Let's go ahead and read the entire chapter here.
First Corinthians chapter 13, the Bible reads,
though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity,
I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.
And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all
knowledge,
and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not
charity, I'm nothing. No, I bestow all my goods to feed the poor.
And though I give my body to be burned and have not charity,
it profited me. Nothing charity suffers long and is kind charity.
Envyeth not charity.
Vonteth not itself is not puffed up does not behave itself.
Unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked.
Think of no evil rejoices, not iniquity,
but rejoiceth in the truth. Bear with all things. Believeth all things.
Hope with all things endureth all things charity never fail with,
but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether it be tongues,
they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
If we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when that which is perfect has come,
then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child,
I spake as a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child,
but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now by the faith, hope charity, these three,
but the greatest of these is charity.
And we have the real famous chapter here.
First Corinthians chapter 13 about charity and a synonym that we would think of
as the word love. And obviously when we talk about couples and marriage,
we want to talk about love, right?
And the thing about charity here in this chapter is it's a true
genuine love because the word love in a modern vernacular,
the way we use it today in America is pretty loose. We could say, I love pizza.
We could say, you know, you can say you love all manner of things. And in fact,
people even love things that are bad, love things that are wicked,
they'll love lies or the love deception or their love wickedness.
But charity is really a picture of a genuine true love
a love that loves things that are holy, righteous things that are good.
And there's a particular phrase here that I wanted to kind of pick out,
but it says in verse number five, it says, it's not easily provoked.
Thinketh no evil. And when it comes to having, you know,
a really good marriage,
there's a really important part of our lives that we have to control.
And that is our thought life. It's our thought life.
And we notice here in the passage that it's not easily provoked.
Now,
typically people are going to be provoked based on their
interpretation of certain events,
how they perceive those things.
Someone may say something that is seemingly innocent,
yet it's comes across negative, right? Hey honey, I really like dinner tonight.
Do you not like it every night? You know,
it's like you're trying to give a compliment and somehow it turns into a diss,
you know, somehow it turns into something that's, you know, uh,
somehow a fight all of a sudden. Right.
And really that's kind of coming from a place of having the wrong thought,
having the wrong idea, uh, perceiving kind of even thinking evil in a sense,
where you kind of assume that the person's trying to be negative when in fact
they're trying to be positive.
And we noticed that an attribute of charity is that it does not presume that
the person is being negative.
It doesn't presume that the person's trying to provoke them,
or even if they were that they're not going to be provoked by such
statements, um, or, or certain situations.
And so it's important that we have happy thoughts and,
and here's the title of my sermon. Think happy thoughts.
You want to have a good marriage, think happy thoughts.
And when it comes to love, love is such a deep subject. You know,
I typically define love as being,
doing good unto someone when they don't deserve it.
Because really a lot of people think love is just reciprocating good for good
or, uh,
being pleased with someone when they deserve it or they're being pleasing.
But oftentimes love is choosing to do good unto your spouse when they don't
deserve it. When they're not being very pleasing whenever there's something
going awry. And that's typically what I talk about. But you know,
love is more than just doing good to someone when they don't deserve it.
Love is an actual emotion. It's actually something that you feel it's like,
it's real because I could technically do something good to someone and not have
any good feelings towards them. Okay.
I can just be pleasant. I can just be nice.
I can just kind of basically do my job as it were.
This reminds me of Wells Fargo. Okay. Now I worked for Wells Fargo.
It makes me think of it cause I'm in a bank right now. All right. So,
but when I worked at Wells Fargo before I worked there, okay,
I was a customer for a long time. And every time I'd walk in,
everybody was just overly nice. It felt like there's, everybody's just like,
Hey, you know, Mr. Shelley and how's it going? I'm like 17. It's like,
it's Jonathan. Okay. You know, it's not missing,
but they're just over the top just like, how's it going, sir?
And can I get you some water? And they're just so, you know,
I just felt like they loved me. You know,
I just felt like they really liked me.
And then I started working for Wells Fargo and they say, they,
they basically rate all their employees with surveys and they say,
you're going to get surveyed by clients. Okay. On a regular basis.
