Marriage By the Book

This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang. Thank you for joining us. A big sweeping view through the Bible of what the Scripture says to us about marriage. And so rather than just one specific passage, what I'm really doing this morning is taking a combination of 30 years of preaching, 30 years of doing premarital counseling and marriage counseling, having been married for nearly 30 years as well, and just try to synthesize all of that together and walk you through marriage by the book, marriage by the book of the Bible.

What would a God-honoring marriage be? What are some takeaways that we can have in our hearts and minds as a conclusion from this weekend?

Now, before we jump into that, I'm aware that there are different categories of people that are here on a Sunday morning between our two services.

Some of you are married and want to be married, and I want to encourage you to stay married. Some of you are married and don't want to be married, and I want to encourage you to be able to rebuild your marriage on the Word.

Some of you are not married and hope to be married. And if that's you, I want to try to give you some things that I hope will help prepare you for that day in the providence of God.

Others of you are not married and say you don't want to be married. And if that's God's will for you, that's fine too. But it still is helpful and fitting for all of us to know what God's will is for marriage.

I also know there's some of you that are here that have been hurt by marriage, by a spouse who was unfaithful or a spouse who abandoned you or raised in a family where divorce ripped your family apart.

I understand that. And we don't pretend that we live in a fairy tale world. We live in a real world where there is real sin and there is real consequences of sin.

And so whatever your personal experience has been, what I hope to do is help you this morning to not let the world describe what marriage should be, and not even to let your own experience define what marriage should be, but rather to look to the book and to say, what would marriage look like according to God's great design?

And so to do that, I want us just to think in three broad categories this morning. And I'm going to share a number of scriptures with you. You can go and open to Genesis, if you would, Genesis 3.

And we're going to look at a specific text there in a few moments. But what I really want to do is just try to bring all of scripture to bear upon our understanding of marriage.

With these three headings, we're going to look at beliefs, behaviors, and blessings. What are the beliefs that husband and wife need to share together?

What are the convictions that need to be present in both husband and wife? And then what are the behaviors that need to be lived out?

What is the conduct that needs to be present as we live out our beliefs and convictions? And then thirdly, we're going to look at the rewards, the blessings that come from a marriage that is centered upon the Word of God.

When we think about first, though, beliefs, I want to summarize some things from scripture that I hope will be helpful for you this morning. When you're married, at least these four things need to be shared beliefs with husband and wife.

Number one, that God is to be first place above all things. God is to be first place above all things. We see in Colossians 1.18, for example, where it says, speaking of the church, that Christ is the head of the body, the church, and that in everything, He is to be preeminent.

Well, if Christ is to be preeminent in everything, that doesn't speak exclusively to marriage, but certainly would include it. He is to be first place in everything.

First place in the church, first place in the heart of the Christian, and if married, certainly first place in the home as well. Psalm 127, verse 1, So we begin with this belief, this core conviction, that when you are married, the Lord is to be first place above everything.

It means that culture doesn't change your view of God, because our view of God is established in His Word.

And so if the culture changes its view on marriage, that has no bearing on the Christian. We are living in a day where there are plenty of people outside the church who do not like what God's Word says about marriage.

That's nothing new. What is a bit unique and strange would be how many people are inside the church who are choosing to ignore what God's Word says about marriage.

And what we have to understand is that if the Lord is to be first place in everything which He is, including our marriages, that means what His Word says is the standard by which we hold our beliefs and our convictions.

So the fact that you can read a book or hear someone behind a pulpit preach a message or scroll through social media and see people who will say all kinds of things contrary to the Bible about what marriage is, let us be clear of this, that biblical godly marriage is established by the Lord's Word, not culture and not even ourselves.

And if you're married, you need to make sure the person that you're going to marry is someone who has the core belief that the Lord is to be first place above all things.

Second, the belief is that men and women are equal before God but uniquely different.

Men and women are equal before God but uniquely different. 1 Peter 3.7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel.

Not weaker in the sense of less important. If you go home today, just give an example of how you might think of this. If you go home today and you have lunch and you eat a sandwich with some potato chips and you put that on a paper plate, at the end of that meal, you take that paper plate and you just wad it and throw it away.

Or you can act like a frisbee and see if you can toss it across the room in the trash can. It doesn't matter. You can wad it up like a basketball and see if you can shoot it into the trash basket in the garage.

