So the title of the sermon is stay in your lane, stay in your lane.
So I know that's kind of like a pop culture thing where people, you know,
I'm using it for, you know, a sermon for you.
And what happens when you veer off in traffic?
Say you're driving in a snowstorm like I was today,
and you know, you hit a rut, you start to go off in your own lane.
What's going to happen?
I mean, a lot of times there's going to be someone next to you.
So it's good when you're driving to stay in your own lane.
Now, when you're on, you know, you're on a road where there's two,
you know, you're a two-way road, and if you accidentally get off into that yellow,
that double yellow, you know, you could be in trouble.
You know, you could get into a bad accident and, you know,
have serious injury or lose your life.
Well, the same thing can be true about marriages.
So, you know, we both have our own rules to fulfill in the marriage covenant.
And so if we, you know, when we start driving off into the other lane
that's their wheelhouse, the things that your spouse usually does,
like you come and just say, hey, well, I'm going to start cooking dinner now or whatever.
You know, at first she might say that's fine,
but my wife just shoots me out of the kitchen, so she knows her role.
Dang it. No, I'm just kidding.
But we actually watched a sermon about wives submitting to their husbands.
We listened to it on the way on the plane.
I'm not kidding about that.
But it wasn't because I was trying to get her to submit.
It was just, I had it on my...
But she, you know, it kind of pumped me up a little bit.
So, but anyway, you know, the same can be true for marriages
if you drive in the wrong lane.
So whatever your role is in the marriage,
if you're the husband you're supposed to provide for your home, you know,
and many other things, the honey-do list and all that stuff.
No, I'm just kidding.
But wives are supposed to, you know, stay at home and bear children, guide the house.
That's what the Bible says.
And men are supposed to, you know, like I said, go out and provide for their families
and amongst many other things.
But there's a lot of other things we have to do in our lives.
It's not just those things.
But what can be dangerous is when you start to try to do the other person's job.
And we need to understand as married couples that we need to stay within our role
so that our marriages keep going the right way.
You don't want to go into a head-on collision.
Because what happens when you get in a head-on collision in your marriage,
you're both trying to fight for dominance in some particular position,
and that's not your spot.
That's not your role.
And I just see that a lot as a pastor.
You know, and I haven't been a pastor for a long time,
but I've seen it enough where I see, you know,
good preaching that goes on about marriage in churches like this.
There's a lot of great preaching.
And sometimes I just feel like people don't listen to the preaching.
I'm just like, hey, you know, when you get married, this is what you do, this is what you do.
And then it's like the exact opposite.
You know, everything that's preached.
And look, it's not hard stuff that the Bible is saying.
I mean, is it hard to, you know, these things are easy sayings.
It's not like really hard to figure out these verses.
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands.
Is that hard? Is that a hard verse to understand?
Well, if you go back to the Greek, you know, it's not really saying that you have to submit.
I mean, come on.
It says what it says.
As it is fit in the Lord.
Husbands love your wives, not somebody else's wife.
Okay, your wife.
And just like the wife is supposed to submit to her own husband,
not somebody else's husband.
Okay, this is really clear, isn't it?
And husbands love your wives and be not bitter against them.
Why do you think God says that?
Because he knows that guys get bitter against their wives.
And he knows that guys are not as loving as they should be sometimes.
And he knows that wives have a hard time submitting to their husbands.
That's why these verses are here.
It's not rocket science.
God's just spelling it out for us.
And he's dividing these roles that we play in our lives.
And he's saying, hey, this is what you have a tendency to have a problem with.
And this is what you have a tendency to have a problem with.
These are the things you need to work on.
But yet we see these, we hear these verses being preached and we're just like,
ah, in one ear, out the other.
And that's not how it should be.
You know, we should listen to what the Bible says
and our marriages are going to get a lot better.
So I'm going to be celebrating 20 years,
if she doesn't divorce me at the end of this sermon,
20 years of marriage with my wife this year.
