This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Hey everybody, welcome to Prairie Lakes Church this weekend. I'm delighted that you are here. And here's one thing I believe to be true. God has you exactly where you need to be today. So no matter how your week's been or how you're coming in today, um, God wants to speak directly to you.

So make sure your heart and your mind are open and, uh, let God in. Hey, uh, I wanna dive right in this weekend. This is week two of a three week series called Be Reconciled and we're talking about being reconciled, especially in the context of marriage.

And here's our hope. Our hope is that you're gonna learn from the messages in this series and benefit from them no matter if you're married, hoping to be married someday divorced or even uninterested because men, the principles we're gonna talk about this weekend and in this series are gonna apply to many different types of relationships.

Now, pastor Jesse kicked us off last week by talking about God's design for marriage. And here's the content that he spent the majority of his time talking about last week from Ephesians chapter five. He said, what, why did God create marriage?

He said, four reasons. One, as a covenant context for sexual intimacy and procreation for healthy human race as Genesis one and two and Matthew 19, two, to mutually help on life's journey as Genesis two, three, to raise children into a life of faith in Jesus.

That's Deuteronomy six. And then lastly, to serve and love one another as a sign for how Jesus serves and loves us. That's Ephesians chapter five and the hourglass verse. They talked about Ephesians 5 21, which is submit to one another out of reverence for Christ within the context of marriage.

Submit to one another. That's how you have a great marriage. That's why God created marriage, which is like, oh, great, just go married couples and go do those things. Like go do those four things. Sounds pretty easy, right? But we know it's not that easy. And the questions we're gonna tackle today are like, what happens if you get stuck as a married couple trying to live out those four purposes of marriage?

And what happens if life gets in the way? And how do you make sure that you have the kind of marriage that has God honoring and a beautiful, wonderful journey together? We're gonna talk about those things today. And I wanna start with one foundational truth about marriage that I've learned the hard way and the easy way.

Marriage is difficult, and every married person is like amen to that. Uh, the trajectory of your marriage is determined by which kind of difficult you choose. And we're gonna talk in detail about that truth today. Uh, but here's the thing. Becoming one with somebody is a challenge.

Being married is difficult. Your sin gets exposed, your spouse's sins get exposed, and you become very, very aware of the fact that you're a sinter in marriage. When you become one with somebody and submitting to one another out of reverence to Christ is difficult, putting God first, your spouse, second each other third.

That is very, very difficult. It takes patience, it takes work, and it takes practice. And then in Ephesians five, as Paul continues after verse 21, he gives specific instructions to, to women, to wives, and to men, husbands that are different ways to submit to one another.

He says this to wives, wives, submit yourself to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. Now I wanna pause because there's been a lot of damage and I would say a lot of harmful, awful things done in the name of this verse. Okay? So I want to cut through all of that.

I wanna describe to you how I believe Paul means when he says, wife, submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord. The Greek word for submit is the Greek word hupo taso. And, um, it doesn't just mean to obey. A lot of people say, well, it means obey.

Well, it's, it's, it's bigger than that because really what that word in Greek means is respect or honor. You can say it differently, respect or honor. Wives respect or honor your husbands as you give the Lord a place of honor in your heart.

Give your husband a place of honor in your heart. Uh, another way to say it would be yield. Yield, like a yield sign. Um, wives respect your husbands. When I do wedding ceremonies, I got a husband and wife standing in front of me. I say this, wives, your job is to submit and respect your husband by giving him a place of honor in your heart and in your home.

That's what I believe this verse is getting at honor in, in your heart and in your home, which sounds great, right? Wives, when your, when your husband's acting respectable, it's like, oh yeah, that's easy to do. But when your husband's acting like a knucklehead, not so easy to do.

But men crave respect, especially from our wives. And that's why critical words from our wives can cut so deep because we crave that respect from them. And when a wife submits to her husband by giving him a place of honor in her heart and home by respecting him, it pushes away from the greatest temptation she has in marriage, which is either to be in control or to be critical when you submit out of reverence and honor to your husband in that way.