It doesn't matter. If you miss it and it falls into the ground, it doesn't matter. But if you're having Thanksgiving dinner and you've got your family over and you bring out the expensive plates, the heirloom plates, the plates that got passed down from your great-grandma, your great-grandma, and you never use them because they're too nice to use, those kind of plates, when that meal is over, you don't let your children, like a frisbee, toss them into the sink.

Why? Because they're more breakable. They're a weaker vessel, not in the sense they're less valuable, but they're to be handled with more care.

That's the idea. Husbands are to live with their wives in an understanding way as the weaker vessel, not lesser vessel, but you handle with that kind of care, that kind of delicate precision.

Our pastoral staff loves each other and the way that we prove we love each other is by making fun of each other. It's what you do when you're men. If you really like a guy, you punch him in the arm.

That shows real affection. I don't treat my wife like I treat the boys. She's a weaker vessel, not less important, more delicate, and because of that, more precious.

And so we absolutely affirm that men and women are equal before the Lord, but we are uniquely different. And while that sounds so painfully obvious, if you've got children, you're raising children in a world that has spent billions of dollars and untold amount of time and energy trying to do what I think is absolutely absurd, and that is to try to convince and persuade people that men and women are the same without any difference.

Now, who would fall for that? Well, essentially, our entire world has. And as absurd as it sounds, we need to go on record saying what God's Word affirms.

Men and women are absolutely equal before God. Absolutely equal in worth, in value, absolutely equal standing before the Lord.

But they are uniquely different. And those distinctions are good. The Lord and His providence has so designed us, for those who are married, to be completed by our spouse, and they're different.

To even have to say men and women are not the same would seem to me to be one of the most unnecessary sentences I could ever utter. Except I live in this world in 2025.

Where you'll find all kinds of people outside the church and sadly inside church buildings who will try to persuade you that men and women have no difference. But the Bible is not unclear about who is to lead the church.

It's a plurality of godly men who are to be the leaders, the elders, the shepherds, the pastors of the local church. Not because we're smarter.

Does anybody think that I would beat my wife in an IQ test? That ain't happening. But the Lord has a design for the church.

The same is true in the home. The husband's not the sheriff. He's not the dictator. He's to be the leader, the chief servant in the home.

A servant leader, a shepherd in the home. If you get a church that doesn't follow what God's word says or a family that doesn't follow what God's word says, it may have no trouble getting the world's affirmation of that, but the Lord is not pleased.

And the important thing in our churches and in our marriages would never be what does the world say of us? It's always is the Lord honored among us?

The burglar alarm goes off at 2 a.m. Men and women are different. There's an intruder in the home. Men and women are different.

And you don't flip a coin to see who goes and confronts the intruder. The husband goes. And the husband lays down his life.

Men and women have the same value before God. But they're different. Our church has hundreds of godly women who love the Lord and know His word.

A week from Tuesday, we have our next Ladies Night of Theology. Lord willing, we'll have 400, 500 ladies here with open Bibles and they're going to be learning the Bible and studying theology because we take seriously the training and equipping of our ladies to know God's word.

They are not lesser in knowledge or lesser in value. But when it comes to who has God ordained to stand in front of the congregation and to teach and to preach and to serve and to lead, that is a role the Bible has called men to fulfill.

We are equal before the Lord in value but different and distinct in how He's made us. And rather than fight and argue against God's design, there is beauty and delight in embracing what God has designed.

And that's true in our churches and true in our marriages. So let me just say this. If you are a man here today and you are married, gentlemen, let me just say to you with love and with grace but with appropriate man-to-man directness and bluntness, you need to lead your families.

You don't hand that off to your wife. You shepherd your families. Protect your family. Serve your family. Guard your family.

Absolutely, it takes husband and wife, mother and father to do what the family must do. Absolutely, you should be constantly inviting and asking for your wife's feedback and opinions and making decisions and you do that as a team and you do that together but even teams that work together must have a leader who puts themselves at the front door of that house and says, as for me and my house, we serve the Lord and protect and defend and serve and if need be, give up yourself, give up your life, lay down your life for the good of your family.

Men, lead your homes. Not as rude, cold, calloused know-it-alls, not as men who think that you are better than somebody else but as men who would humbly and graciously say, we have the firm belief and conviction that leadership, servant leadership in the home begins with the husband.

and you serve and you lead your wife not in a way that fulfills your selfish desires but in a way that makes much of Jesus Christ and is for the good of your wife and your family.

Number three, the belief that your home needs to be orderly. Your home needs to be orderly.

