Relationships: How To Win Every Argument!

OPENING PRAYER:

We are gonna have some FUN over the next few weeks! Today, we are starting a brand new message series called, “Relationships”! Typically, every year, anytime I do a series on relationships or marriage, it’s one of the highest attended series of the year. That shows how desperately we need God’s presence and God’s Word in our relationships. Everyone one of us is in a relationship. Unless you’re a hermit, you have at least one relationship. Whether you’re married, dating, just friends, have family, or work or live around people – we all have relationships.

Can I tell you something this morning. (Everybody take a deep breath.) Relationships are supposed to be enjoyable. God created people to have relationships with people – for enjoyment. Too many people have relationships that are simply not enjoyable.

And when it comes to marriages – God gives us an excellent passage of Scripture to guide us.

Ephesians 5:21-33

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Everyone say “submit”. Every relationship.)

(This next verse is my favorite verse in the Bible…I’m thinking about getting a tattoo of it!!!)

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

HUSBANDS– READ THIS PART OUT LOUD WITH ME AS LOUD AS YOU CAN! “WIVES, SUBMIT YOURSELVES TO YOUR OWN HUSBANDS AS YOU DO TO THE LORD.”

Let’s close in prayer and get you guys outta here for lunch!

(All I know is every man in the building should have been shouting “amen”.)

KIDDING! 

When I first got married I tried to tease my wife with this verse…I said, “Baby girl, never forget I’m the head of this house”. She said, “Yeah, well you never forget I’m the neck that turns the head!”

Let’s continue reading!

23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Let’s just stop right there for a minute…that’s a whole lot of love for some of you fellas! To love your wives as much as you love your own bodies! Some of you dudes REALLY love yourselves. In fact, some of you ladies REALLY love yourselves, too. Lemme tell you something…(pause) Instagram is living proof of that! Some of you love yourselves so much – we get to see SELFIES of you ALL THE TIME! Some of you throw out the daily selfy…or the hourly selfy…or for some it’s even the secondly selfy. Just in case we forgot what you looked like 10 minutes ago! Some of you…there’s more selfies on your IG than there are pictures of your wives or husbands or kids!

Some of you like yourselves so much that nobody else likes you!

We need to live our lives “selfie-less”!

What God is saying is…love your wives…loves your husbands…as your own bodies. Remember when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment in the Bible was? He said in Matthew 22…the greatest commandment is to LOVE GOD and the second greatest is to love others like you love yourself. Why did he say that? Because, by nature, we are selfish. We love us. We think about us. It’s a me first world we live in.

29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” (One flesh! THIS IS PERFECT HARMONY) [c] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

Listen, when you get married…it’s not about YOU anymore. It really should have never been about you anyway…but when you get married…it’s not about YOU.

When you get married, it’s about him. It’s about her. I’m married and I have 3 kids. My life is about them. I decided a long time ago – to give my life up for theirs.

That’s how a perfect marriage is supposed to work.