I Will Prioritize God in My Marriage

Good morning. It’s good to be here with you today. I’m so looking forward to today.

I’m Eric Shanberne, and I want to welcome you here, welcome those who are watching online, those from in Algonac at First Lutheran. I’m the discipleship pastor here. I think it’s been two months now, two months exactly, so I’m glad I get to be up on stage and sharing God’s Word with you today.

Some have asked me, so what does he do around here? This discipleship, what does that even mean? A disciple is just a word to describe, you know, a devoted follower of Jesus, someone who is a student of Jesus’ words, who wants to practice and imitate Jesus in their life. And we want to be a church of disciples, okay? That’s what we want to be here, a church of disciples, those who are committed to Jesus Christ. So we’ll be rolling out things and some thoughts and ideas and how that looks in the next coming months.

So glad to be here. If you haven’t met my family yet, I wanted to make sure you get a chance to get to know them. So if you see them around, my wife Jenny is here.

She’s here somewhere, I’m not sure where she’s at, over here. She’s a paralegal, so any paralegals here, you can talk paralegal stuff with her. My daughter Gloria is at Lutheran Northwest, ninth grade at Lutheran Northwest.

John is in fifth grade at St. John in Rochester. And our precious Basset Hound, Duchess. Very beautiful, yeah.

But there’s two more in our family that are not in the picture because it’s hard to hold bunnies, they jump around a lot. So we have two bunnies, Ethan and Rose, and my daughter would make sure I mentioned them today because they’re part of our family too. They live in the basement, free roaming.

But anyway, that’s us. It’s a lot of fun and we’re excited to be here. Thank you for welcoming us and we’re looking forward to getting to know you as the months progress here.

I get to introduce our new series today. So we just finished the Questioning God series and now we enter into a series about marriage. So I hope you’re really excited about that.

Talking marriage for the next four weeks. Go through some of the topics here. Today will be, I will prioritize God in my marriage.

Next week I will prioritize my spouse in my marriage. I will protect my marriage at all costs. That’s going to be a PG-13, so utilize our kids church that Sunday.

23rd, I will properly prioritize my children in my marriage. Very exciting. Let me tell you, the stakes are high in society.

I mean, marriage is the foundation of our society and there is a clear attack on marriage. There is a clear effort to break down the nuclear family to destroy what God has created. So the stakes are high.

Marriage is important. It affects all of us. It affects all of our society.

It’s the foundational institution of our society. That’s why this series is important. That’s why you need to be here.

Whether you’re married or not, it’s going to be important for you to be here because it’s all about talking about God first, especially today. I will prioritize God in my marriage. How do I keep God first? And you know, you probably brought, each had a card.

How many got a card coming this morning? A little something extra special for you today. For this series, you get a card coming in. On the back, it gives you a challenge.

If you complete this challenge, put your name and date, bring it back next week. We’re going to have a drawing for a special date night gift cards. Okay.

So you might be able to win a date night gift card next week. So very exciting. Ooh.

So fill that out, bring that back. Every week we’ll have a card. So you get a chance to do that.

We’ll talk more about the cards a little bit later too. So very exciting. Something extra to add to this.

Let’s begin. Marriage is created by God. It’s God’s idea.

He thought of it. It’s beautiful. It’s a good, it’s good.

It’s very good. He created it. He designed it.

The government didn’t come up with the idea of marriage. God did. Therefore God’s the one who defines it.

Not the, not the state. God defines it. God created it.

Really some verses here. Look at this verse in Genesis chapter one. God created humankind in his own image.

In the image of God he created them. How many genders? Two. Male and female.

And that’s a biological reality. I know it’s hard, it’s hard to believe that I have to even say that today, but it’s just so obvious. But male and female.

That’s, God created us male and female. He defines it. Two genders.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. This is God’s idea. The idea of marriage coming together.

We’re, I mean, we fit. It works good. It’s great.

It’s a beautiful thing. One man and one woman. The two become one flesh.

They may be saying, okay Pastor Eric, yeah this is, this is like the first book of the Bible in the Old Testament. Clearly Jesus is a little bit different. He’s a nice guy.