Now I'm gonna pick on guys, okay? This is the job description for husbands. Husbands love your wife just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Husbands, this is how you submit to your wives. This is how you love your wife. And put her first.

The Greek word there for love is agape. God's love. God's divine love. Husbands love your wives with God's love. Jesus gave his very life for the church. Your job is to give your life for your wife. And here's what I tell husbands, when we're standing up on their wedding day, I look at the man and I say, husband, your job is to submit to your wife.

And here's what that means. There is no amount of love or sacrifice or grace or generosity or forgiveness that is too great for you to give to your bride because Jesus has already given you all of those things. And husbands know that is hard to do.

It is hard to love a bride like Jesus loves the church. But what submitting in this way as a husband to a wife means is it fights against a man's greatest temptations, which are what they're either to be passive or to be harsh, to be served rather than to serve and give and sacrificially the loving your wife and submitting to your, your wife that way pushes against your greatest temptations.

And listen, I have never met a bad marriage when a husband and a wife are working hard to outdo one another in submission. I've never met a bad marriage who's in that spot? Now listen, there is difficult in marriage that leads to submission, connection, forgiveness, love, and christlikeness.

And then there is the difficult path of marriage that leads to disconnect, separation, struggle and divorce. And which pathway you choose will to determine the trajectory of your marriage, where your marriage goes. And let's be honest, marriage isn't always difficult or only difficult or hard work.

It can be wonderful, it can be life giving, it can be fun and supportive, but marriage is always work. And the type of difficult you choose determines where your marriage goes. And I'm gonna pause for just a second here. And you need to know this.

There is really good news for you today. And the good news is this, no matter, no matter which trajectory your marriage has been on, it can change the future of your marriage is in your hands as a married couple, particularly if you're both willing to change and choose the right kind of difficult in your marriage.

We're gonna talk about that in just a little bit. But the good news in Jesus is that there, there's hope in Christ. God changes hearts, God changes relationships, God changes marriages. I've seen it happen over and over again, and it can happen for you as well.

And I know this from personal experience. So I met my beautiful wife, Amy, when we were at the ripe age of 18, freshman year of college, August, 1998. We were 18, fell in love. It was wonderful. The next summer, June, uh, July rather of 98, I proposed to my beautiful wife Amy on the banks of the big Thompson River, Estes Park, Colorado.

I was so nervous, I knelt down in a giant puddle and my khaki soaked it up like a sponge. It was like, because I was so nervous and shaking to ask the question. And she said yes. And here's the picture of our wedding day, August 7th, 1999 at first St.

Paul's Lutheran Church in Hastings, Nebraska. What you're gonna see in just a moment is that my wife looks exactly the way she did 25 years ago. I don't because my hair slipped, it fell off my head landed on my face, and I went from looking like Jason Priestly to Jason Statham.

Okay? And not a, not a great thing for me, but my wife looks as beautiful today as she did 25 years ago. And here's what you need to know about us. Uh, we have not had a fairytale marriage. It's been far from perfect. Uh, we've struggled at times.

We've done marriage counseling at times. We even did a marriage intensive together, which if you're ever wondering what a marriage intensive is like, it's in the name, it's intensive. Um, and we've lived through a lot of the good, the bad and the ugly.

But here we are celebrating our 25th anniversary on August 7th, trying our best to love God, to love each other, to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, to choose one another. And I am not a perfect husband. I'm far from it. Amy's not a perfect wife.

She's closer than I am, but far from it. But what I wanna share with you today has been born out of my experience of being married for 25 years. My experience of being a follower of Jesus and sitting with a lot of couples in counseling over the years, that that's what I wanna share with you today.

Before we talk about different postures of marriage, I wanna talk about a second truth of marriage, though that is absolutely true. And it's this, the body language of your marriage tells you a lot about the condition of your marriage.