Christ is the head. Christ is the foundation. The husband is the chief shepherd in the home. The marriage relationship is first.

The children are to follow and obey and honor the parents. There's order in the home. Not chaos.

If you raise your children in a home where there is constant fighting and yelling and chaos, your children will love you and hopefully keep a relationship with you.

But I promise you this, if you raise your children in a chaotic home, though they may love you as mom and dad, they're counting down the days till they turn 18.

to get out of your home. Doesn't mean they won't love you. Doesn't mean there won't be a future relationship. But children do not want to be in a chaotic home. Let your home be orderly.

Same thing is true in a church. Churches thrive where there's order, not chaos. Where there's leaders who are willing to study and to pray and to listen and to serve and to lead.

You've heard me say before, when our staff team meets and talks, I don't win every vote. I shouldn't win every vote. No staff member wins every vote.

When we're talking about things we can't chapter and verse, when we're looking for the way of wisdom, there's discussion, there's openness, there's conversation, there's dialogue, but in the end, we've got to make a decision as best we can through the lens of what's the best way to serve and lead our church.

And if you are man pleasers and afraid to do anything or make any decision that somebody else may disagree with, you're just not cut out to lead.

because what you have to be willing to do is to say we are striving by God's grace to get insight from a plurality of godly leaders and as best we can lead the congregation in a way that is orderly because people thrive where there's order.

The one miracle Jesus did that's recorded in all four gospels, the only one, is the feeding of the 5,000 men plus women and children. And in this chaotic scene of 15 to maybe as many as 20,000 people that were there along with Jesus and the apostles, what Jesus instructs them to do is to sit down in groups of 50 and 100.

Why? To bring order to the chaos. He's willing to take this young boy's lunch and multiply it and use his apostles to feed the people and you can't do that if you've got 20,000 people just running all around so you bring order to the chaos.

So he has them get in groups of 50 and 100 and sits all over the area and he can tell the apostles you take this group you take this group you take this group row by row group by group let's make sure everyone is fed and everyone is served.

Your home needs to have order not chaos. When our boys were little and Marcy spent so much of her day home with our little guys one of the ways that I wanted to serve my family was to always have a lawn that was mowed and clean and looked nice because they were there all day long and if they're going outside to play or they're looking out the windows and the lawn is a mess I thought this is one way while I'm gone at work not there I can serve my family to if they take the kids outside have a lawn that looks clean have a lawn that looks oily now I can't chapter and verse that that is a requirement I'll just tell you it's amazing what a made bed and a mowed yard will do to bring some order to chaos so that may not be the way you want to express it that's fine but just find ways in your home in your family to simplify things to make things orderly to reduce the chaos and the way that

Marcy and I have organized how we do that and the way that we divide up the chores so to speak may not be best for everybody else that's totally fine but you've got to find ways in your home to say the Lord is first the family is going to follow the biblical teaching and we're going to strive to bring order to our family these are the core beliefs that I believe helps a marriage to live in joy and to live in peace I want us as Christians and as this local church to have marriages that last but not just that I want us to have homes that are filled with joy the goal isn't just make it to the finish line with your marriage it's to make it to the finish line with joy with peace with hope with love with delight so if these are beliefs that we hold let's look secondly at behaviors what kind of conduct should be true of us

I just want to give you some basic things these will be quite elementary but as I often say to people when you look at your marriage it's not it's not that you don't know what to do it's just that we failed in the simple things so let's look at the simple things that we need to remember with our behaviors number one be grateful be grateful take time to express your gratitude now let me just tell you what I've what I've seen over the course of a long time here being married you need to strive to not take for granted the things your spouse does while not demanding for you to be thanked for everything that you do in other words

I want to strive to show gratitude to my wife for the many things that she does day after day without me demanding that she has to thank me for every single thing I do every day at that point if I'm living that way it's just score keeping she said thanks to me I'll say thanks to her she didn't say thanks to me I'm not saying thanks to her she didn't say she appreciates what I did well I'm not gonna do that do it the next time if you go through life like that you may stay married but you're gonna be miserably married that's not what the scripture calls us to be so strive to be grateful without demanding to be thanked for everything that you do that same principle is true in the church as as a as a as a as a staff as a team of leaders here a team of servants in our church