He loves everybody. He accepts everybody. So, I’m glad he brought up Jesus.

Because we’re gonna look at what Jesus says here in Matthew chapter 19. This is Jesus quoting. He says, haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female? And said, for this reason a man, one man will leave his wife and his father and mother and be united to his wife.

One man, one woman. The two will become one flesh. One man, one woman.

So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, listen to this. Jesus says, what God has joined together, what God has created, what God has designed, what, what God has put together, this is Jesus speaking, let no one separate.

Let no one divide it. Let no one mess with it. Because God put this together.

That’s from Jesus. It’s God’s idea. It’s a beautiful thing.

And when it, when we’re following his will, it’s beautiful. This is his plan. It’s his gift.

I want to show a picture to you. And I want to ask you a question. This is a picture of my family growing up.

What’s missing in this picture? It’s not hair. Clearly it’s not hair. That’s missing now.

But that’s neither here nor hair. What, you got that, thank you. What’s missing in this picture? My dad.

That’s what’s missing. And it was a void. It was a void.

Because life is broken. This world is broken. We’re broken.

I was broken. My family was broken. And maybe you’ve experienced this in your life.

You live in a fallen world. My dad left when I was three. My mom didn’t remarry till I was 28.

And I didn’t marry, get married till I was 31. So pretty much my whole upbringing I was not around a marriage. Didn’t live around one, you know.

But let me just pause here to say my mom’s my hero. She’s watching online today. All single moms and single dads are the heroes of this society.

So just, I want you to hear that. You are a hero. And my mom sacrificed a lot and dedicated herself to raising me and my two sisters.

And I’m very grateful for that. And she’s joining here too. So you might see her around here.

She’s not here today. But what filled the void in my life? I found a Heavenly Father. Scripture helped me with this.

I actually, as a teenager, I actually joined a church on my own. It was just me and my family. I was the first one.

Yeah, that’s right, teens. And I was taught by my youth director, hey, you need to look for a Proverbs 31 woman. Okay, all young men here, you should be reading this chapter in the Bible, Proverbs 31.

And women, young women, read this chapter. It’s a great chapter. Who can find a wife of noble character? For her value is far more than rubies.

Many daughters have done valiantly, but you have surpassed them all. The wife of noble character. Charm is deceitful, beauty is fleeting.

A woman who fears the Lord, she makes herself praiseworthy. Read through this whole chapter. It’s a great chapter.

And it really helped me, gave me a vision, a vision for who I was looking for. And I got to see a Christian marriage lived out as I watched my youth director and the families at the church. It was great for me.

It helped me put God first in my life. Because this is the principle that you need to hear. And that is, delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

It’s not the other way around though. Sometimes we think God will give us what we want and then we’ll put Him first, right? God give me this thing and I’ll go to church after that. I’ll put you first in my life.

No, that’s backwards. Put God first. Because then your desires and His desires are on the same page.

Your will and His will are the same thing when you put Him first. See, the way to prioritize God in your marriage is to prioritize God before you’re married. Prioritize God before you’re married.

The way to prioritize God in your marriage, you know, when you have kids, you say, well, I’ll start going back to church once we have kids. No, the way you prioritize God in your marriage and family with kids is you prioritize God before you have kids. Same with becoming empty nesters.

Well, you know, once I get through this, you know, kids thing, we’ll get back involved in church. No, prioritize God before. It’s always before.

Don’t wait. Well, I followed the Scripture and looked. God did provide for me.

I got a twofer. I got a woman who praises the Lord and a beautiful woman, so it’s worked out good for me. Hope it works out good for you.

One of the chapters in the Bible that really described marriage and family more than any others is Ephesians chapter 5. Have you ever read Ephesians chapter 5? This is actually our passage for these series of messages on marriage. So if you get a chance, you can read through it on your own. It goes through all family relationships, but we’ll be focusing in on marriage.

But we don’t live in a society that values this anymore. You realize this, right? We live in a society that does not value the biblical definition of marriage, the biblical understanding of marriage, how the relationship works between husband and wife. We do not.

But before we get into that part that everyone’s thinking about, the whole submit part, we’ll get to that later. Let’s read this first. This is important.

