True Love Part 2

Right there, man, ask your local gentry, you said, tell them, Come on, man, you can't take my line like that. All right anyway, Francis Albert Sinatra, ladies and gentlemen. I grew up in Los Angeles, California, and I grew up being kind of a little bit of a sports fan in Los Angeles, and you know, some of that, I just really didn't have a whole lot of choice. And for example, I went to Coliseum Street Elementary School right down the road from USC. I just, you know, just my whole life, I've just been doing the whole USC man, the Trojans, even the women of Troy. I just love the ladies basketball team at USC when they just whooped people. Just beat everybody. Not everybody, they used to beat everybody. Theys beat them bad, too, I mean beat them like a tied up goat, just beat them bad. You know, I grew up loving the Lakers. I'm sorry, I just did. You know. It's kind of tough for me right now, but I jump in the ship. But it's interesting, you know, and you watch sports and you watch trends and everything, and I remember when the Lakers were winning all those championships, you know, with shack in the middle and people just not being able to handle them. I remember watching all of the teams in the West, you know, in the NBA, trying to rebuild their team every season in order to deal with Shaq. Get enough big men on your bench so you can follow them a whole bunch. Maybe that's the way you beat them, you know, and the next year you try to do something else and something else, And so they would go into the draft, and they would going to free agency looking for something in order to do a better job of defeating their competition. That's what they did. They looked at what their objectives were, and then they went and tried to find people that would help them accomplish their objectives. National Football League, same way. You know, one year you get a whole lot of touchdown passes. The next year, everybody's drafting defensive backs in the first round, responding to what's going on, looking at what the needs are, and drafting according to what the needs are, finding people to fit what the needs are. It's interesting, but marriage in some ways just like that. Unfortunately we miss it because we don't understand what our goal is. So we go into the draft just looking for somebody who tickles our fancy, not having any idea of what we're trying to accomplish, not having any idea of where we're going, and we just kind of go, looks good to me. Pick that one. We have to understand what the purpose of marriage is. And when we understand what the purpose of marriage is, we also have to have a picture of what's required of a husband, what's required of a wife. We looked last week at these purposes, these two main purposes. That first purpose of procreation, the idea that we would get married and by the grace of God, he would give us children. He would give us babies, just lots of babies, and babies and babies, babies and more babies, all right, And that we would raise them, and that we would train them in righteousness, train them in godliness. And here's what's interesting, you know, because I talk to women all the time, you know who, because for whatever reason, even in the modern American church, we hate kids. We do, man, we hate kids. If you don't believe me, find a lady who has like seven or eight kids and follow her into church and watch the way Christian people look at her. They look at her like she stinks. Some people even have the audacity to say things that they think that people have never heard before. And y'all figured out what cause is that nobody's ever said that to us before. Why do we do that because we hate kids? A couple of weeks ago, I was presidenting the church in the Houston area, and so my wife comes and she brings the family, and you know, they're coming into the church, and she has a fifteen month old with her, and she's walking into the sanctuary and there's a lady outside who's well trained, and I guess that you know, in her training, they told her, listen, if you see somebody with a small child walking into the sanctuary, stop them. Do everything in your power not to allow the child into the sanctuary. Do you understand this? Yes, here's how you do it. First, you just make the suggestion. And so that's what she did. She said, Oh, I see you have a little one. We have a wonderful nursery you like to do. It's right over there. You can take march. That's right, we're just going in. So evidently they taught her that if that doesn't work, then you go for the cell. Okay, after you make them aware, then you have to go to the next level, and you have to do the cell, and the cell is you just tell them all of the wonderful benefits of the little nursery thing over there. No, you must not have understood me. It's coming and we have wonderful train workers and we have all of this great stuff and there'll be stuff for them to do and all this kind of stuff. And lady, please don't take the baby in the sanctuary. It was like, that's okay, we'll be fine. He says, okay, but if you need me, I'll be right out of here. And I think your baby over dinner. They didn't want our baby in the sanctuary. My baby came in the sanctuary, our fifteen month old. It was fine. Nobody knew how fifteen month old was in there. Why because we have family worship in our house every morning, and my fifteen month old sits with us in family worship every morning, and sits with us in church every week. He knows what's up. Now, after