I don't want us to ever take our members for granted I don't want us to ever overlook the faithfulness and the ministry and the servant spirit of our congregation I want us to voice appreciation I want us to to notice people who serve and tell them how much we love and appreciate them however if you're going to serve only in accordance with how much appreciation you receive then what you've done is you've let the affirmation of man be your standard of obedience rather than the glory of Christ so when I'm talking to our staff and to myself I'm telling us don't neglect to be grateful for your volunteers but if I'm talking to the church members I'm saying don't let the gratitude you receive one way or the other determine whether or not you're going to honor the Lord and so in a marriage we want to strive to never take each other for granted while not demanding thanks be given to us for everything that we do second be kind

Ephesians 4.32 says be kind to one another tender hearted forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you it's amazing how much marriage counseling would be done away with if spouses were just kind to each other now there are times where things happen and life gets very difficult and very complicated and I'm grateful for people who are able to open the Bible and spend time teaching and counseling and discipling there's a role for that for sure but so much time spent doing that would be taken away if married people were just kind to each other don't yell at each other don't call names don't curse don't don't demean

I mean truly if whether you've been married one month or 60 years if you would just say we're going to be kind and we can disagree and we can be upset with each other and we may be upset at the right time for the right reason but I will not yell at you I will not name call I will not curse and I will not demean if you would just simply practice that for so many families it would revolutionize their home number three be forgiving be forgiving back to Ephesians 4 32 be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you quick to be kind and quick to forgive in Genesis 3 we looked on Friday night briefly at chapter 2 verse 21 through chapter 3 verse 7 if you pick up in

Genesis 3 verse 8 this is after Adam and Eve have sinned notice what they do when the Lord pursues them after they've sinned verse 8 Genesis 3 they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden but the Lord God called a man and said to him where are you and he said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself he said who told you that you were naked have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat and the man said the woman whom you gave to be with me she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate it what Adam and Eve are doing specifically Adam here his response to his sin is to hide to blame and to try to justify first he tries to hide his sin by hiding from the

Lord he tries to blame by saying Eve did this and he tries to justify it this is the woman you gave to me and I'm just telling you as husbands and wives if every time you're in the wrong you try to hide it and then you try to blame!

somebody else and you try to justify your sin that is exhausting in a marriage don't hide it don't blame somebody else and don't try to justify it be quick to confess and be quick to forgive quick to confess and quick to forgive there's a fourth behavior that the Bible tells us of how to live in our marriage we could sum it up this way be protective be protective be fiercely protective of your spouse I said this Friday night and I should say it again this morning because I want to always make sure I'm very clear on this should have said this at the very beginning I do not stand in front of you today pretending to be a perfect husband

I do not stand in front of you pretending to have a perfect marriage I'm an imperfect husband married to an imperfect wife living in imperfect marriage having raised imperfect children and I would never claim anything other than that I will tell you though that the things that I'm bringing to you today are things that we take very seriously and work hard to put into practice I would never tell you that our marriage is perfect because that would not be fair or true I will tell you though that the result of 29 years of striving to live these things out though imperfectly has brought us a tremendous amount of joy and part of it is because you're protective of your spouse we've been married almost 29 years and

I assure you in those 29 years I have disappointed my wife I assure you there have been times where she's been frustrated with me and I assure you there have been times when she's frustrated with me that I've been made aware of that much of the time she may keep to herself but occasionally I'm aware from her that I'm imperfect and vice versa I'll tell you what has never happened to me 29 years I've been married never once have I turned the corner in the church hallway and heard her demeaning me to somebody never once have I walked in a room and heard her on the phone complaining about me to somebody else never once have I seen something she has written that was disrespectful about me to somebody else

I have heard my wife talk to me and tell me that she was upset with me or disappointed with me I have never never heard my wife disrespect or demean me to somebody else never we are fiercely protective of each other now let me be clear not protective so that you think we're perfect we're not I am a flawed imperfect man I'm an imperfect husband I married a beautiful precious but imperfect lady the result of two imperfect people being married for 30 years has been an imperfect marriage I do not say I'm protective in the sense of we're trying to pretend or convince you of something that's not true you should not be shocked when you find out our marriage is imperfect how would two sinners have anything other than that but

I'm fiercely protective of my wife fiercely loyal to my wife and while I may at times disappoint her because I'm an imperfect person and there may be times I'm frustrated with her as an imperfect person we are fiercely loyal and fiercely protective of each other my heart breaks when I hear a spouse demean or disrespect their spouse to somebody else that should not happen if you want to know if I'm perfect I'll tell you I'm not and if you want proof or evidence of that I'll share it with you but you're not going to get my wife to air out every fault of my life she's too protective if you want to know if