Therefore, consider carefully how you live, because the days are evil. Certainly. Do not be foolish, but be wise by understanding what the Lord’s will is.

And we talked about that. What’s the Lord’s will? To put Him first. And we do that by submitting one to another out of reverence to Christ.

It’s important to hear this because there is a mutual submission. I mean, let’s be honest. There’s a lot of compromising in marriage.

I mean, you got to talk and you got to like work together. It’s not like just one person is telling everybody. You’re working together.

You’re compromising. You’re two equal human beings and you’re to come together in marriage and it takes a lot of communication, a lot of working together. There is a mutual submission to each other and it’s out of reverence to Christ.

It’s because you’re putting God first. But there is this part, wives submit to your husbands. Don’t forget the part.

What does it say? As to the Lord. We forget that part. But it’s as to the Lord.

Because the husband is the head of the wife. Ooh, now that doesn’t match today’s society, does it? No. As also Christ is the head of the church though.

And it’s interesting because the Bible describes Jesus as a bride’s groom. You notice that, right? He’s described as the groom and we, the church, are described as his bride. Did you know that? You read through the New Testament, it uses this analogy a lot.

In fact, he uses it here. Just as the church, the bride, submits to the bridegroom Christ, so also wives who submit to their husbands and everything. So clearly this is not a verse that supports abuse, okay? Please hear that.

This does not support abuse at all in any fashion. This is about two people putting God first in their life and fulfilling the roles that God has given them. And this is the role that God puts the husband in and the wife in.

And there is a mutual submission, but there is a special submission here too. But it’s as to the Lord. So it’s out of joy because it’s as to—who doesn’t want to submit to the Lord? That’s the joy we have to do that.

So wives also submit to their husbands and everything. And I would say this, you know, wives, if you want to feel loved, support your husband as he tries to do this. It’s not easy for men to be the head either sometimes, you know.

So support him in his efforts to do that. Now let’s get on to you, husbands. You think you got it easy? I don’t think so.

I don’t think so. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. How did he love the church? Let me see.

Well, there’s a cross over there. I think he died on that thing. Yeah, Jesus died for his bride, literally.

That’s how Christ loved the church. He gave himself for her. And it goes on to describe how the bridegroom, Jesus, did that for his bride, the church.

It talks about Jesus sanctifies her, us, by cleansing her with the washing of water, baptism, by the Word, the Word of God, so that he may present the church to himself as a glorious. I was thinking about this, presenting the church, the bride, as glorious. I actually performed a wedding Friday night.

Think about that for a second. Yeah, on Halloween. Yeah, I performed a wedding at Meadowbrook on Halloween.

It was incredible. Weird, yes, but incredible. But you know, every wedding is the same.

It’s all about the one moment where the bride walks down the aisle. You know, it’s always, that’s the pinnacle of the whole thing, right? She comes out those doors and walks down that aisle, right? And there’s gonna be a heavenly wedding someday. Did you know that? Right here.

So that he may present the church, the bride, to himself. There’ll be a time when the church is presented to the bridegroom, Jesus Christ, a heavenly wedding. It talks about that in lots of other Bibles, books in the Bible.

In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. Guys, how much, how many of you love your body? You love feeding your body. Come on.

Brisket. Who doesn’t want brisket right now? And you know, men are men of, are people of passion, people of focus on this stomach, right? You gotta love your wife at least as much as you love that, your body. That’s what Paul’s hitting at here.

He says here, look at this, he who loves his wife loves himself, for no one has ever hated his own body. No man does. But he feeds it, takes care of it, just as Christ also does the church because we are members of his body.

For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife and the two will become one flesh. Men, do you want respect? Lead in godliness in your home and desire, and sacrifice your desires for your spouse. Sacrifice your desires for your spouse.

You want respect? Lead in godliness and sacrifice your desires for your spouse, for your wife, for the good of your wife. I want to share a couple examples to you in Scripture. And the first one might shock you a little bit here, man.

They were a great married couple, man, very faithful. They’re listed as people of faith in the Bible. They weren’t always, Abraham wasn’t always putting his wife first, wasn’t putting God first always.