And if you ever get a survey and they don't give a perfect 100% score,
you're going to be fired. And I was like,
now I know why everybody is so nice all the time.
They didn't really like me. They just didn't want to get fired.
So they basically just had to, you know,
it's kind of like Chick-fil-A how they have to say it's my pleasure,
but sometimes they're like, it's my pleasure. You know, you're like, come on.
You know? So again, when it comes to really loving your spouse,
it's not just always checking all the boxes. You know, it's not just like, well,
I brought on the bacon or, you know, she cooked the bacon, you know,
did you cook it with love? You know, that's the real question.
Did she cook it the way you like it? You know,
was there a feeling and emotion that was going into that preparation.
And when it comes to having a successful marriage,
I find that we ourselves are our own worst enemy.
Your marriage could be great or horrible just based on you in the sense that all
of the same events can happen, all the same interactions,
all the same discussions, but you just interpret them in a good way.
If you just decide, Hey, I like everything that's happening.
I like all the statements. I like all the things that are going on.
You can have a great marriage.
Most of the time people think they have a bad marriage just because they want to
have a bad marriage in their mind because they're not thinking happy thoughts.
They're thinking evil thoughts, having unrealistic expectations,
or basically misinterpreting a lot of situations and events.
Whereas you need to try and just approach everything in life is just having a
positive attitude. That's where the charity is coming into play. You know,
you're not thinking evil. You're not easily being provoked. You know,
it'd have to be a serious transgression for you to actually be angry or upset
with your spouse. And let's be honest in marriage, you fight about everything.
I mean, you can fight about the most trivial, pedantic things.
And really when you kind of walk away from it, you start thinking like,
this doesn't matter at all, but I can't just back down. You know,
I can't just let them win.
But here, but here's the thing. Charity would say, just let them win.
Because you know what? When your spouse wins, you win, you know,
and you want to just have the right mentality,
the right approach when it comes to a relationship.
You need to be able to think happy thoughts in order to enjoy your
relationship. Go if you went to Proverbs chapter five,
go to Proverbs chapter number five.
Now my daughter has a really good example of this for me
because, and it's my youngest Ellie.
She's about six months or so and praise the Lord.
God gave us one of the easiest babies ever at number five.
Cause when you start racking up babies, you start thinking like,
I need an easy one. You know,
number four was not that one. Okay. Number five though,
has been amazing. Ellie has just been like the greatest little baby.
So happy. Just one of the happiest little babies ever.
And she's so happy that it's like, you can't upset her.
And I remember it was recently, uh, we were going to bed and,
and she sleeps in the bed with us and she's in the middle, but she's,
she's kind of rambunctious a little bit. She gets a little excited.
So I'm tired. Okay. And when I get tired, I get pretty cranky and she,
I kind of lay her down and she just kind of starts, you know,
like hitting at me or whatever, kicking me or whatever.
So I just kind of like shove her, you know, and it was a mean shove.
I'll just be honest. Okay. I'm confessing my faults. All right.
But I like mean shove Ellie and she kind of rolls over and she just starts
giggling and laughing and she thought it was like the greatest thing ever.
And I'm like,
I was mad at you and I pushed you away from me and you thought it was great.
But you know, I learned something from my daughter that, you know,
you can just decide to enjoy everything.
You can just decide to have happy thoughts even in that situation. You know,
whereas if you shove your wife away from you in anger,
probably not going to laugh about it. But if she could, you know,
that's where this thinking the happy thoughts, okay.
Thinking the happy thoughts. Look at Proverbs chapter number five,
look at verse 18.
Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of the youth.
Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant row.
Let her breast satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her
love. So the Bible says we're supposed to rejoice with our spouse. You know,
that makes me think of emotion. That's not just a checkbox.
That's like an internal joy and happiness that I have with my spouse.
You know, God wants us to find joy in our, in our relationships.
And let's be honest,
marriage is hard and marriage is not always going to be the greatest thing ever.
You know, there's going to be struggles. There's going to be times.
You're married to another sinner. Okay. We all, we all get that.