the sermon's not good, he gets a little you know whatever. But other than that, I mean, he's all right. You know. He really loves it when they like do a song that we do at home. You know, and they'll do it. He'll go, Daddy, we know that one man. It's cool. You know what. It all goes back to, somewhere along the line, we lost our passion for one of the main purposes that God give us marriage, the idea that we would bring babies into the world, lots of babies into the world. And when I tell that woman, because I talk to women like this all the time, come up to me, got five, six, seven, eight kids, and people look at them like they're crazy. You know what, I always tell them. I tell them to me. They will make fun of you now, but they won't say a thing on the back end. What do you mean. I mean, when your kids are all grown and your seven or eight kids are standing around you with your forty or fifty grandkids, nobody will have anything to say that. You hang in there until the back end and you'll have the last laugh, I promise, But we despise that one of the main purposes of marriage. One of the most heartbreaking things that I've ever been through was a couple that I worked with that I counsel and my wife and I had for whatever reason. You know, I told you, I'm thirty six. I've been marriage since I was twenty, been married sixteen years, been married like my whole adult. Well, I don't even know what it would feel like to be a single adult. I don't, you know. I can't. Even when I tried to think about it, I cry, you know. And so it's funny because there's a lot of people in our age group who are now, you know, just kind of starting, not just starting the kid thing or whatever. And so we have the opportunity to mentor a lot of young couples. And there was just one couple that came into our life a while back and I sat down and talked with them about an issue that they told me was the issue. When we sit down and we talked for a few minutes, and I look at this young lady who's about thirty one years old at the time, and I look at this young lady and I see I just I just I'm like, I know what the deal is right here. I'm just gonna go for it. We're gonna deal with it. Let's just get it out here. I said, you want to get pregnant, don't you. Tears just starts streaming down her face. This man made her promise before they got married that they wouldn't have any children. She had invested seven years of her life into a relationship with this man. Didn't want to go start over, so she said whatever she had to say in order to get the ring on her finger. And now three years later she is aching on the inside. She wants a baby. Spent four months with this couple, and rather than give this woman a child, this man divorced her. And we'd sit down and I'd look him in his eye and I'd ask him, what are you thinking? Do you realize that she is yearning for what God created her to yearn for? Yeah, well, she promised, what's wrong with you? Man? Don't you love this woman? Yeah? I do, but I know where you're going and I just don't want to talk about that. What's too bad. I'm bigger than you are. We're gonna talk about this. I mean, at one point, I just put my foot down. I mean, I gave him an ultimatum. I was like, listen, I want her knocked up in a month. I know where you live. Don't make me come get you. He wouldn't give her a child. A divorce. Now, folks, it's one of the primary purposes that God gave us marriage. The other purpose is this purpose of illustration. One is procreation, that we would bring children into this world, and that we would raise them, and then we train them in righteousness, train them in godleness, and send them forth into this world to exercise dominion over this world. The other is that i marriage would be a living, breathing, tangible expression of the relationship between Christ and his church. And it is there that we find the biblical roles for husbands and for wives. Open your bibles with me to the Book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter five, Ephesians chapter five. Let's just get into it, shall we. Now some of you you think you're slick. You looked at this and you said, he said he's gonna do this whole role, the men and women thing, and he's gonna be in the Phienians chapter five. And you looked at that and you saw wives right there, and then you saw husbands, and you see that wives be subject. You know that submission thing. You thought, that's what we're gonna get into this week, not saving that We're gonna go down to verse twenty five and talk about the men first. And there's a reason that we're gonna do that because it's gonna be a whole week before I see you again, and I want you to come back. Heymen, But seriously, though, in order to understand what's going on with the role of the wife and the marriage, you gotta understand the fulcrum point between what happens and what's required of the wife and what's required of children and parents and their children. You know, they're in verse five beginning verse twenty two, and they're in chapter six, verse one through four. Between that, there's this fulcrum point and it's a man. It's the husband, as though he's the foundation upon which this family is built. And so I want us to look at that today and next week, by the way, and men, let me just say before we begin, like my mama used to tell me, I do this because I love you, and it's gonna hurt me worse than it hurts you. You know I used to do with my mom, used to tell me that you