I’m going to share an example to you that might be a little shocking. Before they had kids, Abraham and Sarah were traveling to Egypt because there was a famine where they lived. They lived in promised land, there was a famine, they had no food.

They went to Egypt to get food because they knew Pharaoh had food. And on the way, Abraham has this idea. He starts to think about himself, starts to put himself first instead of God first.

This is what he does. He talks to his wife, says, hey, I got this idea. You’re beautiful, obviously.

I’m a little nervous that, you know, Pharaoh might try to kill me and take you as his wife, so let’s do this. Let’s lie. Let’s tell him that you’re my sister and then they won’t hurt me.

And she went along with it. So they get there, they tell Pharaoh, yeah, this is, you know, it’s my sister. And Pharaoh’s like, wow, she’s beautiful.

I think I’ll take her as my wife. So he takes Sarah as his wife, meaning he takes her into his house to be his wife. This is a problem.

God promised the Messiah was going to come through Abraham. This is a problem. God actually has to rescue the situation because Abraham, apparently, I mean, he put himself first and he put his wife in harm’s way.

And men, when you put yourself first, you’re going to put your family in harm’s way. Abraham and Sarah. Now, God rescued the situation, bailed out Abraham, and he did become a man of faith, but huge mistake there.

Let me tell you about another couple in the Bible, one that you may have heard of or not. Have you heard of Priscilla and Aquila? It’s not a well-known couple in the Bible, but let me tell you, we should know more about them. They were a married couple described in four different books in the New Testament.

And they’re always described together, Priscilla and Aquila, together as a married couple. And what we know about them is they were tent makers, just like Saint Paul was. They actually were involved in this business that helped support Paul’s ministry.

So they were supporting Paul financially and making tents with him. They actually traveled with Paul as a married couple. They shared the gospel, they shared the gospel with people as a married couple.

Isn’t that cool? And they actually, in those days, they didn’t have church buildings. They just had, they met in the homes, in the houses. They had a church that met in their home.

They were one of the churches that met and it was in their house. It’s a married couple together, dedicating their marriage to the Lord. It’s just a beautiful picture of a married couple using their gifts and talents and everything they have to give to the Lord, Priscilla and Aquila.

Take a look at those. You can Google them and you’ll get the verses in Acts, Romans, First Corinthians, and Second Timothy. But an amazing example for us.

Amazing example. Let’s look at what Jesus says, because Jesus has some things to say about keeping God first in your family. And I want to make sure we look at his words.

And they’re going to shock you. They’re going to shock you what Jesus has to say. This is a story.

Jesus was, as a young man, he was teaching and preaching people and having crowds of people. His mom and his brothers, they didn’t, weren’t quite on the same page. And they went to try to find Jesus and went to find him and sent the message up in the crowd and tell Jesus to get over here and talk to me.

I want to talk to Jesus. I’m his mom. And the word comes up to Jesus and wants Jesus to respond to the person.

He says, look, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. Whoa, mommy ain’t too happy after that. But, but, you know, Jesus was communicating something.

What was he communicating? That God is first. God is first. And sometimes in your own family, you got to put God first.

You might be in a family where faith is discouraged, where going to church is discouraged. I know I had some extended family who used to call me, you know, Bible thumper and used to say some things that were, you know, pejoratives because I was a young man finding God and following God. And so sometimes you got to put God first, even in front of your family.

Okay, because that’s the most important thing. That’s the most important thing. Your priorities.

God first. God first. Now Jesus goes on to say something even more scandalous here.

He says in Matthew chapter 10, whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever loves father or mother, whoever loves husband or wife more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

This goes against, I mean, think about today’s society. Romantic love is probably the top experience. All the music, all the books, all the TV shows, it’s all about romantic love mostly, right? That is the pinnacle experience.

That’s the strongest love, right? The brave heart love. Remember the brave heart, you know, and the brave heart love for a woman. Nothing stronger than that.

Well, I got news for you. There is something stronger than that. God’s love is stronger.

This is revolutionary because this was, this is unheard of in today’s. This is the message the Bible is saying. No, romantic love is not the strongest love.