But the better you control your thought life and the better you thinking happy
thoughts, the more you're going to be rejoicing with your spouse.
Because there's a lot to rejoice in with your spouse.
I guarantee every single person in this room has things they really like about
their spouse. Y'all got married. I mean,
I don't think very many of you got forced. I don't know. Okay.
You don't have to tell me, but at some point in your life,
you decided I want to be with this person, you know, seemingly forever.
I'm pretty sure you probably made that vow till death do us part. And so,
you know, there's something about them you like,
and we're supposed to rejoice in that. Also, it even says in verse 19,
be thou ravished always with your love.
Now ravished is a word that, you know,
I kind of put in different context, but if you look it up in a dictionary,
the context that's kind of being put here, it says overwhelm with emotion,
overwhelm with emotion.
And I like that because marriage should be where you're overwhelmed with
emotion towards that person. You know,
you have really strong feelings for that person. You're jealous for that person.
You know, you desire to be around that person. And sometimes in marriage,
it doesn't happen automatically. Typically when you're dating,
it's like you don't even have to try. You just,
you just feel that way about that person. Maybe at the honeymoon,
it's like that. Okay. But at some point the honeymoon ends and you say, when,
I don't know, it's different for everybody, but I know that it ends. Okay.
And what happens when it ends?
It takes effort to have that ravished feeling. Okay.
But one of the key ingredients is going to be this,
what you think about your spouse and how you think about your spouse and the
thoughts that you're having about your spouse.
And it's real easy to go in one of two directions based on what
you're thinking about. And at times we have to control our thoughts.
Go if you would, the song of Solomon. Now chapter one,
I want to read a verse from second Corinthians.
It says casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself
against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity,
every thought to the obedience of Christ.
So the Bible literally commands us to control our thoughts. And you know,
that would be in a very broad sense. You know, this is just saying every thought,
it's not saying just like only related to church or only related to doctrine or
the Bible.
I believe it's every thought of our entire lives in every situation.
And since marriage is the most important relationship you'll ever have,
humanly speaking with another person, you know,
that's another important relationship to control your thoughts. You know,
when you start having bad thoughts or,
or sinful thoughts or any of those types of things,
we need to try and flip the script and say, you know what,
I'm going to think good thoughts and I've gone down this road.
So, and I know that the Bible says there's no temptation taking you,
but such as common to man. So I would have believed all of you did,
but when you're in a fight,
sometimes I do this like mental checklist of like everything that's wrong with my
spouse. Like I'm just, I'm just confessing my faults. You know,
you just kind of start thinking, you just kind of like go down,
you can start to go down this negative thing. Just like, well,
this happened on this week and this day, it said this,
and then I start thinking like, I'm married to this person.
Like why do I want to sit here and cherry pick,
like all the things that I don't like, what if I did the opposite?
What if I,
what if I started deciding like all the things that I do like about them and all
the reasons why I should be excited that I'm married to this person.
And then I started realizing that the stupid fight that I'm in is not even worth
it. Like, why am I even disgruntled or upset?
And really the only reason I'm in the fight is because I'm continuing to
harbor bad thoughts.
Whereas if I start thinking happy thoughts,
we can end it and we can resolve it and we can basically come back together and
enjoy our relationship. You know, if I'm mad at my spouse,
sometimes I just have to ask myself this question,
am I just mad at my spouse because of what I'm thinking?
Is there anything to even be legitimately mad at your spouse for?
And most of the time, the answer is no.
Most of it's just internal problems that we have to work on.
And if we would just decide that we're going to choose to think happy thoughts,
then we can resolve a lot more conflict and enjoy the relationship that we have.
Look, I believe you should never get divorced.
And if you take divorce off the table, if you say, you know what,
I'm not going to divorce my spouse, period. Like there's just not going to happen.
Why would I then want to live the rest of my life just dwelling on the
negative? Why wouldn't I just want to have the best that I can possibly have,
no matter what it is, no matter what our relationship or situation, you know,
just trying to make it in the best that possibly can.
I'm not saying don't deal with problems.