And so we're going to go to Hawaii and we're going to preach.
So hey, you guys are all invited to go to Hawaii on the first week.
Pastor Mendez said it's okay.
But we're going to go there and we're going to have our second year anniversary
for the church that we planted in Hawaii.
And then we're going to have like our own time in Hawaii
where we just, you know, hang out together for a week or so
and celebrate our 20 year anniversary.
That's a pretty good anniversary trip for Hawaii.
I mean, some people like diamond rings,
but, you know, my wife likes Hawaiian food.
And so do I.
So anyway, well, the phrase stay in your lane,
it is a term of admonishment
or advice against those who express thoughts or opinions on a subject
about which they are viewed as having insufficient knowledge or ability.
So now is it possible to learn how to cook?
Absolutely.
You know, my wife knew how to make sandwiches when I made her.
I mean, literally that's what she knew how to make.
But I helped her in these things.
But then I just let her go, you know.
Now she's a great cook.
So I didn't try to take her role.
I just tried to help her to get to it.
And then when she got to it, she took off and she's a great cook.
But so, you know, husbands, our job is to go out and provide.
So I don't expect my wife to know all aspects of construction.
And I don't, you know, expect her to understand what I'm even talking about
when it comes to construction.
That's my wheelhouse. That's what I do.
So and I don't come in and try to run the home for her.
So what I'm saying is just we need to stop trying to, you know,
jump over to the other lane and we need to focus on what we're supposed to be doing
as our roles in the Christian marriage.
You know, and I assume everybody here is a Christian.
So but one thing that's really been hard for me as a pastor too
is that sometimes I see people having problems with their marriage
and I just, you know, you try to tell people stuff
and, you know, it just seems like it's just really difficult for people
to get the very easy things in life.
But it is the little things that can make things go off the rails,
like the small things like leaving the toilet seat up, you know.
You'll learn that like the first week of being married usually,
but not to do that.
But what I'm saying is, you know, we just have to understand
that, you know, we have defined roles
and, you know, we can't keep infringing on other people's roles.
So anyway, I heard a sermon not too long ago
and Pastor Jimenez was saying that love and respect
are the two things that, you know, women want love, men want respect.
You know, and I thought that was really, you know, it's very simply put.
It's in the Bible. It's for us to see.
And I think that there were some statistics that he pulled up
that said that that's basically what, you know,
that the Bible agrees with what secular society even says.
And so I thought that was very interesting.
And, you know, the things in the Bible for us to see,
we just needed to get the simple things,
quit trying to make everything complicated
and just do what the Bible says with your marriage
and your marriage will take care of itself.
God will take care of your marriage, you know,
but you got to put God first, you know, that's the first thing.
But you also have to, you know, men, you're supposed to love your wives,
you know, and why does it say that? Why does it emphasize that?
Because a lot of times we turn into robots
and we're tinkering around with things
and we're not as loving as we should be.
That's why God says to do that, that we should love them
and that the wives should reverence, respect, submit to the husband.
And really those things are so simply put,
but when you start just, you know, driving your, you know,
you're trying to be the one that wants to work outside the home,
I'm tired of taking these kids
and I'm tired of having to take care of them,
why don't you stay home with them?
That's a recipe for divorce, I'll just tell you that right now.
So I do have a few points to just help you kind of, you know,
stabilize your marriage
and make sure you're not running into each other's lane.
So number one, you don't always have to be right, set your pride aside.
You don't always have to be right, set your pride aside.
A lot of fights happen
and the other person just isn't willing to concede the fight.
You know what, it's easy to do,
is to set aside the pride that you have, I'm right.
You don't always have to be right, you know,
you're going to be right with the divorce papers in your hand.
And, you know, you could be, I was still right,
you got the kids, you got the family dog, you got the family home,
but hey, I was still right, I just want to make sure I let you know that.
You know, does it really make that much of a difference how right you are?
The Bible says wives submit yourselves to your own husbands
as it is fit in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them.
