Divorce - #009

When we stop reviewing what we vowed, that's when we stop looking at how we can love our spouse better. Jesus spoke about Divorce...and even though He didn't have a lot to say about it, He still said a lot! On this episode, Mike talks about what He said and what He expected from His disciples, including what they thought about marriage. Listen and learn how to love your wife better than ever!

Meet our Marriage Coaches on their episode of our partner podcast: Testimony Tag Team!

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Well, welcome back to Miking Disciples. This is another episode of our opportunity to get together here and talk about how we can help men become disciples of Jesus. It's always a pleasure to get back with you and have an opportunity to just share with you some thoughts this episode where we're going to be talking about marriage and divorce and uh specifically about how you as a man of God need to treat your wife so that you don't get to the place where divorce happens. If you can do the work on the front end and really build her up into the woman that she needs to be, hopefully you can prevent that from ever happening in your heart and in your life and in your marriage. Uh just last week, I celebrated my ninth anniversary of marriage with my wife Lana. And if you don't know, if you're new to listening to us, you know, we have been together for 10 years now. We're a blended family. We each uh lost our previous spouse to cancer, and we now have uh we each had three kids. So we've got this big, beautiful family, this blended family of eight people, six kids. Uh so yeah, we're the Brady Bunch, but without the housekeeper. And so um, you know, it's but every day with her is a blessing, and I'm so grateful that God has brought us together. And there's no doubt in my mind that that is exactly what's happened. And in my first marriage, I had three sons, and um, so now that we've added this blended family experience, I have four sons and two daughters. And just when I thought I figured out everything about marriage and about raising kids, girls came along and everything changes. You know, you you get used to doing it a certain way with sons and boys and trying to help them become men, but then when you throw daughters into the mix, there's a whole lot of other um things that I've got to learn and that I'm still learning to this day. And my youngest daughter, she's 15 now, and hopefully she'll listen to this and give me a thumbs up of approval here. But when she was about five, that's about when I came into the picture of her life and her mom. And uh I remember one night I was at home alone. Her mom had something to do for work, and all the other kids were out doing something. And so she was uh about five then and on the floor playing with her Barbie dolls. And and when I say Barbie dolls, she didn't just have the dolls, she had the house, she had the car, she had everything. And uh I asked her, well, how long have Ken and Barbie been married? And she said, Well, I don't know. I I guess they aren't married. I'm not sure. And so I said, Well, I'm gonna need Ken to provide a marriage license to show proof of that they've been married and that things are the way they should be. And when we discovered there wasn't one, we wanted to make that right. And so I led Ken and Barbie in a ceremony right there on the living room floor. Uh, I mean, we did the whole marriage thing. We did the whole wedding where I said, Dearly beloved, we're gathered here today to come together in the presence of God to witness the joining together of this man and this woman in holy matrimony. And I asked Ken if he was ready to take Barbie as his wife to be uh to have and to hold from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. And thankfully Ken said I do. And then I turned to Barbie and she and I asked her the same thing, and she said I do as well. And so then I uh pronounced their marriage as husband and wife, and I introduced them to my daughter Collins, and we were doing this ceremony right there in our living room, right there in Ken and Barbie's living room. And it just always makes me think about what marriage should be like and what it should, uh what kind of things should happen in a marriage. And that's kind of what I want to talk to you about tonight. I know the topic is on divorce, but but really I want to talk with you and focus on how we can prevent divorce by building strong, godly marriages between one man and one woman before God for a lifetime. That's what God says that marriage is, and and there's no other uh way of doing that. So you have to to abide by that. If you're gonna have a godly marriage, you have to focus on having a marriage the way God says that it should be. And so we we just early on, Lana and I wanted to make sure that we uh practice that for ourselves because there's a relationship that I have with her where we're focusing on that, right? And we're wanting to have this love that we have for each other and have that continue and deepen and strengthen and grow. And then we also have kids that are watching this and we wanted them to know the power of a godly marriage. We wanted them to understand things like how a husband loves his wife the way Christ loves the church and gives himself up for her, and how the wife respects her husband and submits to him, and that when we do that, when we each are in the roles that God has called us to be in, then we can really thrive in that marriage. And in order to do so, in order to have a marriage where a husband loves a wife and a wife respects her husband, we really need God's help. Because Paul, when he says that in Ephesians 5, is asking us to do what is not natural to each of us. And so I need some supernatural help that comes from God to help me love my wife the way Christ loved the church. And Lana needs help from God to help her respect me the way that God intends and to submit to me. And so that is all built by us understanding who God is and who he is to each of us, and we're submitting to each other then out of reverence for Christ. And when you have a marriage like that, you have things happen such as forgiveness. Uh, that's where you are definitely going to work at forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God has forgiven you. This is where you're gonna pay attention to how you talk to each other and talk about each other when the other one isn't there. It's where you're gonna build time in and go on dates and really take time to enjoy time together that you have. Lana and I are so grateful for what God has helped us have as a couple, and we want to model that for our kids. But what about when a husband stops loving his wife that way? Or when a wife stops respecting her husband? Or what if it's even worse, and both of those are happening? What should that husband and wife do? Should they just call it quits and try to find someone else that might meet the category and fit the bill there? But what God is saying is, no, once you're married, you should do everything you can to stay married and not just endure each other, but enjoy each other. So what can you do to build a relationship that's powerful, that's godly, that's healthy? And we know that sometimes sin enters the picture, either the man or the woman, or they both sin against each other. And there is this break in the relationship, there is this problem that they've got to deal with, and as a result of that, they need God's help to bring about forgiveness. And sometimes one or both of them isn't willing to do that. So when that happens, what the Bible has something to say about this. And Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, you know that every time we get together for a teaching on here, I'm teaching through the Sermon on the Mount, and that's what we continue with tonight. And when I read this in Matthew 5, Jesus doesn't have her a lot to say about divorce, and that's probably because he didn't have to. And so this is what he says. It has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery. And anyone who marries a divorce woman commits adultery. And so that's where we're looking at in this episode. That's what we're going to be talking about. And I love the Sermon on the Mount. I've talked to you about this already. It is the finest discipleship tool you will find out there. It's better than anything you'll get at Lifeway Christian stores or Catherine bookstores or from Amazon or any other preacher that might tell you, read the Sermon on the Mount, and you'll understand what it means to be a follower and a disciple of Jesus. And it all starts with us understanding that Jesus sees the crowds and he goes up on a mountainside and sits down so that he's in a posture and in a position to teach the people that are there. And it says in Matthew 5, then that his disciples came to him and he began to teach them. And I think if there's ever something that describes what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, it's wrapped up in that. The whole possibility of us and the whole point of us coming to Jesus, realizing that we can't do this without him. I need someone to help me live this kind of life that he is asking me to live. And the only way I can do that is to come to him and want to follow him and then live a life where he begins to teach me each and every day about what that kind of life should look like. And so over the course of these teaching lessons, we started by looking at the what we call the Beatitudes, where we hear about blessed are the poor in spirit, and blessed are those who mourn, and blessed are those who are meek and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And over and over and over, we see this word blessed there. And it's whole this whole idea, the original word is coming from an island in Greece where the residents of that island had everything that they needed because they didn't have so they didn't have to go anywhere else. And the whole point is when we do this, when we are living this kind of blessed life, God gives us everything we need to live that kind of life out. We don't have to go anywhere else. There's no self-help guru that's going to help us. There's no books that we can buy. There's just understanding who God is and what he is equipping us to do, how he is empowering us to live when we follow him. And that's where it all starts. That's what it means to be a disciple. And then we move moved into the second spot where we talk about being assault and light, where we talk about our witness in today's world, that we, as a result of that, can't be hiding these things. We've got to tell people and live this out in front of people. And so we tell that through our words and our actions by our witness and how we are assault and light in today's world. And our next teaching episode talked about how we need to have a surpassing righteousness, that we need to be uh living more righteous than the Pharisees did, that we've got to understand all the things that God is asking, and that that can happen as He's working in us. And we don't just need to abolish these things that God told us in the Old Testament. He actually came to fulfill them. And so when we understand that everything is there so that it can help us understand how we can be great in the kingdom of God, and when we glue that out, when we're trying to be great in the kingdom of God, that's how we have a righteousness that's better than the Pharisees, better than someone that's religious and just does this once in a while. And then we talked about in the next episode how we hear that that we shouldn't murder people, and that's straight from the Ten Commandments. But Jesus took that even further and wanted us to understand well, you shouldn't even really get angry at people. You should find a way to work through that anger. And if you do that, if you'll work through anger when someone frustrates or upsets you, you're never going to get to the place where you murder them. And so he spent a lot of time talking about how to do that, how to remember, if we remember that someone has something against us, to go and try to be reconciled with them and settle that matter quickly and do that as quickly as we possibly can. And then in the last episode that we were together, we talked about adultery and how we've heard that it that we shouldn't commit adultery. Again, one of the Ten Commandments taken right out of the Old Testament. But Jesus once again takes