I'm not saying that there isn't a time for a conflict resolution.
But what I am saying is that it shouldn't be easy.
It shouldn't be easily provoked. It shouldn't happen. You know,
you want to reduce the number of times that you have to go through that
particular process.
You want to try and learn how to let things go and just start thinking happy
thoughts in your relationship. And really, again,
when we talk about emotion here, when I say happy, I'm saying it's sincere.
I'm not saying like you're forcing yourself.
We have an entire book of the Bible dedicated to a song
sung from a husband and wife to each other. You know, and when you're singing,
it's really hard to sing without emotion.
Like singing is coming from the heart. It's coming from an emotional place.
And the words that they're singing towards each other, you know,
I don't read this and think that they're just kind of like the song,
a song, which is all they probably have some like real, you know,
gusto about it, right? They have some real emotion.
And every love song that we've ever heard, it's like a ballad. I mean,
these people are just screaming at the top of their lungs.
They're pouring out their heart. Most of their songs are like saying it,
literally. They're like,
oh my heart's gushing for you and pouring out for you and you're my forever.
And just, I could never live a second without you.
And then we learned they divorced their spouse five minutes later, but you know,
they did feel that way at least for five minutes. And I'm just saying, Hey,
why can't we feel that about our spouses? You know, have that type of emotion,
have that kind of experience where we would literally sing a song to our spouse.
We would literally get up and be willing to just lay it on the line,
make it public, make it known. I mean,
that's a pretty big display of affection to just belt a ballad,
a song for your spouse. So I'm going to have all the men come up here and sing it.
No, I'm just kidding.
But let's pay attention to some of the things that are being brought up here.
Okay. And I'm not going to read the whole, the whole book,
but let's just read a few verses throughout this. Look at verse number eight.
It says in verse eight, if thou know not, Oh, thou fairest among women,
go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock and feed thy kids beside the
shepherd's tents. So when the man, the, the, you know,
Solomon presumably here is basically speaking unto his wife.
How does he describe her? He says, Oh, thou fairest among women.
Now, you know what your wife likes to hear that she's pretty
and you know what she likes to hear that she's the prettiest,
you know, and the word fair. It's not saying like she's, you know,
equitable here, you know, it's saying that she's pretty. Okay.
That's what the word fair means here. She's the fairest of the land. You know,
the only have eyes for her, right? I mean,
this is the type of language that I'm thinking is happy thoughts. Also,
think about this. It should be sincere.
If you truly believe that your wife is the most beautiful woman on the planet,
how is that not going to make you happy? I mean, it is going to make you happy,
but you know,
if you're just looking at all the Hollywood horrors and just sluts and just
tramps and whatever's out there and you're having wicked thoughts,
then you may not be content with what's at home, but let's be honest.
The food at the fast food restaurant is not as good as the stuff at home.
And you know what? The Hollywood fast food stuff is junk.
It's not good. It's not satisfying.
It looks worse and worse every time you, you know, it gets worse every year.
I don't know what's going on anymore. And, and you know,
it used to be that there used to be some good looking guys.
Now they all just look like faggoty queers.
So I don't even know what women are looking at in any more. I mean,
it kind of went downhill with like Orlando Bloom and like some of those,
that was like the turning point. You know,
my generation was like Brad Pitt and George Clooney and like, you know,
there are some good looking guys. Then it was like, you know, Orlando Bloom.
And then this like Robert Pattinson or something like,
who is this guy like Tobey Maguire? Like I don't,
who are these people? I don't, who's the new heartthrob is there.
I don't even know. It doesn't even matter because it's all junk.
It's all fake.
And I know this about marriage and it's, it's real.
The more you spend time with your spouse, the more you think they're attractive.
The more you like them, you know, as the years go by, it's sweeter, you know,
sweeter as the years go by. It's true.
And you can learn to like people more and more.
The more you spend time with them, the more you get to know their personality.
They see them as being more attractive.
There's plenty of people that you kind of thought were attractive at first.
Then they open their mouth and you're just like, uh, you know,
you're just not that interested. Okay. And you know,
if you feel something really, you know, deep down about your spouse,
you need to let them know about it. You should communicate it to them.