You don't have to have pride involved in your marriage.
Turn to 1 Peter chapter 3, verse number 3.
If you don't have a Bible, just read it.
Whose adoring let it not be that outward adoring of plating of hair
and of wearing of gold and of putting on apparel,
but let it be of the hidden man of the heart
and that which is not corruptible,
even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit
which is in the sight of God a great price.
So, God wants you as a wife to be what?
Have the hidden man of the heart, what is that?
The inward man, the saved person, right?
To have a meek and quiet spirit, not loud and brawling.
You know, that's the opposite of meek and quiet, isn't it?
So, when you're nagging and yelling at your husband
and saying he's not making enough money and all this stuff,
is that what God's asking you to do?
No, he's asking you to have a meek and quiet spirit
which is in the sight of God a great price.
Because who ultimately are you supposed to be pleasing here?
You know, you're supposed to be pleasing God and pleasing your husband.
And God says it's a great price if you have a meek and quiet spirit.
Now, the Bible also says in Micah 6-8,
it says, he has showed thee, O man, what is good
and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly
and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.
See, you don't want to be a prideful person.
God wants us to walk humbly with him.
He wants us to walk humbly with our wives too.
Hey, if you're wrong sometimes, just admit it and move on.
You can come to a conclusion that isn't an all-out World War III fight
and still, you know, maintain your integrity.
You don't have to just roll over every time there's an argument,
but you should have enough sense of humbleness about you to be humble to just
don't be filled with pride when it comes to your arguments
and God will bless your marriage for that.
You can make concessions.
You don't always have to just have to duke it out.
You know, I'm saying that because I know that husbands
and wives fight sometimes, don't they?
Not Pastor Jimenez's parents.
They never fought in front of the...
I was watching that on a sermon just recently.
I was just talking about them before the sermon
and they never fought in front of their kids.
I didn't come from that family, okay?
Did anybody else come from a family that never had...
you never saw your parents fight?
Anybody in this room?
Okay, there's one.
All right, so we got the majority here.
We've seen the brawls, the family brawls, right?
So, you know, we just need to...
We've seen what our parents did.
We've seen what our grandparents have done or whatever
and we need to make sure that we're not like that.
We're supposed to be saved Christians.
Why are Christian marriages having so much trouble?
I don't understand it, especially in churches like ours
where we preach the truth, where the truth's being told
and it's not like saying, well, you know,
husbands should obey their wives too
because that's the kind of preaching
that you see out there sometimes.
It's just like, what are you talking about?
That's not what the Bible teaches at all.
So, number two tonight, I got to hurry here.
Husbands and wives, mind your tongue and your temper.
Husband and wives, mind your tongue and your temper.
And, you know, one of the things that you will hear,
this saying, we always hurt the ones that we love the most.
Have you ever heard that saying before?
And it's true.
You'll say things to your children.
You'll say things to your spouse
that you would never say to somebody outside of your home.
And everybody's probably guilty of doing it sometimes
and it's not good.
So, we got to understand we need to control our temper.
We need to control our tongue.
The Bible says in James 3, 9,
it says, therewith bless we God, even the Father,
and therewith curse we men,
which are made after the similitude of God,
out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing.
My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
So, in the book of James, the Bible is saying,
you know, brethren shouldn't be cursing each other
and saying wicked things to each other,
but how much more the husband and the wife?
We shouldn't be talking to each other like that.
And I realize that in a room this big,
sometimes people probably do lose their temper
and talk to their spouse a certain way that they shouldn't.
But that doesn't make it right.
It's not an excuse.
Those are things that you have to get dialed in
if you want your marriage to last
because it's hard being a Christian in 2021
compared to how it was in the 1950s or anywhere in history.
You got all these weird divorce laws.
People could just get divorced for any reason.
Feminism is running rampant.
Then you got these MGTOW people.
I don't even really understand what they are, but weird.
There's just a lot of things, a lot of variables,
and it's hard to support a family on one income.