said, Mama, don't love me so much? Didn't work. Beginning of verse twenty five. Ladies, as we read this, what we're talking about here is what you're looking for, what you're supposed to be looking for. So what I want you to do is just put out of your mind the lies that the culture has told you and what you see here from a biblical perspective, what it is that marriage is about. If you understand what the goal is, if you understand what you're aiming for, and you understand what you need in order to walk through this. Hear this tonight. Men, listen to this tonight, because until you are these things, you're not worthy of a wife. Can't say a man you ought to say ouch. Beginning of verse twenty five. Husbands love your wives just as Christ also love the Church, and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water, with the word, that he might present to himself the Church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the Church, so because we are members of his body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. Verse thirty two is the key. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, let each individual among you also love his own wife as himself, and the wife must see to it she respects her husband. We're gonna look at this picture today, and the only thing that we're gonna be able to deal with tonight is this first point, that it is required of the husband. We're talking about headship here, that the husband is the head of the marriage. He is the head of the home. I make no apology for saying that I am the head of my household, not because I'm bigger, not because I'm louder, but because the Bible says so, and because the buck stops here. And it's not about me beating my chest, me mad, you woman, me say you boo. That's not headship. Folks, if you think that that's headship, you didn't just listen to what we read. I want to show you what it means to lead a home. I want you to see this picture that my responsibility as a husband is to lead my home like Christ leads the church. That's what headship is about. And if you got a problem with this, I just I don't write the mail, I just deliver it, all right. Anything with two heads as a monster, either kill it or put it behind glass somewhere and stare at it. That can only be one head in this relationship. And God says that the husband is that head. Period, don't fight it. But what does that mean? First thing it means is this that it's my responsibility to lead in love. It's my responsibility to lead in love. My job is to be the lead lover in my house. Amen, hallelujah, Praise the Lord. Lover number one right here, that's my job to be lover number one in my house. Here's the problem, and this is why we're gonna need to spend this time here tonight, just on this first one. We have been lied to. We have been sold a bill of goods as it relates to love. And this is a problem because we've bought into the Greco Roman myth of romantic love. And so when we say love a lot of times, here's what we're talking about. We're talking about this Greco Roman myth that has at the center Cupid and Cupid, this little cherub shoots you with this arrow, and when he shoots you with his arrow, there is this overwhelming passion that comes upon you and you begin to say strange things like this thing is bigger than both of us. You have to say it just like that too. It just doesn't work, you know. Or another one, it's one of my favorite. We don't choose who we fall in love with. Help you. And this one here again, I don't understand this one by I love it. It just sounds so cool. The heart wants what it wants. I have no idea what that means. But this is what we believe about love. And this is part of our problem that even in church, we believe this about love, that you know that there's some overwhelming force will strike you. And when this overwhelming force strikes you, there's nothing you can do about it. You have to be drawn along by this overwhelming force and do what it tells you to do. And we use phrases like follow your heart. You know, the Bible says it's about the heart. It's wicked and not to be trusted. The Bible says, don't follow your heart. That's the Greco Roman myth of romantic love. And so when we believe in that myth. We've got several problems. Here's problem number one that we have with the Greco Roman myth of romantic love. If that's what love is, if it's just this overwhelming force, and if the heart just wants what it wants, and if it's uncontrollable, and if we don't choose who we fall in love with, you know, and if this thing is bigger than both of us, if that's true, then no marriage is safe. If that's true. If that's true, think about it. I mean, what if tomorrow I sit down on an airplane and there's this woman who sits next to me on the airplane and it's just this beautiful woman who just wants me. That wasn't supposed to be funny. That can happen. I'm gonna talk to this side of the room over here. So all of a sudden, I'm sitting there on the plane and there's this woman there and she's beautiful and she wants me, And all of a sudden, cupid strikes me. And this thing is bigger than both of us, and we don't choose who we fall in love with, and the heart wants what it wants, do you follow me. If that's what love is, my marriage is not safe. Come to think of it. What if it happens to my wife. There could be a message on my phone right now. Maybe you probably need to stay in Atlanta because I met somebody and this thing is bigger than both of