God’s love is stronger. It’s more powerful. His love will make your romantic love better.

When you put God first, when you put His love first in your life, it will make your romantic love better. Do you believe that? Amen? I want to share some practical examples for you. These are just some practical things to think about in your marriage, in your family.

Keep God first in your day. Start out right away by keeping God first. Something I’m doing right now that’s helping me right now is I have the Bible app on my phone and it gives me a notification first thing in the morning.

So if you’re the kind of person that goes right to your phone in the morning to look at the weather or news or whatever, I have an immediate notification, a scripture to meditate on, a prayer prompt. It works out great. So try that or maybe put your Bible like, you know, in the way between you and the bathroom and so you like trip over the Bible on the way to the bathroom.

You know, whatever it takes for you to keep God first in your day. I want to encourage you to do that. Keep God first in your home.

Sunday morning, that’s the Lord’s day. Sunday is the Lord’s day, right? Sometimes we go on vacations sometimes and I’m always like, okay, let’s go to church. I’m like, uh, we’re on vacation? I’m like, it’s still the Lord’s day on vacation.

So it’s great because we went on vacation recently and we got to watch the service, which was great. You go away, you can watch the service wherever you’re on vacation. It’s the Lord’s day.

It doesn’t stop being the Lord’s day. It’s always the Lord’s day. Keep God first in your home.

You know, pray together before you eat. That’s something we tend to do. God’s guys lead that.

You, men, you lead that in the home. Maybe even have a scripture to meditate on before you eat. Pray before you go to bed.

Say the Lord’s prayer together. Whatever it takes to keep God first in your home. Keep God first in your relationship.

On the back of this card you’re going to see today, it’s going to challenge you. It says, share a prayer request with your spouse. Write down each other’s requests and then take turns praying for one another.

Maybe you’ve never prayed with your spouse before. It’s a little scary, but you’ll be fine. Give it a shot.

Give it a shot to talk about prayer and to pray together. Try it out this week. You’ll see what a blessing it can be.

Keep God first in your relationship. You know, one thing I know in my marriage, and by the way, we’re celebrating 25 years in April. Looking forward to that.

Keep God first in relationship. Look each other in the eye, and we’ve done this before, not as much as we should, and forgive each other and receive forgiveness. It’s powerful.

It’s very powerful. Keep God first in conflict. If you’ve got to pray before you discuss something, it’s going to be a little heated.

Pray first. If you’re going to walk away and pray and ask God to help you, help me respond lovingly. Help me respond lovingly.

You’ve got to see that the person has created the image of God. This person is God’s gift to me. They’re created in the image of God, and God loves them more than I do.

His love is powerful. So how are you doing on these? Anybody failing like I am? Yeah, I’m a pretty big failure in a lot of these, especially when I try to do it in my own power, when I try to rely on my own reasoning, my own power. I focus in on myself.

You know, I take that turn that Abraham took, you know, put myself first, not God first. God’s always there to forgive us and to help us. The thing that really helps me the most is, as I’m talking about God first, is to remember this.

God kept you first. You were first on his mind. Think about that for a minute.

God keeps you first. He sent his son, his own son, to be betrayed, beaten, crucified, goes to hell for us, for you, for me. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

So God’s first. His love is first in your life. And see, this John chapter 4 says, by this love is perfected in us.

So it’s the love of God in us, the power of the love of God that perfects love in us and enables us to truly love our spouse in all the ways that God asks us to do. So we rely on his love. That’s the motivation.

That’s the power, is his love, the gospel, the message of his great love for you. He loves us first. He’s our first love.

And now, by putting God first in our life, we can truly love another person. Let’s pray together for our marriages and for this country. Lord Jesus, we live in a land that is breaking down what you’ve created.

It’s all around us. Lord, we’ve experienced ourselves, the brokenness of this world, the brokenness in our own hearts, the brokenness in our families and society all around us, Lord. We pray, Lord, give us the strength and the wisdom to rely on you and to not rely on our own power and our own wisdom, but to look to you and your love and to love our spouses, because you love them and because you’ve loved us first.

We pray all these things in your precious and holy name, Jesus. Amen.