You should open your mouth and tell them. And I know this about women.
You can't tell them that they're pretty enough. All right.
So I'm just giving you this advice.
Like you can't praise them enough on their beauty.
You should just say it as many times as possible. Look at chapter two,
verse four.
He brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love.
Stay me with flag and comfort me with apples for I'm sick of love.
Notice emotion again.
It's like she loves him and they love each other so much.
It makes them sick. The feeling is just so raw. It's so,
it's so real.
It's tangible almost as if they feel the love that they have on a physical
scale. Okay.
And I believe that this type of love,
this type of emotion is possible for every couple. It's,
this is not just a, um, well they had a good marriage.
I think everybody can have a good marriage, but in order to get to this point,
you have to constantly have the happy thoughts.
You had to be thinking about your spouse and if you read the language in this
and you see how they're talking to each other,
it makes sense they're going to feel that way. I mean, they're so lovey dovey.
It'd make you sick to be around them. You'd be kind of like, lay off buddy.
Like, you know, go, are y'all on a honeymoon or something? Like what's going,
it's like, no, this is just how they speak to each other.
And obviously that's going to generate the right kind of feelings,
the right kind of emotions. It's the same with everything in life.
If I just sat here and we just all ate, okay, so it,
bear with me for a moment. But if you hadn't eaten especially,
and I'm just like, man, a perfect, you know,
ribeye steak that's cooked medium. Well, it's just hot off the grill.
Medium rare. I'm sorry. I don't know why I said medium. Well, that was,
that was wrong.
Now I never want, I wouldn't even eat it.
Medium rare. Okay. It's cooked to perfection.
You know, it's got all the sides. Like if you haven't eaten, you're just starting,
your mouth starts watering.
And then I've showed you a picture of it and then you start smelling it, right?
What's happening? Like you just start wanting,
your desire factor goes up and up.
The same is going to happen with your marriage.
If you're constantly thinking about your spouse and dreaming about your spouse
and enjoying the things about your spouse,
it's going to make you desire your spouse more.
It's going to give you those feelings, that sick feelings of love.
And it's not like a bad sick. This is like the cool sick. Okay. Sick man,
a love or whatever. Chapter three, verse one. It says by night on my bed,
I sought him by whom my soul loveth. Notice my soul.
This is a real feeling. Verse four. It was but a little that I pass from them,
but I found him whom my soul loveth.
I held him and would not let him go.
That's real. Like it's saying just the embrace itself is just
so real. They just want to hold each other and not let them go.
Look at chapter four, verse nine. That was ravished my heart, my sister,
my spouse,
that was ravished my heart with one of thine eyes with one chain of thine neck.
So again, he's saying that he's ravished. He says in verse number 10,
how fair is thy love my sister, my spouse,
how much better is thy love than wine and the smell of thine ointments than all
spices. So he's saying, look,
there's nothing better in life than just being around you than just having joy
from you. And he even says,
he compliments her smell, you know,
the smell of thine ointments and all thy spices.
So he's complimenting everything about her, the way she looks,
the interactions that they have, the smell. Verse 11, it says, thy lips,
oh my spouse, drop as the honeycomb,
honey and milk are under thy tongue.
And the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
So he's complimenting her looks. He's complimenting her smell.
He's complimenting basically the way that she speaks or the way that she sings.
Just, he just loves to hear her talk. And boy,
you want to win brownie points with your wife. Say,
I love it when you talk to me. Cause I know that she likes to talk.
Okay. She's a woman. All right. She doesn't want, you know,
if you really want your spouse to not be pleased with you,
make it seem like you're not paying attention to them when they talk or not be
interested in talking to them or not having communication.
Communication is such an important aspect of a relationship. And you know,
you're going to communicate the things that you're thinking about.
So when you're thinking those happy thoughts,
you're thinking pleasant things about your spouse,
it's going to come out in your communication. Look at chapter five, verse two,
I slept, I sleep, but my heart waketh.
It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh saying, open to me, my sister,
my love, my dove, my undefiled.