us. And we don't choose who we fall in love with, and the heart wants what it wants. You see the problem there. We've bought the lie of the Greco Roman myth of romantic love, and because of that, there are a lot of you in this room who are terrified of marriage because you know how fickle that kind of love is. That's why we had to create another idea to go along with it, the idea of the one one one one Why? And so what we do is we bounce from one Greco Roman pagan relationship to another, being overwhelmed by this force, hoping that this time we finally found the one. Because when you find that person and all of a sudden the cycle ends, that is ridiculous. It's absolutely ludicrous, not to mention the fact that it's grossly unbiblical, that has no biblical merit whatsoever. If we buy into the Greco Roman myth of romantic love. We are hopeless and we will never ever feel secure enough to get married to anybody. Here's the other problem with this idea of the one. You can never know it objectively, and so all of a sudden, a year into your marriage, things get difficult because living with another person is difficult, especially for us men, because y'all ain't right. I thought I understood women, and I married one. Then we gave birth to one, one of more women in my house. Then all of a sudden, a year into it, difficulty comes, pressure comes, all of a sudden, children come into the family, and you go weeks, if not months, without a good night's sleep. You don't feel so romantic anymore. And if you've bought into the Greco Roman myth of romantic love and this concept of the one, why why your immediate thought is I must have married the wrong one, because you have completely idealized, unbiblical view of what love is. So the moment you don't feel this overwhelming chemical reaction anymore, your immediate thought is must be the wrong one, because you can never know objectively, because there's no you know, people aren't walking around with numbers on their forehead, so that you can match your number to another person's number, and see, it just doesn't exist. It doesn't work that way. There is no objective way for you to ever know. So we got two problems with the Greco Roman myth. Problem number one is this idea that no marriage is ever secure, if that's what love really is. Problem number two is that you're never gonna know if you found the one, if that's what love really is. Here's problem number three. That kind of love is not transferable. That's why you get a lot of people. They get married and all of a sudden they get pregnant, and I hear this all the time. They're afraid, what if I mean, because we love each other so much, are we gonna have enough love for this baby? And then they get pregnant with baby number two and they go, well, we love one another and this baby so much, are we gonna love the next baby? What if the next baby come and Cupid doesn't strike us the same way he struck us for the other baby. See, the Greco rooman myth doesn't work because it's not transferable. By the way, if you believe in this Greco Roman myth of romantic love and you believe that love is about this overwhelming feeling. That explains why a lot of times you wonder if God still loves you because you don't feel the same way about God that you did last month. And so there must be something wrong with God or there must be something wrong with you all because we bought the lie, the Greco Roman myth of romantic love, this overwhelming force, that's not what love is. And so when we look here at Ephesus chapter five, and we see first and foremost that the husband's responsibility in the marriage is to lead in love, the first thing we have to do is we have to define this love. And it's not the Greco Roman myth of romantic love. It's biblical love. Several things I want to say about it. First of all, look at this word. First, husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself up for her. Number one, Christ is our model for love. Jesus does not love the church because she's fine. Amen. Jesus does not love the Church because she makes him happy. Jesus loves the church because he loved the Church. Because Esus bride, he is covenant with her. He chooses to love the church. It's not an overwhelming emotion that has to somehow be sustained over the years. It's not an overwhelming force that struck him one day that made him decide that he was gonna sacrifice his life on behalf of his bride the church. Jesus is our model, his sacrificial love for the church. Let me give you a definition of love, and then let's walk through how this definition of love completely transforms the way we understand our relationships and what we're looking for. We give this biblical definition. His bilical definition is taken really from Matthew twenty two and Deuteronomy six. In Matthew twenty two, Moses says, love the Lord your God. In Matthew and Doud Army six, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Interestingly enough, in Matthew twenty two, Jesus uses that same phrase when he's asked about the greatest commandment. He says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, or your mind and your strength. He answered this dimension of the mind. He's using the Greek language to communicate a Hebrew concept. I want you to understand something. Let me give you this definition and then I'll break it down for you and I'll show you how it applies in this setting. Here's the definition. Biblical love is an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object. Let