that even further and says, Well, that's true, you shouldn't commit adultery, but anyone that's looked at a woman lustfully has committed adultery in his heart. So if you can get to the place where you stop looking in such a way that leads to lusting, then that will help you and keep you from committing adultery. And so we we want to get to this point and understand that Jesus talks about doing the drastic thing that we need to do. Whatever it is that we need to do to shut down lust, that's what's going to keep us from committing adultery. And one of my favorite authors, Dallas Willard, says this that it is not an accident that Jesus deals with divorce after having dealt with anger, contempt, and obsessive desire. He says, just ask yourselves how many divorces would occur if those three, anger, contempt, and desire, were eliminated. The answer is, of course, hardly any at all. And so we're getting these simple instructions on these serious issues here as we go through this. And Jesus builds on these words where he talks about lustful thoughts and that those can turn our attention to divorce. You see, divorce wasn't something that he commanded or that was that what people had to do. It was something that was permitted. Uh, and that was to be done reluctantly and rarely. So over and over in these teachings throughout Matthew 5, he starts with the Old Testament teaching. You have heard that it was said, it has been said. Again, I have told you, but now every time he does this, you've heard that it was said, and not, but I say to you, and so he's kind of flipping this a little bit, and he's doing that again in this passage where it says it has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a divorce. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her and and ourselves a victim of adultery. And so what he's trying to get us to understand is yes, per divorce was permitted. We could do that, but we don't have to do that. And if we're going to do that, there can only be that can only be done for one reason, because of sexual immorality. And just because sexual immorality occurs, that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to divorce someone. Grace can happen, marriages can be restored, they can be healed. You might need some professional help, and we'll talk about that a little bit in this episode. But I want you to understand that back in Jesus' day, the reason he's talking about this is because it's important the wording that he said. When he said accept for sexual immorality or accept for marital unfaithfulness, there's a reason that he was saying that. Back then, there were two kinds of schools of thought from rabbis. One, and a rabbi was somebody that you attached yourself to and followed, and you listened to their teachings and you tried to live that out. And so one school of thought from a rabbi was, well, you should only divorce if there's been some matrimonial offense or some indecent act of unchastity or marital unfaithfulness. Then there was a whole other camp that's where the pendulum swung all the way to the other side who said, Well, you can divorce someone for any reason whatsoever. If your wife burns your supper or spoils it, if she goes out in public with her head uncovered, if she's talking with another man on the street, if she spoke disrespectfully to your parents, if she just became plain looking when compared with other women. Try that on for size when you talk with your wife. If there's a problem there, let her know that she's plain looking when you're comparing her with other women. That's probably not going to go very well. And you can understand that someone that said that to their wife ends up divorced. They're probably not going to have a strong, healthy marriage. And so we want you to be thinking about again, how can you as a man, as a godly man, think about how you're talking to your wife and how you're treating her when she's in public and around other people, and how you think about her. If she's someone, is she someone that you can't wait to get home to and spend time with, or is she someone that you find any excuse you can to not go home to? And so I want you to be thinking about that kind of relationship that you have with her. And if it's not one that honors God, if it's not one that follows what the Bible says, then I want you to be thinking about, well, what steps can you take as a man to get there? And the Pharisees back in this day, as Jesus is writing to them and talking to them, they're like the HOA of that day, one writer says that. And they were focused on what Jesus said and kind of following it as a command, right? That uh they said, you know, and he talks about that anyone who divorces his wife must get a certificate of divorce. So these guys back in the day, the religious leaders thought, well, if I give her this certificate to let her know that we're divorced, then I'm doing my part. Well, no, you're not, because Jesus is asking us to go the extra mile to think about what is it I can do to try to save the marriage and strengthen it instead of just sending her on her way. And by giving her that certificate, that's what enabled her to marry someone else. And what he's saying is, you don't need to think of it that way. You need to think of, well, what can I do to strengthen this? And if there's been adultery, if there's been sexual immorality, what needs to happen to try to repair this? And too many times today, we think of it instead of, well, what can I do to get out of this? Instead of what can I do to build back into this and build this back up? And that's really what I want to be talking with you about. You know, um, I I've been married a while. Like I said, we celebrated our ninth anniversary last week, but our first marriage, my first marriage, was 23 years. And there were plenty of times with each of my wives where I disagreed with them or where they disagreed with me. But there was always this opportunity, this desire that I had to be dedicated to her, to stay uh faithful to her, to stay committed to her, and to stay with her. And in order to do so, in order for any couple to do that, you have to get really good at forgiving each other. The apostle Paul in Ephesians 4 tells us to not let the sun go down