It's hard, but it can be done.
It can be done.
So, Proverbs chapter 14, verse 17 says,
he that is soon angry dealeth foolishly.
He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly.
And hey, when you get angry
and fly off the handle over everything, guess what?
You do stupid things after that, right?
When you're upset and you're angry,
you're gonna do something foolish.
The Bible says that we're not supposed to be soon angry.
Obviously, there's times when we get upset
and we lose our temper,
but as Christian spouses, we shouldn't be like that.
We shouldn't deal foolish anger towards our spouse.
The Bible says in Proverbs 21, verse 19,
it says it is better to dwell in the wilderness
than with a contentious and angry woman.
So, it also talks about in another verse
how it's better to dwell on the corner of a rooftop
than to dwell with a brawling woman, right?
So, look, it's really difficult, you know,
living in a house with someone that's just always mad at you,
always yelling at you.
Mike's bobbing his head.
He's like, yep, amen.
He knows.
I'm just kidding.
But, you know, it shouldn't be like that.
Hey, husbands, you need to, you know, reel in your anger.
You don't have to explode over every little thing that happens.
And wives, you shouldn't be going around nitpicking
and hen-pecking your husbands, you know.
There's some people in this room that might be so hen-pecked
they have a perch at the end of their bed.
But that's not the way it should be.
So, I don't know if that's true.
I'm just teasing.
Okay, number three, husbands and wives
need to both make sacrifices.
You both need to make sacrifices.
In, I think it's Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 21, it says,
submitting yourselves one to the other in the fear of God.
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
This is the parallel passage in Colossians.
For a husband is the head of the wife,
even as Christ is the head of the church,
and he's the savior of the body.
Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ,
so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Does it say some things?
Or does it say everything?
Yeah, it says everything, doesn't it?
And the only way you're going to ever show true submission, wives,
is if you have something that you disagree with your spouse about.
That's where the rubber really meets the road,
is when you think that they're wrong and you still have to obey.
So that's the difficult situation,
but you're never going to be able to test
whether you're really a submissive wife
unless you disagree with what your husband's saying
and you still obey what he says.
And so, but sometimes, there's some marriages where, you know,
the woman just wants to take over.
You know, oh, I'm going to obey you
and tell it something I don't agree with you about.
And that's wrong.
That means you're just doing,
you're just agreeing with your husband
on the things that you want to submit about,
but as soon as he says, you know,
oh, no, you're not going there.
You're not going to spend this money or whatever.
Whatever it is, and then you throw a big fit,
then you know you're not really a submissive wife.
So that's when you know when you can actually pass that test
where your husband puts his foot down or something
and then you're like, yes, Lord.
No, I'm just kidding.
Speak, Lord.
No, I'm just joking.
But you know what I'm saying?
If you obey and you know,
then that shows that you're in submission.
It really does.
So number four, really quickly,
husbands and wives should be forgiving
and let each other live down their mistakes.
Husbands and wives should be forgiving
and let each other live down their mistakes.
Ephesians 4 31 says,
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor
and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice,
and be kind one to another.
There's a novel idea there.
Be kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another,
even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
You know, God forgave you of all your sins.
Every sin you've ever done,
from the time you first sinned to the time you died,
Christ has forgiven all your sins if you're saved.
So why can't husbands and wives forgive each other
for the things they do to each other?
You know, you're both saved,
but you can't forgive one of those things.
So, you know, I think it's very important,
and being married for 20 years,
you know what I found is really important?
Forgiving my wife for things that she's said to me
or she forgives things I say to her.
I'm a little easier to forgive.
I just, I know that's true.
But, no, I'm just kidding.
She forgives me too, so it just takes a little longer,
but I'm teasing.
So, look, it's important.
This is, if you grasp one thing out of this sermon,
forgiveness for each other for the things
and just letting things go.
You don't have to right every wrong in your marriage.
You don't have to keep score.
Well, you only took the trash out three times last week.