My head is filled with dew in my locks with the drops of the night.
You know what I think is he has nicknames for her.
He has like cute little euphemisms for right. I mean, think about this.
He's like my sister, my, that's like Kentucky. Okay. My love,
my dove, my undefiled, but you know, people, you know,
they'll say babe or hun or you know, whatever little, you know,
things that they have for each other. But again, it's,
it's showing you have good thoughts about them when you make up nicknames or
you have little cute euphemisms for your own spouse.
It's showing that you really think positively about them.
It reminds you of who this is that you're talking to.
Look at the last verse of this chapter, verse 16, his mouth is most sweet. Yay.
He is altogether lovely. This is my beloved and this is my friend.
It's like, this isn't just my spouse. This is my friend. And you know, I always,
I always say this, both me and my wife say, you know, my best friend is my wife.
It's not even close. You know, if I want to share something that happened,
it's like, she's the best person to share it with. You know,
we have a different intimacy than any other relationship.
I don't want to be like David where it's like my best friend's Jonathan and he's
dead. You know, it's like, like, why wouldn't you want to be your wife?
You know, you want it to be your spouse.
You don't want to be closer with some random dude, some smelly dude. Okay.
He doesn't look good. He doesn't smell good. He doesn't sound good. Okay.
She looks good. Smells good. Sounds good. Right.
That's why I want to talk to her. Okay.
And if you have a different view, you can just leave whenever you want.
All right. Go to chapter eight, chapter number eight. And look,
I'm all for having friends. You know,
I'm all for having guy guy buddies and stuff like that,
but it's just a totally different relationship and you need to be friends with
your spouse, which means that you genuinely like them.
You need to have the happy thoughts about your relationship.
Look at chapter eight, verse six, set me as a seal upon my heart,
as a seal upon my arm for love is strong as death. Jealousy is cruel as the grave.
The coals thereof are coals of fire, which have the most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love. Neither can the floods drown it.
If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,
it would utterly be contempt. So it's saying that, you know,
love is a very strong thing. In fact, it's like the strongest. I mean,
it's saying very clearly that love is strong as death.
And you know, love is really the ultimate part of the Bible. I mean,
God is love. I mean, we see God's so love the world and you know,
God didn't just go through the motions of dying, you know,
of sending his son and Jesus dying on the cross for us and whatever.
While he was there, he had feelings.
Think about why he's on the cross and he's saying, father, forgive them.
For they know not what they do. That's a, that's an incredible emotion.
And in my mind, I think that that is probably the greatest picture of,
thinketh no evil. I mean, they're crucifying you.
I mean,
if there's ever a time to assume that they're doing something wrong here or like
not giving them the benefit of the doubt,
it's when you've been crucified and they screamed, you know,
his blood be on us and on our children. And he's saying, father,
forgive them for they know what they do.
Now I'm pretty sure your spouse hasn't crucified you because you're here in the
flesh today.
So that gives you the opportunity to give them grace,
to give them long suffering, be like Christ.
Don't be someone that's easily provoked with your spouse.
Don't be someone that's always thinking evil of all the intentions of your
spouse. And yeah, I'm not saying that we shouldn't resolve conflict.
We don't want to harbor bitterness in our hearts.
And I have a twofold approach, either forgive and forget it immediately.
Whether they even ask for forgiveness, if you can just let it go, just let it go.
If you can't, then just try to resolve it as quickly as possible.
But you don't let the sun go down upon your wrath is what the Bible says.
You don't want to harbor bitterness towards your spouse every single day.
You want to have new mercies every single morning, just like God gives us.
And you want to go through that day thinking positively about your spouse,
thinking happy thoughts. Now,
I don't want you to turn anywhere else,
but I just want to leave you with one last challenge. Okay.
And I don't usually do this for a sermon, but I thought it would be appropriate,
especially since we're playing a game tonight. Okay.
But here's my challenge.
You should think three positive thoughts about your spouse and
tell them before the day is over. So three,
this is my challenge to all of you married couples is to think about three
things that you really like about your spouse.