The body language of your marriage tells you a lot about the condition of your marriage. And once you see this, you can't unsee it. Okay? So, uh, hey, as an Iowan last four years, it's been awesome privilege and honor to watch Kaitlyn Clark play basketball.

She's amazing. Now here's what I know to be true. You can turn off the sound, you could cover up the score and you could tell exactly how Kaitlyn Clark is doing and how Iowa is doing based on her body language. Is she shrugging her shoulders and smiling after making another three?

Is she staring down the ref after another no call and kind of getting after him? Is she yelling at her dad up in the stands or is she encouraging her teammates and butt slapping and high fiving and getting people huddled up? Right? You can tell a lot about Kaitlyn Clark's basketball and her game and the score based on her body language.

And listen, marriage is the same. Every marriage has a posture, a, a body language. And again, once you see this, you can't unsee it. And the posture, body language of a marriage really does determine whether that marriage is healthy or that marriage is stuck somewhere along the way.

And so here's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna look at four different types of body language in marriage. And uh, I'm gonna use case studies for each of these four. And I'm gonna use fake names. And so that, you know, I'm not talking about you or real people.

I'm gonna use country music stars names who are married together. And I'm gonna ask my beautiful wife to come up here right now. She's gonna be the Vanna White to my Pat Sja right now, and she's gonna help model this for me.

Hey babe, how you doing? Hi. Give you a kiss. Alright, so this is the first posture of marriage. It is side by side marriage. And this is Garth and Tricia. We are Garth and Tricia right now side by side. Garth and Tricia are high school sweethearts. They married just after graduating college.

They've been married for 12 years. And during that time, God has blessed them with four kids all under the age of 10. So we are busy and we spend most of our time working 'cause we both work outside the home full time and raising kids. That's the majority of our lives getting stuff done.

And we're actually a really good team. We work well together. Trish and Garth do, uh, they don't have a bad marriage by any means, um, but they wouldn't describe it as great either. Uh, they rarely have time for date nights.

Sexual intimacy is scarce since there always seems to be one kid around and that ruins the mood like nobody's business. Uh, their kids are in tons of activities already. Their oldest is in swimming, so like traveling, swim meets are happening all over the place.

One of them just start playing the violins. So it's like screechy all the time. School activities for all their kids, even the preschooler, almost every day of the week they're dividing and conquered driving to kids somewhere. And if you scan their text messages together, here's what you'd see.

95% of it is about the kids about dinner or about work. Occasionally there's like a flirty text and an I love you, but that's, that's not very often. And they rarely have time for church. They get there as much as they can. They certainly don't have time to be in a small group.

Um, but they long for the day. When they have more and margin and time for one another, they get to the end of the day most days simply grateful that they made it and that everybody's still alive. And that hopefully tomorrow they've got enough energy to do all that thing all over again.

That's, that's Trish and Garth and a side by side posture of marriage. Now here's the next marriage posture. It's back to back. So this is the marriage posture of Johnny and June. Okay? Their body language is back to back. They met in college, they've been married for three years.

The single word that would best describe Johnny and June now is this conflict. Boy, can they fight? They can argue. Well, they did premarital counseling with marriage mentors. They talked about how to navigate through their personality and value differences.

But marriages has just magnified all their differences. They don't have kids yet, thankfully, but they want some someday and they just can't imagine doing so right now. Things are so volatile in their relationship and they actually get to church quite a bit.

But when they're at church, I mean Johnny and June, they feel like frauds. They feel like if people at church only knew what we said to each other last night, it'd be really, really rough for us. June complains about how much Johnny is gone for work because he travels and how much time he spends with the boys at the bar and the golf course.

Johnny is always after June for her spending habits, failure to stick to the budget. Not to mention her parents. They are the worst always button into their marriage, showing up unannounced, giving unsolicited advice, bugging them about when they're finally gonna get pregnant.