on our anger and to forgive each other as quickly as we possibly can. And this is part of a bigger teaching from Paul, and it even goes into where we talked earlier about husbands loving your wives the way Christ loved the church. And so when we do this, when we think about how I can love my wife, it comes up down to how can I build her up with my words instead of tearing her down? And so when you think about that, which of those describes the way that you talk to and about your wife? Are you someone that's building her up or are you someone that is tearing her down? And I want you to be thinking about that a little bit. I want you to be examining your own heart and asking God to show you how do I treat my wife, how do I talk to my wife, how does she feel about being married to me. Some of you are listening to that and you're going, man, I don't want to ask my wife that because I know the truth of what she's gonna say and it's gonna hurt, and it's gonna hurt my pride. Well, you have an opportunity to go home and tell her you've been listening to this and that God's speaking to you and that you're sorry about the way you've treated her. Others of you, you've been married a while, and the reason you've been married a while and it's is because you never talk with each other at all. And so maybe you need to start um start starting some conversations with her. Find ways to talk to her about the things she wants to talk about. Don't just talk about how bad the Cincinnati Reds are playing this year, or what Alabama football is going to look like, or what's coming on on TV. Find out what she loves, what she enjoys, study her, get to know her, talk with her, understand what she's dreaming about, what is she looking forward to in the future? How can you cultivate that and build into that? These are things that you can do to strengthen your marriage. Just a couple weeks ago, we we moved into this neighborhood that we live in back in October. And because it's a newer neighborhood, there's lots of people that come through there to solicit business. And I'm not against salesmen. I I have a son that's in sales and he's great at it, and he he does a great job. Um, he sells real estate, actually. And uh, so I I I'm not against salesmen, I'm not anti-sales here. But this guy comes to the door, the doorbell rings, I go out there to to to see what he wants, and he just starts in, he's got a sign in his hand that he's trying to sell something. And so I quickly point to the no soliciting sign in our yard that is there for a reason, it's there for a purpose, and almost none of the salesmen think that it applies to them. And so when when I think about that, this guy starts in on his sales pitch there, and I stop him and point to the no soliciting sign, and he still wants to, he looks down and he goes, Oh, I I I did I didn't see it, but but can I tell you? And I just said no, thank you, and I shut the door. So this guy is ignoring the sign that is right there by his feet instead of paying attention to that. And I think that that happens a lot in divorce as well. When we have a couple that gets to the point where they are calling it quits and they want nothing to do with each other anymore, and now they have to figure out child support and custody arrangements and who's gonna live where and what they're gonna sell and what they're gonna keep and all of those things that that they dreamed of when they said their vows years ago are now thrown out the window and they're gone up in smoke. And so I want to talk to you about what are some signs that people ignore, that men ignore before you get to divorce. So you don't just wake up on a Monday morning and say, This is a great day to get divorced. Chances are, more than likely, some things have happened in your past in the past years that you've been married that have gotten you to that point. And I don't begin to peek into your living room like I did Ken and Barbie and think about what those are, but you know what those are. You know what I mean? What are some of those things that have happened in your life and in your marital life that have brought you to this point? And so now you have some sign, you've had some signs that have been pointing to this. Signs that if you ignore them, they're going to get you to end up in a place where you're getting a divorce. So if I can tell you some things now that you can be looking for, that you can be paying attention to and getting rid of, maybe that will strengthen your marriage and help you continue down the path that God wants you to go down. So here's the first one. What signs do you ignore before you get to divorce? This happens when you stop reviewing what you vowed. You know, I talked about the vows that I took Ken and Barbie through to having to hold for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, all of those things that you say. Um, and I I want you to understand that those are important. I still believe in that. Every time I do a wedding ceremony, we use traditional vows and we go through those because I think they're so important to talk about what needs to happen in a marriage. And so I want you to think about that. When you stop reviewing what you vowed on your wedding day, when you stop thinking about how you pledge to love her and care for her and honor her and cherish her and to have her and hold her and care for her in sickness and in health, when you forget that, when you overlook that, when you ignore that, you're sure to be ended up in a place that could lead to divorce. Here's another one. This happens when you stop looking at how you can love each other better and you start looking at who you can love instead. So when you stop looking at the person that you're married to, that that woman, and you start thinking about, well, what would it be like to be married to this other woman instead? That's when you can get into trouble because that's when you move into that adultery place. That's when you start thinking about life isn't as good as it could be, and the grass is greener on the other side. I'm here to tell you guys the grass is greener where you water it. It's what it's greener where you spend time and invest in it. It's greener where you take care of it and cultivate it and