church, sacrificially giving up his life, giving up everything, giving up his Godship for a moment in time where the Father turned his back on the Son, and the Son dies for our sins sacrificially because he loved us that much. It was all about love.

It was all about Christ's love for us today. Can men, men, can we love our wives that way, sacrificially? You know what that means? Let me give you some advice, man. I can't speak a lot to the woman.

I probably should get Miranda up here to talk a little bit about submission and stuff, and we'll have an opportunity to do that together, talk and teach together. But my advice to you, man, is even when you're right, you're wrong, okay? It's a real simple solution. It really solves a lot of fights. It solves a lot of problems.

It's hard, I know, but when you're right, you're wrong, okay? Even if you're right, you're wrong, because I tell you what, I'm not even going to try to argue with my wife, because my wife can make me believe that I'm wrong anyway, even when I'm right, so I just give up, and I say, okay, fine, you're right, yeah, you're right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you kind of look at it later, and you're like, oh, I was actually right, but I'm not going back, telling her that, you know? So just admit that you're wrong, okay? Just be wrong when you're right.

You're wrong. Marriage is about giving up our rights, right? Jesus gave up his rights, and if we want a perfect marriage, that's the solution. A man should lord over his wives, but women should be submissive and understand. Obviously, we share together in decisions and relationship decisions and things like that.

It's really important that both of you are working together. Man, you don't just go out and say, I'm going to make decisions because I'm the leader, blah, blah, blah, I'm going to do, I'm going to do, I'm going to do, you know? That's not how it works. You're one flesh. You make decisions together.

You make directional decisions together, okay? But do not do your own thing. Come together. Submit. Women, you need to be submissive and understand that the man is, that's really what the problem with marriages and the order of society is today.

That God has put a biblical mandate, a biblical order together in order for us to prosper. So we need to understand that. And finally, the last thing I want to say, and this is probably to me as well, is that a marriage, they pray together. A God-centered marriage, they pray together daily. Pray together daily.

Now, this is a little tricky because people are like, that makes me a little uncomfortable. I pray in front of my wife. Well, let me say this. You do a lot of other things. I'm not even going to say what they are, but you do a lot of other things in front of your wife and your husband or whatever that isn't necessarily what you would do in front of other people.

So why don't you pray? You can do it. You can pray. I promise you, you can pray. And I know you're hesitant and maybe, honestly, praying for some reason is such a difficult thing for a lot of people, even in public environments in a small group.

I mean, you ask somebody to pray. Who's praying today? Everybody gets super silent, you know, like, oh, you know, touching the nose, you know. Who's going today? But prayer is super important.

And honestly, I realize that, you know, praying daily wasn't really on the agenda for me, Miranda and I. This is something that convicts me personally because we pray and we pray together, but we don't pray together daily. And I was reading some things. I was studying this. So I was really feeling convicted about this because if we start our day with prayer, if we start our day on the right foot, just coming together and praying, it's harder to fight.

It's harder to be angry at each other. It's harder to dig into sin, you know, during the day or fall into sin during the day. It's harder to do that when we start out by making prayer a central thing. So how do we pray? How do you pray with your spouse?

A lot of you want to, well, what do I say? How do I do this? Well, I love this, how to pray with your spouse. I got this from Craig Rochelle. He talked about this.

He says, keep it short. Keep it consistent. And if you mess a day, don't mess two. See, I have to tell my wife that because she likes to pray and she'd go off for about 30 minutes. You know, we've got to go.

We've got to go. Right? But keep it short and keep it consistent. And if you miss a day, it's okay, but don't mess two days in a row. And we started doing that.

And here's just a great example. What do I pray for? How do I pray? Well, here's a great prayer to pray. So you can just do this.

Dear God, give us wisdom and clear direction in all we do today. Help us to show your love to each other and to shine your light into the world. Keep us close to you, away from temptation, and always in your will. In Jesus' name, amen. That's all you need to do.

Just come together. Just 30 seconds. Pray his will for the day. And if you're not married, you're like, well, this doesn't apply to me. It actually does.

Because you need to be praying right now for your future spouse. You need to be praying, God, I know you have my number two. And I'm praying for my number two. And you keep consistent in your morning prayers or your prayer time that you pray for that spouse. And God will honor that prayer.

So I want that. I want that. I want a Christ-centered relationship. I want a Christ-centered, mission-driven, full of intimacy, adventure, romance, passion, all of those things. But also, I even want to invite in the trials, the pains, the hurt, the disappointments, the heartaches, and all those things because it really draws us closer to Christ.

It helps us understand Christ so much better. That's what's real. And that's what's really good is that when we can come with everything on the table to each other, walking in the Lord, growing in Jesus, marriage is not a destination. It's an ongoing journey. And if Christ is your one, you aren't alone.

Because here's what He's doing. He's praying for you. He's directing you. He's working in all things. When you are weak, He is strong.

When you stray, He loves you anyway, and He loves you right back to Him. And when your spouse is drifting, His Spirit works in ways we cannot see, and He's working in a way to bring whatever's going on back to Him. It's not perfect. It's a marriage between two broken people, but with the power of Christ, with the power of Christ, two are better than one. Let's pray.

Father, in the name of Jesus, we are just so thankful that we have very, very practical stuff in Your Word to help and guide us in our relationships. God, I pray in the name of Jesus, I pray that if people are going through difficulties in their marriage, that they will understand what it means to make You number one. God bless you. I'm praying for their number two. And those that are single, they continue to pray, I'm looking for my number two.

That the ideal marriage is not what we see on Highlight Reels, Instagrams, Facebook pages. Those aren't ideal marriages. The ideal marriage is one that even through difficulties, even through hurt, even through heartache, even through pain, it still is a beautiful thing. So we give. Lord, we're fighting for marriages.

We're fighting for relationships because we want full, healthy relationships. The enemy seeks to destroy, but God, you seek to bring about Christ in this world, your kingdom in this world. And if the enemy can destroy our relationships, he can destroy the kingdom of God. But we are not going to be handed that. We're going to fight for our marriages, and we're going to really rock and roll in this series, Lord.

And we're going to aim for you with vigorous hope and strength, knowing that you are going to do something amazing in our future marriages and our marriages now. You're going to do that. As we stay in this moment of worship, I want to challenge you. Some of you in here may say, you know, I'm not Christ-centered. I'm not Christ-centered.

I realize that I'm far from God. Well, today, I'm inviting you to the cross because you are made right through Jesus Christ by virtue of His Son, God's Son, who was on the cross. You were made righteousness on behalf of Jesus Christ when we put ourselves under the blood of Jesus. And today, you can make a decision today to walk in light rather than darkness. To walk in hope and walk in Christ-centeredness because He's got so many big plans.

A life of fulfillment. A life that is truly life and abundant. Give your heart to Him today. Give your life to Him today. If that's you, if you would pray this with me, if the church would just pray this together.

Father, in the name of Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God and that you died on the cross for my sin. Today, I make a decision to walk with you. I no longer want to do it on my own, Lord. Lord, make me right in your eyes. I received the blood of Jesus.

I believe He was the Son of God. So come into my heart. Come into my life. Transform me from the inside out. Make me like you, Lord.

And I walk with you from this day forward. In Jesus' name.