Marcy's perfect she'll tell you she's not and if you want her to prove it to you she'll probably let you in a little bit of it but you're not going to hear it from me you're not it's not that I'm trying to tell me talking bad about my wife get me immediately to medical care because something has gone wrong in my brain I mean that sincerely there are just some things that you ought to know you're never going to hear from me not if everything is right and that's one of them I'm not trying to protect some image we raised our two sons on the front row of the church for 18 years our life is lived out in front of you there's nothing perfect in my family there's no pretense of perfection there's no air of we've got it all together in that sense but

I will tell you this if you ever hear me talk bad about my sons something's gone haywire because that's not coming out of my mouth I'll tell you how imperfect they are in the sense that I'll tell you they're not perfect children because they had imperfect parents you're never never going to hear me demean my children and you'll never hear me demean my wife imperfect!

perfect every day but fiercely protective fifth be respectful Ephesians 5 33 says however let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband 1 Peter 3 1 and 2 says likewise wives be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct be respectful now none of these behaviors are overly profound they're pretty basic be grateful be kind be forgiving be protective be respectful the problem is not that married couples don't know what to do the problem is that they get bored in the routine they get bored in the mundane or they give themselves exceptions to living this way and say when

I'm upset or when my feelings are hurt I don't need to live this way anymore! But understand the time where you must be most on guard is when your feelings are hurt or when you are upset why would you yell at your wife if you're happy with her?

Of course it's when you're upset you've got to make sure you're putting these things into practice be respectful you show me a husband whose wife respects him I'll show you a man who will run through a brick wall for his family you show me a husband that's beat down by his wife I'll show you a husband lucky if he gets out of bed in the morning be respectful husbands respect your wives respect their heart respect their time handle them as the weaker vessel not less important more precious I don't have time to go into the story of this from early on when

Mars and I were dating but I learned a valuable lesson we were dating if something goes wrong in my life if I have a problem I just tell you I don't if I'm facing something that's really hard I don't need encouragement I don't need a hug I need to get to work I need to solve it I don't need you to feel sorry for me I need to get to work that's the way that I respond if there's a challenge I need to get to work early on when Mars and we were dating she had her feelings hurt not by me but by just some things in life and what my wife today girlfriend at the time needed was for me to be with her to care for her to sympathize with her not to fix the problem for her I went to work trying to fix the problem for her well she didn't need me to fix it she's plenty smart she's plenty strong she's plenty resourceful she needed to know that

I cared! for her I tried to show care for her by fixing it for her that's not what she needed she needed to know that I was with her feeling this with her that's the way I can show respect to my wife if something happens to me and there's a big problem we went home five years ago for that massive ice storm in October we had come back from a conference out of state dressed up driving back home and we had this ice storm of the ages October of 2020 and we got home and our place was demolished and it was heartbreaking and I didn't need a hug I needed a chainsaw I didn't need to be held I needed daylight to start dragging limbs to the side of the street but what you've got to do is say what does my spouse need today what does my spouse uniquely need from me in this moment and it may be that what my wife needs in the moment is different than what

I would need and I've got to have the wisdom to give to my wife what she needs not what I would prefer I won't pretend to be great at that I'm still learning that if you have the right beliefs and the right behavior this leads us thirdly to a certain set of blessings that we enjoy blessings you can enjoy number one the blessing of security Genesis 2 24 therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh there is security there we got married May 18 1996 and from that day forward our relationship was first where we lived was home and there was a certain security there she left her family

I left my family we make a new family we still love our family but she and I now become the priority our two sons grew up they got married they left our family their wives left their family they got married they still love us we love them but their marriage is the most important thing and should be to them the most important thing in my sons who are married their life should not be what does my mom and dad want it's what does my wife need and if I am exerting pressure on my sons to think to the lens of what do I want I've missed it as the father because the purpose of raising my sons was to release them to serve and lead their own home and when you live like that there is security when husband and wife can know that till death do us part this relationship humanly speaking is first place and will always be first place number two the blessing of friendship you know