help it grow. And so you can do that in your marriage starting today, no matter where you're at. And you again, you might need to get some help with this. And we'll talk about some of those options that we offer here. But here's another warning sign that sometimes we can ignore as men. When you get tired of the wife you have, and so you want to trade her in for a newer model, I gotta tell you that when you married her, there's no trade-ins accepted. You pledge to be with her until death departed, until until you were parted by death. And so as a result of that, you need to think about not how I can trade her in for a newer model, but how can I continue the love that we said we had in the very beginning. So, one of the things I do when I talk with couples who are struggling, uh, I even do this with couples who are talking about getting married. I want to hear about when they fell in love, what brought them together in the first place, how uh they were were getting ever got to this place that they wanted to get married to uh to each other. And so sometimes, especially especially with a couple that's struggling, when we think about and go back to the very beginning when they first loved each other and couldn't stand to be apart from each other, um the I I'm trying to help them see what that was like and maybe develop some strategies and some steps to rekindle that flame. And I want them to understand that, and I want you guys to understand this because a marriage covenant is a binding, solemn agreement before God and the witnesses that are there, where we each pledge, like I said, to have and to hold from this day forward for better or for worse. And I've talked about those vows already, but you don't give up when life gets hard on those vows. When those vows are are are struck, you're struggling to see them take place every day. Uh you don't decide to leave at that point just because it's a little stressful so that you can get out while the getting's good. I want to understand help, I want to help you understand how you can stay and you can work hard at building a godly marriage. And I've been in ministry long enough to know that not everyone listens to this truth because they want to twist it or overlook it, or at least one of you does, and you can't control how the other person responds. But you as a man, as the spiritual leader of your house, you definitely have control over how you feel about and think about and treat your wife. And so instead of twisting truth to see how you can get out of the marriage, think about how you can stand on truth and stay in it and rebuild it and strengthen it. Now, there are times when when extreme hurt and unfaithfulness has occurred and you didn't deserve it. Um, and that's probably where you're going to need some help. I want you to know that you can reach out. There's going to be a way to contact me by listening to the show notes and going to the bio. Here at High Point Church, we've got some marriage coaches that are available and they'll sit down with you and your wife and try to help you rebuild this. We have professional counselors that are here that see clients. We've offered divorce care at times here. We'll do anything that we possibly can to help you. And there may be even times in your situation where a separation is a good thing so that you can work on you and she can work on her, and then we can get some help while you try to work through this together. But I want to challenge you to think about what you can do before all this? What can you do to change this? Well, you can ask for help when you start to sense trouble. Don't wait until it's you're in over your head and and she's wanting to end it or you're wanting to end it. Ask for help when things start to go off track. Also, and I talked about this earlier, remember why you fell in love with her in the beginning. Don't forget how things started when you first got together. And then here's another one. I want you to think of ways you can love her instead of reasons that you should leave her. Don't go. So don't wait to get help. Don't forget why you fell in love in the first place, and don't go just because things get hard. Now, I do want to just spend some time talking with some of you that have gone through a divorce and you're struggling right now, and you wished that things would have worked out, and you wish your wife would have sat down with you and worked through this with a counselor, and you wish that that there could be some way that this could be repaired, but it can't. And you have spent years in agony and anguish and guilt, um, and you've beat yourself up for this, and you can't go back and change the things that you did wrong or the things that that she did wrong to where she did wrong to you. But what you can do is you can call upon a God that offers his grace and his forgiveness and his strength and his help. And so I just want to invite you to do that tonight. I want to pray for you, and I want you to know that I'm here to help you work through this, and we can get you connected with some of these marriage coaches, with counselors. Uh, we've got groups here for celebrate recovery as well. So we can get you connected with any or any or all of those if you need that. Because we as a church really believe in loving people right where they're at. It's part of our mission here that we love God and love people. And those are words straight from the heart of Jesus that we seek to live out every day. So we can't uh love God enough through our sin. He provides a way for us through Jesus to come back to him. And when we do that, we're part of a body of Christ that offers forgiveness and strength and community. And so maybe the best thing you can do is get around some other men that can help you. Some other men that maybe have been down that road that you're going down right now or thinking about going down, and they can stop you from doing that. They can share their own horror stories about that. Uh, maybe you can reach out to someone and have somebody that can hold you accountable to think about what changes you need to make in your marriage, starting right now. Maybe you need to get on the phone and call your wife. You can turn this off and get back to it later. But