me give it to you again. Biblical love is an act of the will. It is first and foremost a choice we do choose. It is an act of the will. It is accompanied by emotion, which means it's not void of emotion, but it's also not lead by emotion, and it leads to act action on behalf of its object. Now I told you Jesus was our model for this kind of love. Think about Jesus in the garden of gath Simony. He prays in the garden of gath Simony, and he prays, if there is any other way, let this cup pass from me. It's the night before his crucifixion, and he prays to be delivered from this bitter cup of God's wrath. He doesn't feel like going to the cross the next day, and then he says, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. It was an act of the will he chose to love the church. It was accompanied by emotion so intense that he sweat drops of blood, and it led to action on behalf of its object. Jesus didn't need the cross you and I did. He didn't do that because it made him feel good about himself. He did that because it was the only way for his bride to be red beemed. That is biblical love. That is not the whimsical Greco Roman myth of romantic love. That is something that lasts. It is something that is stable. It is something that stays. It is something that will serve as a foundation upon which a marriage can be built. That Greco Roman myth is not. So you cannot build a solid marriage on the Greco Roman myth. It doesn't work. That's why you got people walking away from each other, just saying, well, we just fell out of love. What you fell out of lot? He what you fell out of love? What is that? People married twenty twenty five years getting divorced because they fell out of love. I just want to grab them and shake them, just tell them you made it twenty five years, man, suck it up. You don't have that long ago. First of all, let's look at this an act of the will. The kind of love that the husband is supposed to lead in is a love that begins with the will. It's interesting when Moses says, love the Lord your God with all your heart. You know, your heart's a muscle that pumps blood. That's all it is. Your heart doesn't know anything, it doesn't want anything, it doesn't yearn for anything. It's a muscle that pumps blood. That's all it is. When we see that word heart in the Bible, it's usually being used in figurative terms, and in the Hebrew it refers to your volition, to your will, And so we love as an act of our will. It is a choice. Our volition must be engaged. Here's the problem. Usually what we do is we enter into a relationship with somebody because they're cute and because we like their company, and because they make us feel all hinglely on the inside. And then we get emotionally involved with that person, and then a lot of times we get physically involved with that person, and then we want to step back and say, is this the one? One one? And a lot of times by now it's too late. Like the young lady I told you about seven years into the relationship. She knew before that that this man didn't want children, and she knew that she did. But after seven years, she had invested so much that she could no longer think objectively about this relationship, and she had to respond based on the level of emotional commitment that she had already invested in this relationship. That's what happens when you lead with something other than the will. We do choose, we must choose. There are some of you in this room and you're in a relationship with somebody you got no business wasting your time. I'm with and you know it be on the shadow of any doubt. I've talked to some of you, and I love it. You know, whenever I'm talking to somebody and they're with somebody that they know they shouldn't be with, they give me a whole bunch of stuff, talking all the way around the main issues, especially when that person's not a believer. You know, they got to give me like seven and a half minutes worth of justification for being with this person before they say that they're not a believer. And by the way, when you're with somebody who's not a believer, you never just say they're a pagan. They don't love God. It's always, you know, it's always you know. Now they're not necessarily as spiritual as I would like them to be, you know, it's all He's interesting how you put it. Then you know they don't really just go to church like all the time. To be honest, the guy's are pagan. He doesn't know God, but he's fine, and I don't want to let him go. I can deal with that a whole lot better. And in case you're wondering where that comes from, turn with me to the left. Let's just settle this, shall we? Tewo Corinthians, Chapter six, they're getting get verse fourteen. Let's just deal with this right up front, shall we? Because love is first and foremost in act of the will, and we do choose. And there's some people you got no business being with. You got no business investing your life in, You got no business going out with. You, got no business even taking the risk of becoming emotionally involved with certain individuals. And the first thing is if they are not a born again, blood washed, sold out follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. And ladies, I don't know why, but usually it's you who have issues with this. Sometimes it happens with guys, but usually it's the ladies who end up with guys who spiritually are so far beneath them it's not even funny. And I don't know what the deal is. Ladies when they're like fourteen, you know, they're like, I'm not even gonna get married. And he got, you know, the spirituality that's some kind of cross between you know, you know, Mother Teresa and Billy Graham. And then he got to have looks that are like, you know, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Vody back them all in one, and then by the time you're twenty four, it's like, I just want a good godly man that's around. You're still singing at thirty four. It's like, okay, if the brother knows where a church is sewond Griftians chapter six, beginning verse fourteen, that's clear this right on up. Do not be bound together with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light and darkness? Or what heart man has christ and blile? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever, or what agreement has the Temple of God with idols, for we are the temple of the Living God. Can it be clearer than that? First Corinthians, chapter seven and verse thirty nine, Paul says, the woman is bound to her husband, but if the husband dies, she is free to be remarried only in the Lord. It's soumed, you only marry in the Lord. Oh, I hear you. But he's so close, and if I could just work on him. First Corinthians, fifteen thirty three. Bad company corrupts good morals. You got no business with him? None, zero, zip, zilch, nada. It amazes me that we will actually come to God and ask him to bless us while we directly disobey. God says clearly no to the unbeliever. God, I love you so much and I'm so committed to you, and I'm just praying, you know, as I continue to invest my life in this relationship that you have forbidden and said is sin. Would you just bless my sin? God? Please? And would you just give me what I want while I continue to pursue what you tell me I should not have. That's what it sounds like. But you know why we continue to justify it, because we buy into the greco Roman myth. And if love is just this overwhelming force and we don't choose who we fall in love with, then God must approve because he wouldn't have allowed me to fall in love with this person who's a rank unbeliever unless he fully intended to satisfy these urges. Yeah, that's true if you buy the gretc rooman myth of romatic love, not if you understand the biblical concept of love. The biblical concept is you lead with the will, and you guard yourself, and you protect yourself from getting involved with people who don't qualify. Don't take a chance on getting too invested. Ladies, if you're looking for a man who's qualified to be your husband, the first thing is this. He doesn't jump into relationships all willy nilly hoppen from one to another to another to another to another because the heart wants what it wants, and then trying to figure things out later. Here the man you want. The man you want is the man who keeps you at orange length and will not allow you to jeopardize your feelings by getting involved with him before you make sure that the two of you are equally yoked, and that the two of you are ready to enter into a biblical relationship that is heading forward marriage, not just wasting time and kicking it because it feels good to be together. Until you've met that guy, keep walking until you've met that guy. Don't waste your time men, until you are that guy, you don't deserve. A Christian woman, you lead with the will. It is a choice. You know why, because there are gonna be difficult days in your marriage, and the will is what gets you through difficult days. A dear friend of mine that year, he's a pastor of the church in Phoenix. His wife has multiplecrosses. I was with them a few months ago, and she is so advanced in this disease now that she's in a wheelchair and she can't walk and she can't get around, and they're both advancing in age. And I spent the day with him, and everywhere they went, he would grab her arms and he'd wrap them around his neck, and he'd grab her around the waist and he'd struggle, and he'd pick her up and get her in her chair, get the chair to the car. He does the same thing again, Struggle to get her in the car, get the chair in the car, get to where they're going same thing again, over and over and over. He bathes her, he feeds her, he takes her to the bathroom. You don't get that with the Greco Roman myth of romantic love. Cupid doesn't give you that. That is the will. That is a man who says, I choose to love you with everything that I have for the rest of our lives together, I choose to love you. That is what you're looking for. They don't look like they used to when they first got married. So if they built their marriage or that, it would be gone. She can't even get around like she used to. If they built their marriage on that, it would be gone. Did you not think he gets tired? Biblical love leads with the will. It's an act of the will. It's accompanied by emotion. It's accompanied by emotion. That means just not led by emotion. If it's led by emotion, it's a roller coaster and you're in trouble. And it's not void of emotion. Ladies, if you if you are with a guy who you don't know, you can't show emotion and won't show the money just gets stepping because that's just not that's not the deal. Yeah, but you don't understand. He's just one of these engineering types and he's not really emotional, and he's not help you if you believe that, because here's what I know. When he's on the golf course and he shanks one, he doesn't just stand there and go I seem to have hit that one poorly. Joel and I were