Look, you don't have to keep score.
And you know if someone brings up the scoreboard
from two years ago,
that they're still holding on to that bitterness.
So we shouldn't be like that.
If you say you forgive someone for something, forgive them.
And husbands and wives should, number five, last point.
Husbands and wives should establish
clear lines of communication.
Genesis chapter 2 verse 23 says,
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman
because she was taken out of a man.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother
and shall cleave unto his wife,
and they shall be one flesh.
So in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 31,
it quotes that verse.
It says, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother
and shall be joined unto his wife,
and they too shall be one flesh.
It's not three.
It's not four.
It's not your parents.
It's not your siblings.
It's not your mamaw and your papaw.
It's husband and wife, two.
Here's a big problem that people get into
when they, this is, I'm talking about newlyweds,
but I think it can happen into
long-standing relationships,
long-standing marriages.
Don't involve your parents or anybody else
in your marriage problems
unless it's somebody that can actually help you
fix those problems.
And I just see, like,
a lot of people fall into,
and I know this gets preached against a lot.
Hey, leave and cleave.
That's what the Bible teaches, right?
So once you leave mommy and daddy's house,
it's time for you two to be one flesh,
and so that means you don't have to go
and tell your mom all your problems,
wives, dads, or husbands.
I mean, they really don't fall into this trap as much,
but there's some mama's boys out there.
The mama's got to tell them everything, right?
You know what?
Leave mom and dad out of it.
Leave mamaw and papaw out of it, okay?
Leave your brothers and sisters
and your friends out of your marriage,
because you know what?
They're never, you know, especially if they're not saved.
Don't ever get marriage advice from someone that's not saved.
Period.
Once you get it from this book right here,
that's, I mean, everything I've read to you
is very easy, isn't it?
So listen to what the Bible says
instead of listening to what your friend says.
Oh, you need to leave him, girl.
He's only making $10 an hour or whatever.
But you know what?
It's better to be in a place with,
I'm going to mess the verse up,
but basically where you're a vegan
and you have love in your house.
I forget what the verse says exactly,
but it's better to be a vegan with a happy home
than it is to have a stalled out
and great trouble there with, right?
I think I butchered that to death,
but butchered that as bad as a cow.
But anyway, it's important
to have a happy home
and for your children to not see you fight.
Hey, man, I wish I would have learned things sooner.
I wish I would have had a home that I didn't grow up in
that was, you know, all my grandparents are divorced.
My parents are divorced.
My mom's been divorced twice.
And that's what the world gives you.
But see, Christian marriages should be different
and we should be willing to forgive each other.
We should communicate better than the world does.
We should raise our children better than the world does.
We should all these things that I've mentioned here tonight
and stay in your own lanes.
Stop trying to get into other people.
If your husband wants to take care of the finances,
he's the man.
Let him do it.
If you want to let your wife take care of the finances,
that's fine.
But it shouldn't be a fight.
Whatever the husband says, that should be the way it is.
It shouldn't be a fight.
And money is a big thing that people fight about.
I'm over my time, so I got to end up here
with Ephesians 5-33.
I'll just conclude with this.
Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular
so love his wife even as himself
and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
If you get those two things right,
you're going to go a long way.
Your marriage is going to be strong.
Just keep it simple.
Keep it simple with the Scriptures
and learn to reverence and respect and love each other.
So let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord,
for the simple verses of marriage
that you give us for marriage.
And, Lord, I pray for each and every
marriage that's represented here, Lord,
that you would keep them strong.
Lord, help them to put some of these principles
into action in these verses.
And I pray that you just help
the Christian marriages in this church, Lord,
and the Lord of my church as well.
And, Lord, it's a hard thing these days,
it seems like, for marriages to work out right.
But it shouldn't be that way for Christians.
Lord, I pray that you would help us to never
use the D-word in our marriages, divorce.
Lord, I pray that you would strengthen
and bless us and keep us.
In Jesus' name, amen.