pick up the phone and call her and tell her how much you appreciate her and how much you love her, or ask for her forgiveness in whatever has happened to cause division and strife between you. But I know that, like I said, there are some of you that have already gone through this and you didn't ask for it and you didn't want it, and now you're trying to figure out how you're gonna live your life without your wife. I just want you to know that you're not alone, that there are some other men that we can connect you with here, and that there's a God that loves you and wants to help you. He is an ever-present help in times of trouble. And so I don't know who it is I'm speaking to, man. I don't know what it is that you're going through in your marriage. I do know that God hears your prayers, that the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective. So you start praying today for God to change your marriage, for him to strengthen your marriage, for him to deepen your marriage. That's what it means to follow Jesus, that we work hard to have a marriage that honors him. And when we do that, when we love our wife the way Jesus loved the church, we are following him in his path. And we're doing exactly what it means to be a disciple of him. And so I just hope this has challenged you to think about that. And maybe you're someone that's single and you're saying, I am waiting for that that woman to come along, or you're a woman that's listening to this and you're waiting for that man to come along. I got one more thing to say to you. Don't settle for someone. Be patient. God knows what he's doing, and if it's a desire in your heart to meet someone and to get married, I really believe that God's gonna bring that person along. So, so don't settle for someone that's not a believer or isn't as far along in their faith as you are. Trust the Lord, wait for him. The Bible says to wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. That's in Psalm 27. And so I just want you to think about that. If you're single and you want to meet someone, be waiting for who it is that God's bringing about in your life. Someday He's gonna bring someone along that says, I can't wait to talk to that person, and that person's you. So hang in there, continue to trust God. And again, we are here to help you. And so I'm gonna pray for you. And I want you to know, like I said, that you can reach out to us. If you have comments or questions, click on that link in the bio and reach out to me. I would love to hear from you. I would love to answer your questions. And most importantly, if you're struggling to figure out what it means to be a godly man in a marriage, I want to talk to you and I want to try to help you. Let me pray for you. Lord, I am uh coming before you now as we close out this episode of this podcast. You know the desire for this is to help men become disciples of Jesus. And one of the most important ways they can do that is how they lead their family, particularly their wife that you gave them. So I pray for men who are listening to this. There are men who are listening who have been married to women that are godly, and they are godly as well, and they have the best kind of marriage that you can have, then there are other men who want that. They would love to do that, they would love to have that, they would love to experience that, but they don't know how. I pray that something I've said on here would help them to figure that out, help them to start down that path. And if they don't know where to start, that they would ask for help. And we as a church would be able to point them in that direction. I pray that your Holy Spirit would help them to see changes that they might need to make in their home and in their marriage, and how they think and look and feel about their wife, how they talk about her, what they dream about doing with her in the future, steps that they need to take to do that, trips they want to go on, the kind of influence they want for their kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, what kind of legacy do they want. Help them to understand that living for Jesus means that we do that every single day. And I'm praying for those who have experienced divorce and are hurting because of it. You tell us to come to you when we're weary and heavy burdened, and you'll give us rest. And I believe that you're a God that heals our hurts and knows what's going on in our life, and that you are uh working all things together for good when we love you and have been called according to your purpose. So I'm praying for that man today who needs to trust you, even though his marriage is over. And I'm praying for that man who is waiting to meet that woman that he's going to marry. He thinks he knows what she's going to look like, what kind of personality she'll have, what kind of dreams and desires she'll have, but he doesn't know that because he hasn't met her. So help him to be patient until you bring her along. And help him to have his eyes open to see her when she does come along. And when she does, help him to be ready to step up and be the kind of man that she needs to have in her life. And I ask all of this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Well, guys, that's our time for this episode. I just want to thank you for joining me again for this teaching lesson. I hope that it's been helpful to you. I hope that it's challenged you to take a look in the mirror and really think about the kind of man you are and the kind of man you're becoming. And listen, I want you to know that we're here to help you. So I'll talk to you later when we'll get together again for another episode where we're trying to help every man become a godly man. Thanks so much for joining us. Reach out to us if you have comments or questions. Again, that link is in the bio. And I appreciate you being here for another episode of Miking Disciples. Thanks for joining us today for this latest episode of Miking Disciples. If you have any comments or questions, I would love to get for you to go to the comments or questions link that's found in the description of the episode. And I really would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for joining us today. We'll talk to you later.