Ecclesiastes 4 two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil if they fall one will lift up his fellow but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up again if two lie together they keep warm but how can one keep warm alone last week we're going to Chick-fil-A each week because I'm a big spender actually she pays for it every week is even better she has some app or something she pays for I haven't paid for Chick-fil-A the whole time we go every week I've never paid for it once but we go to Chick-fil-A it's icy she grabs my arm and I said if you fall don't pull me down I got a bad back we got to be careful here but we're starting to go up the curb and we're like okay who's we've reached the stage we've got to figure out who's going first I got to help her she's got to help me and if one of us falls we're in trouble but it's kind of good at my age to have someone beside you because I could fall at any moment and so if I fall I need someone to break the fall or to call the police whatever

I need but there's a sense of friendship! friends are a blessing but can I say with grace your spouse is your best friend and can I say with grace when you're married you're not a teenager anymore stop looking for your buddies or your friends to provide for you what is intended to be provided for you by your spouse friends are still important friends are still a blessing my wife wants to eat

Chinese food I'm glad she's got friends because I ain't going I'm glad she's got friends to go to a movie because if it's not Christmas or Thanksgiving I'm not that interested friends are good Marcy's not real interested in spotting me at the gym I'm glad I got a friend that can do that but I don't need my buddies like I'm 18 I have a wife and I'm grateful that my wife has friends because everybody needs them but she doesn't need to go looking for ways to fill her calendar with the girls because she has a husband now I want to be clear here friendships are a blessing and nothing about being married means you cut off your friends and nothing about being married means you don't spend time with your friends I don't want to be heard that that's not what I'm saying what I am saying is that when you take a spouse!

you've got I'd rather be with you than anybody else and the third blessing that comes when we live by the book is trust trust Marcy can see the location of my phone I have no interest in seeing hers I've got it she reminds me I have no idea how to use it I mean are you in the living room or the kitchen I don't care what's it to me you're with a grand kid or you're preparing to be with a grand kid or you're thinking about a grand kid I don't I mean my wife wants to see where I am she can if she wants to look at my phone she can if she wants to get on social media friendship brings trust and trust builds friendship and

I've read the Bible and preached the Bible for a lot of years and I can tell you this that the simple things that you neglect are the simple things that would bring the greatest joy Ephesians 5 says therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh verse 32 this mystery is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church so in the greatest sense everything we've talked about this weekend including this morning it's not just about a marriage it's about the gospel the way I treat Marcy speaks about what I think about Jesus the way my wife responds to me speaks about what she thinks about the scripture till death do us part is about a picture of the gospel in fact the scripture in

Ephesians 5 says all this conversation all that paragraph! about husbands and wives and leading and serving and all nourishing and cherishing all these words in Ephesians 5 verse! 32 this refers to Christ and the church you cannot separate your marriage as a Christian from the gospel this is why we want to fight with all of our might for marriages to make it now there are things that happen that are cross the line different sermon for a different day I understand that I'm just saying the best way for me today to understand the value of marriage is to understand that I'm communicating something about the gospel with the way I treat my wife so the Lord in his goodness gave us two sons love them with all my heart they left our house they have their own house the

Lord in his kindness brought Mars and I here almost 25 years ago to this church the Lord should so allow you should be so gracious and my health would allow I'd like to do it 25 more get to 75 let some young guy come and take it then and if the Lord allows that that 75 even if I've served here 50 years at that point no matter how old our kids are how many grandkids we have at the end of all that if death has not part of this it's still Marcy and me whether I pastor a church or not whether there's kids at home or not job or not known by anybody outside the church or not it's

Marcy and me till death do us part and one day it will and when it does the Lord will be faithful one of us will be left behind and the Lord will still be good and still trustworthy and worthy of living for him but until that day I want to make it my aim to be a faithful loving imperfect husband that strives to lead our home to make much of Christ and I'll never do it perfectly faithfully but I'll strive to do it faithfully and

I'm just asking every one of you who are married to join me in that same pursuit and those of you who aren't to love and pray for those who are married and in God's providence if he has for you to be married one day to live according to these beliefs these behaviors that you would enjoy these blessings things we are thankful Lord for your word and pray that this would serve as an encouragement and give hope and life to all who are here in Christ's name amen tonight five o'clock evening service we're starting a series called favorite chapters different staff members we preached their favorite chapter tonight Joey Joseph Edward Snodgrass on Hebrews 1 come back five o'clock God bless you you dismissed thank you so much for joining us via live stream this morning if you have any questions whatsoever about our church or the ministries that our church provides please visit us at fbcmustang.org we would love to follow up with you and get to know you better as always we try to emphasize if at all possible if you could be here physically present with us we would love that and that be a joy to serve you in that way but thank you again for joining us via live stream today have a great day!