And every conversation that Johnny and June have about anything remotely important seems to devolve into yelling and name calling and just more hurt. And Johnny and June, right now, they stop and think, is this all there is to marriage? I I, I didn't sign up for this and I had no idea marriage would be this hard.

And they long for the days of when they were dating and in love and everything seems so much more simple. There was a spark, a connection and fun. And now they just feel stuck in the continual cycle of conflict and lack of communication. That's posture number two. Here's posture number three.

It's the distant marriage. And this is what happens when a couple spend so much time back to back that they grow apart. So meet Tim and Faith A couple here is Tim and Faith. They're almost 60 years old. They've been married for 34 years and and they've raised three wonderful kids.

They got four grandkids together. And on the surface things seem good, but to those who know them well, they sense otherwise they don't fight. Mostly because they don't talk at least not about things of substance.

Their conversations are almost always superficial if they happen at all. Tim and Faith can't remember the last time they had sex. I mean, that kind of intimacy is a distant memory for them. In fact, she sleeps in the bedroom. He sleeps alone downstairs on the couch.

Tim and Faith stopped going to church years ago without kids as a buffer for their marriage. And since they're outta the house, church just feels less necessary or relevant. He has his work and hobbies and friends. She has hers as well.

And simply put, Tim and Faith are living two separate lives. And the hard part is that it, it hasn't always been like this. They got memories of brighter days and family vacations and happy moments of marriage, but they seem like a distant memory now.

And they stop and they think, how did this happen? I mean, how did we get here? And maybe it was when their youngest daughter left the house and they became empty nesters. Maybe it was when Tim lost his corporate job in 2008 and stress and drinking just increased.

But really, if they were honest, it goes far deeper than that. It goes back almost 20 years. When faith caught Tim looking at porn multiple times. He said he was sorry, but, but Faith isn't sure that Tim has ever stopped.

She felt ugly and unwanted and she fell in love with a guy at work and had an affair. At least he appreciates me, she thought. And they've never talked about those things again, no counseling, no confession, no support, no talking about it.

It's almost like none of those things happened. But it's a shadow in their marriage that has hovered over them for years. Always felt, but never acknowledged. And Tim and Faith think about divorce often because it feels inevitable.

And honestly, if it weren't for their faith convictions, they probably would've got divorced years ago. Their marriage is so distant, it's so broken, it's so isolated right now. Now we, we can't end on that one. Okay, so there's one more posture of marriage that I wanna talk about and celebrate this the best one.

And it is face, two face. So I introduce you to Blake and Gwen. Okay, A face-to-face marriage right now. So Blake and Gwen are close, they're close physically, emotionally, they're connected. You could say they're clicking in their marriage.

They've been married for 20 years. They got two teenage kids in the house. Um, their lives are busy with working kids activities. However, however, they take time to prioritize each other and their calendars. And it's not like these two haven't faced any challenges.

Blake and Gwen have walked through infertility struggles, two miscarriages, his battle with depression and anxiety, her scare with cancer. But faith in Jesus defines their marriage. They pray together as a couple and as a family. They're involved in church.

They're in a great small group that meets almost every single week together. They have friends who keep them accountable, that know just about everything about their lives and their marriage. Uh, and it's been so life giving to have those relationships in their life.

Sexual intimacy is great. In fact, it's better than it's ever been. Date nights happen pretty regularly. And though they do fight and argue, like any couple does Blake and Gwen work things out usually. And when they can't, they go to their Christian counselor and sit down and talk it through.

When Blake and Gwen look at each other, they often think, I can't believe my marriage is this good man. This is better than I ever thought it could be. Even their kids notice how much they love each other and how well connected they are compared to their friends' parents.

They often comment on how gross it is when their parents show public affection. Like, come on dad, don't slap mom's butt in Hy-Vee. Like, come on. But Blake and Glen Gwen have a very close face to face marriage and this is where you want to be as a married couple more often than not.