Three happy thoughts that you have about your spouse. You know,
I'll give you some examples so that you have an idea. Okay.
But don't steal mine. Cause you'll know. All right. But you can, if it's,
if it's true, it's all right. But you know, I really like my, you know,
when I think about my spouse,
some of the things that really gives me strong emotion is the fact that she's
the mother of my children and man is that hard,
but just she's like,
the reason why I married my wife is probably like up there in the top five is
just the fact that I knew she'd be a great mother and just the fact that she
cares so much about her kids and that she's such a good mom. It just like,
it really, it really makes me respect her as a person.
Okay.
Just the fact that she gave birth five times. I mean,
I couldn't even do it once.
Even if I could, I wouldn't have been to make, I wouldn't have made it. Okay.
So scary looking. All right. Maybe they can do it cause they don't see it.
I don't know, but it's terrifying. Okay.
I really appreciate my spouse, my wife, because she puts up with me and look,
you may think some things about people from afar, but like,
when you get to know them, you realize like there's some issues there. Okay.
I was really annoying in high school. Okay.
I'm surprised any lady would marry me, but she did. All right. I,
you know what I really like about my spouse is that she prays for me.
Isn't it,
isn't it cool that you have a person that's like praying for you every single
day.
Like they think about you and they're, they're praying to the Lord for you.
Like that's a really special thing. Here's one. She calls me and she calls me.
Okay. But you know,
it's kind of flattering to have someone constantly wanting to talk to you.
Isn't it? I mean, nobody else ever wants to call me. So it's like, Hey,
when my phone's ringing, it's like either, you know,
I'm getting a discount on my car insurance or something like that.
Where's my wife. You know what I mean? It's one of the two.
I appreciate my spouse cause she talks to me, you know, and,
and she, she listens to me a lot and I'm sure a lot of stuff I say is pretty
boring, but she seems engaged and interesting and she wants to hear about it.
You know, she let me talk to her about computer programming and like, you know,
all kinds of weird hobby interests and stuff that I have golf.
It's pretty boring, you know, but I, and the thing is my memory is weird.
Like I can't remember the lyrics to any song that I've ever learned in my life.
Okay.
But I can remember every single shot I've ever hit on every golf course.
Like, I don't know why.
It's like I can just always remember like what club I use and how far I hit it
and everything. But it's like, just like I can barely remember.
Jesus loves me. You know, I don't know how that works, but, but you know,
I just want to tell her like, Hey, this is what I done this whole, you know,
she doesn't care, but she'll just sit there and she'll listen.
Here's a cool thing.
My wife,
she made up a song for every person in the family and she even made one for me.
And it just, it makes me think of this song, you know,
because this whole book of the Bible is literally a song,
a love song between couples. And that's just, that's a really special thing.
So there was a few suggestions. Okay. There was a few ideas, but,
and it's not limited to three, but you should try to give, you know, think,
think some things about your spouse that you really like about them and
communicate that to them. You know, it's going to help you in your relationship.
It's going to help you in your marriage.
It'll help you get kick-started on the right footsteps of doing it on a regular
basis. And when you read Song of Solomon, it's real repetitive.
He's constantly praising her looks.
They're constantly praising each other because it's supposed to be a regular
thing.
We're supposed to be constantly praising our spouse and constantly thinking
happy things about them and having positive emotions for them.
And the reason why people get divorced is because they just stopped thinking
happy thoughts about their spouse.
They just stopped being positive about their relationship.
It's real easy to get negative real quick, but you know what?
You can also fix your relationship real easy if you just start having those
happy thoughts again. Let's close in word of prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father,
for giving us these books of the Bible for illustrating for us what true love
is, and that it's not just a robotic action,
but it's actually a deep emotional affection.
And we appreciate that you have that strong affection towards us and you've
modeled that for us so that we can also model that in our relationships.
I thank you for all the marriages that are in this room.
I pray that you would just all help us as we go through life and we go through
struggles and we go through conflict to try to have a positive attitude,
to try to have charity towards our spouse,
to think the happy thoughts towards our spouse.
And I pray that you would just bless these marriages for years to come.
And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.