talking about this last week. There's some of you young ladies and guys are just dragging you along with this rule of the least interested, you know, and it's like the worst he treats you and the less of himself that he's willing to give you, the more you crawl on hands and knees, chasing behind him, and he dogs you out and you take it. What is that? Did nobody tell you what you're worth? Don't do that? An act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object. In the words of that great theologian Janet Jackson, what have you done for me lately? Ladies, what you're looking for is a man who's love for you is not based on your ability to satisfy him. That's what you're looking for, y, You're looking for a man who understands that his call as a husband, if he has the privilege of marrying you, will be delaid down his life for you, not to use you for his own selfish desires. Until you have found that you have not found a man worthy to be your husband, he must leave you. And biblical love an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object. That's what you're looking for first and foremost. If you have bought the lie, this whimsical idea of this Greco Roman myth of romantic love. My prayer for you is that you'd wake up, had you'd open your eyes, that you'd shake yourself loose from that lie, and that you'd realize that there's something out there that's so much more important and it's so dangerous. I've run into people all the time who met somebody and there was this wild whirldwind romance, and deep down inside them they knew that this person biblically wasn't qualified to be their husband, but they ignored it because it felt so good. Next thing, they knew, they were so invested in this relationship. He ended up getting married, and now they're frustrated every day because they got what they asked for. That amazing. The guy's a loser. He doesn't treat me right, he don't let me Okay, okay, okay. But here's the deal. He's like that before you married him, right, So you got exactly what you signed up for. Right? Yes, But just if God really loved me, wouldn't he just change him? Oh? Here's the deal. You went to God and you said, God, I don't care what the Bible says, I want this one. And God said cool, you got him, And now you're coming to God going can you make him different? No, he's exactly what you asked for. Words are one of my favorite preachers, Tony Evy's. You are any relationship like this, you start out thinking you got a good deal, turns into an ordeal, and you start looking for a new deal. Folks, this changes everything. And my prayer for you is that you would begin to get the big picture and that you would that God would just use these truths to rescue you, because some of you are headed down an incredibly destructive path and your only excuse is you quote fell in love. This thing is bigger than both of us. We don't choose who we fall in love with the heart wants what it wants. That's unbiblical, it's immature, sure, and it'll destroy your life. Until you find a man who leads in this kind of love, you haven't met a man who's qualified to be your husband. Men. Until you are a man capable of leading in this kind of love, you have not become a man who is worthy of taking a wife. On the flip side, When you find this, ladies, hold on tight, don't let go. Make that man marry you as quick as you can, because this is a foundation. But solid marriages are built upon because there are difficult days ahead. The Greco Roman myth cannot survive those days. Only a love that is an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object can survive these things. Now, for those of you who argue, well, okay, I mean that's fine, but man, no romance. You didn't hear a word I said. Let me just share something with you as I close. I'm leaving here tomorrow at seven in the morning. Why because there was not a flight out to Houston late enough for me to leave tonight. That's the first thing. Smoking Going back to where I live. I'm gonna get up about five fifteen, get ready for the plan. Why because my rule is always get on the first thing smoking to get out of where I am and back to where I live. Why because when I'm through being away from my house and I only travel ten days a month, I ain't travel no more than that. That's it. When I get back on the first thing smoking, I fly to the Houston Airport, I carry the fewest bags possible and try not to ever check anything because I don't want to wait at the airport. I get on a shuttle. I ride to my vehicle. It takes me twenty two minutes to get into my house from the airport parking lot. I try to do it in nineteen. When I get to my house and open the garage, I try to make sure to remember to turn my car off before I get out of it, because the first thing I want to do is open the door. Watch that beautiful, beautiful black preacher that God gave to me as my wife walk across the floor and say, come here, girl. Not led by emotion, but certainly not void of it. Let's pray, Father, thank you for the love that you have for us. That your love for us was an act of the will. Your love for us was accompanied by emotion. Your love for us led to action on behalf of its object, your bride, for whom you laid down your life. Would you teach us to have that kind of love, and to look for that kind of love, and to build marriages on that kind of love, so that we can illustrate to a lost, hurting, and dying world what the relationship between Christ and his bride looks like. Oh,