So those are the four postures of marriage. Let's give my beautiful wife Amy a hand tell her thank you. Yeah, I told you she looks the same as she did 25 years ago, which is just crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. Hey, those are the four postures or body language types of marriage.

And my, my sense is you probably started to identify where you're at on that journey based on where you're at in your marriage right now. And here's what you need to know. Body language and marriage changes, often it's not fixed. And obviously we want to avoid spending a lot of time in those first three postures.

We're gonna spend as much time as possible in the face to face. And listen, I know that for some of you right now, uh, it got a little dusty in the room because as I was walking through those four case studies and different postures of marriage, you begin to experience some emotion, maybe some shame and guilt, maybe some fear anxiety about, Hey, here's where we are as a married couple and it's not good.

And listen, if you're in that spot, I just, I just need you to know I've been praying all week for you. I've been praying that the Holy Spirit would guide and convict and comfort and encourage and help. And I need you to remember again, the trajectory of your marriage is in your hands.

Marriages can change. Husbands and wives can change. That's the good news of the gospel. And the good news is that Jesus changes hearts and changes lives. And he's changed marriages. I've seen it happen in my own marriage and other marriages a around me.

And so here's where we're gonna spend the last part of our message together today. It's this, I'm gonna give you prescriptions to fix the posture of your marriage. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm a, I'm a counselor by trade and by practice and training.

And so I'm gonna approach the last part of the message as if each of those first three couples were sitting in my office, what would I say to them as a counselor, as a pastor to those marriages that are either side by side, back to back or distant. So here we go. The first one, side by side.

If Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood were on my couch, what would I say to them? Well, first I'd ask for autographs 'cause that would be amazing. That'd be awesome. Um, but here's what I would say to 'em.

Three things. First, evaluate who or what is at the center of your marriage. If you're doing a lot of marriage side by side, you're a good team, you're getting stuff done, you're really, really busy and stressed. Here's what I would say. Who or what is the center of your marriage?

I can't tell you how important this question is. Is it work? Is it kids? Is it money or is Jesus the center? Is God the focus of your marriage? Because if anything other than Jesus is the center, your marriage is weak and at risk. In fact, here's what Jesus said in Luke six about this.

He said, why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say? As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show them what they're like. They are like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid the foundation on the rock.

And when the flood came, the torrent struck that house, but it could not shake it because it was well built. Now flip it around. He says, but the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice, it's like a man who built a house on the ground with without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck the house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.

Here's Jesus's message. If you build your life on anything other than me, you got a weak foundation. And with difficulty in life comes, it's gonna get blown away. The same thing can be said for marriage.

If, if, if, if, if, if you have a child-centric marriage, it won't work. 'cause kids grow up and leave. If you gotta work or success centric marriage, it won't work because jobs come and jobs go and markets crash. Even if you have a spouse centered marriage, you try to put your spouse each other at the center of your marriage without God, what happens is your spouse cannot bear the weight of your expectations and your needs alone and it's gonna crush 'em.

You have to put God at the center. Who or what is at the center of your marriage. That's the first thing I'd say to them. Second thing I'd say to to, to Garth and Tricia is this schedule date nights and spend time face to face.

This is so important. Calendar time together away from kids, you gotta do it. Whether it's a weekend away or a weekly date night. Um, Amy and I let this slip in our marriage from like 2016 to 2020. And we felt it practically.

So then during Covid we said, Hey, weekly date night, Fridays, we're gonna do it. And we've been very consistent and it's helped out a ton. Really helps when you're, you're side by side too much to get face to face. The last thing I would say to Garth and Trish is this, have fun together.

Do things you love to do together. Find things that you each enjoy and do those things together. And here's why this is important. Women wives, if you haven't learned this yet, men open up and are vulnerable when they're doing activity.

So whether that's fishing, hunting, talking about their truck, whatever they love to do, when you take an interest in that, they will open up. And when you do those things together, it's amazing. Uh, I paddleboard, I never used to stand at paddleboard because I was like the windiest state in the world and it's like the hardest place to paddleboard.

But my wife loves paddleboarding. So we got paddleboards in 2020 and we love it. Two years ago we got mountain bikes. Why? Because I love the mountain bike. And now my wife has loved enjoying getting to mountain bikes.

She's learning how to love it. We do these activities together and it's so life giving. If you are side by side in your marriage too much, here's how you get face to face. That's what I would say to Garth and to Tricia. Now. Now, what would I say to back to back marriages who are at each other, who are fighting?

What would I say to Johnny and June if they were on my couch? Well, if it was Johnny Cash and June Carter, I'd say, wow, you resurrected and you're alive. And that's weird. But after I got through that, here's what I would say to them.

First I would say learn to fight fair. Learn to fight fair. Which is listen carefully, choose words wisely. Manage your anger. Righteously. Pastor John's gonna talk more about this next week, so I'm gonna fly over this real quickly, okay? But here's what I would say to a couple that can't seem to fight fair.

Here's the three things you need to do scripturally listen carefully. Uh, James one 19 says this, my dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everybody should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

That's quick, slow, slow. That's the first. The second is this, choose words wisely. Proverbs 21, 23 says, those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity. Because once you say it, you can't reel that thing back in. But you gotta choose your words wisely.

And the last way to fight fair is this, manage your anger righteously. Ephesians 4 26 27 says in your anger, don't sin. It doesn't say anger is a sin. It says, when you're angry, don't sin. Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry.

And do not give the devil a foothold. So I'd say, Johnny and June, you practice those three things, you're gonna learn how to fight fair. It's gonna make a huge impact in your marriage and your relationship.

The second thing I'd say to Johnny and June is this, go to counseling, right? Seek out counseling. You need a professional who is outside of the marriage to help see into the marriage and help you walk through seasons together.

Because if you're back to back a lot in marriage, you probably caused a lot of hurt. And you gotta start processing through that and work through that. And the last thing I would say to Johnny and June is this, get in a small group.

Don't try to do marriage, don't try to do life alone. And, and, and at your campus right now, I just wanna encourage you, if you're not in a small group as a married couple, you're exposed and you need to join a small group. It will really help you learn, grow, connect with others who are in the same age and stage.

And it will really give you an opportunity to stop being so back to back and start to be face to face as a married couple. Now what about the distant couple? What about the couple that's really far apart, that's grown really, really distant, that feels isolated?

This is probably the hardest, hardest one to heal from and overcome. And so if Tim and Faith, Tim McGraw, faith Hill were sitting on my couch and they were struggling and they were distant, what would I say to them?

The first thing I would say to them is this, bring it out into the light. Sin, shame and disconnect. Grow in the dark. The most important thing you can do if you're in a distant marriage right now is to bring out the sin, bring out the shame, bring out the guilt to bring those things out into the light and actually see them for what they are and start to deal with them.

One John one, eight and nine says this, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, and he will forgive us from our sins, and he'll purify us from all unrighteousness.

When we bring things out into the light, they get addressed, acknowledged and healed, and we get cleansed from those things, we find the healing that we need. Another verse here is James five 16. He says, therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

Because the prayer of the righteous person is powerful and effective. James says, Hey, when you bring things into light, when you confess things together, it brings healing, physical healing, relational healing, emotional healing, that when you have a distant marriage, one of the best things you can do is bring things into the life.

And I know, listen, if you're in that spot, the fear is I've got all this guilt, I've got all this shame. I've got these heavy emotions that I'm feeling. I've got all the weight of years of crud in our marriage built up.

If I start the process, I don't know where that's gonna go. And, and I get that. But if you're in that spot, I would just say to you that the the only alternative is to stay where you are. And though you may be comfortable being distant, the only pathway to healing is to bring in that thing out into the light or those things out into the light and confess to each other and confess to people that love you.

And probably most importantly, confess to your pastor because, hey, as as pastors, when when someone comes to us and says, Hey, we need help and support and encouragement 'cause we're walking through this and we've blown it, we've done this. It honors us to be able to walk alongside of you, and we wanna be able to be that kind of person in your life.

So give us the, the opportunity to do that. So bring it out in the light if you're in a distant marriage. Here's number two, take the journey of forgiveness. I call it the journey of forgiveness because forgiveness is a decision, but it's also a journey that you gotta follow.

It's a, it's a pathway, it's a one time decision. I'm gonna forgive, but then it's, it's a process of living that out and working that out. And here's what Colossians three 13 says, bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you.

And there's no qualifiers on this other than, hey, you need to forgive because Jesus has forgiven you. And nothing will tank a marriage faster than unforgiveness and resentment. It will, it will lead to so much distance and separation and isolation and fighting.

But when you choose to forgive your spouse as many times as it takes when you choose to forgive, healing starts because until you forgive, you will never find healing in your marriage. And I know that it's not easy, but it is necessary work. Here's the final thing I'd say to Tim and faith, if they were sitting on my couch distant marriage, I'd say this, seek long-term counseling and intervention.

You need help and support. A couple counseling sessions with the Christian counselor. Aren't gonna do it for you. You gotta do this and commit to this weekly or biweekly for a long time and maybe even get a counseling intensive in get away for three days or five days or a week where you can really start to dig up the things that are going on.

Because if you just try to do it on your own, it's gonna be longer and harder to do. But when you have a professional help and you manage is so, so great. So that's what I would say to marriages. Those are my three prescriptions for people that are either too often side by side in marriage, back to back in marriage or distant in marriage.

And so here's where I wanna close. I'm gonna close by going back to the first two points we talked about. Marriage is difficult, but the trajectory of your marriage is determined by which kind of difficult you choose.

Here's the reality. Staying stuck is difficult and hard work. It's, it's tough. Healing is hard work, but which hard work are you gonna choose? Which difficult are you going to choose? Because staying side by side in marriage and being busy all the time is hard.

Staying back to back is really, really hard. Being in conflict all the time, being in a distant unfulfilling marriage is hard. And healing in a marriage is also hard. So which kind of difficult are you gonna choose in your marriage?

And what trajectory is your marriage currently on? And the second point, again, the body language of your marriage tells you a lot about the condition of your marriage today. So what is the current body language or posture of your marriage right now?

What's the posture of your marriage more often than not? And what might that mean about what you need to do in your marriage? In terms of how I've prescribed to you some things today, what is your next step as a married couple? My friends, the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ is this, Jesus can change your heart towards your spouse.

Jesus can change your eternity and your life. Jesus can change your marriage. He can help you forgive. He can help you let go of guilt and shame. Jesus can change the trajectory of your marriage today and forever. All it takes is a willing husband and a willing wife who commit to the right kind of difficult work in their marriage and who let Christ be the center of their lives and their marriage.

And so I wanna pray right now for marriages all across Iowa and ask God to help us do those things together. Let's pray. Hey Lord, thank you for the gift of marriage and I just pray a blessing over every married couple listening right now. God that you bless 'em, would you give them the necessary courage and Holy Spirit power to do the right kind of difficult things in their marriage?

And would that lead to healing and joy and love for you and for each other? And may it lead to a lot of face-to-face time together as a couple. God, would you encourage those who have walked through divorce, um, who may have some scars from a former spouse that either refuse to do the hard work of marriage or they refuse to put you first?

God, would you give them healing and peace and God, would you remind them that you love them deeply? And God, I pray for all who aren't married yet, but have a desire to be. Would you remind them to be patient and not compromise? Would you remind them that you're a good father that gives good gifts to his children and that you know their desire, God and you wanna bless 'em?

God, would you help them to become the type of spouse they wanna have someday? So God, we thank you for your gospel that says we don't have to stay stuck, but we can change and be different because of your power and your life alive in us. So God, we thank you and we pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.