Why Your Home is Your Loudest Gospel Language | The Fullness | Luke Humbrecht

Discover how marriage serves as a powerful living parable of the gospel in this transformative exploration of Ephesians 5. Learn why Paul revolutionized ancient relationship dynamics by organizing households around the cross rather than power structures. This biblical marriage teaching reveals how mutual submission and sacrificial love create prophetic signs of God's kingdom that impact entire communities.

Explore the true meaning of biblical headship and submission in marriage, moving beyond cultural misunderstandings to discover God's design for flourishing relationships. Understand how husbands are called to lead through sacrifice, creating conditions for their wives to thrive, while wives practice voluntary submission that empowers rather than diminishes. This isn't about hierarchy but about beautiful differentiation within complete equality.

Whether you're married, single, engaged, or in a relationship, these principles of mutual submission and self-giving love apply to all your closest relationships. Learn how your household can become a shining light that demonstrates the reality of Christ's love to your neighbors and community. Discover practical ways to move from organizing relationships around power to organizing them around the cross.

This message addresses common misconceptions about biblical marriage roles while providing a fresh perspective on how Christian relationships should reflect the gospel. Perfect for couples seeking to strengthen their marriage, singles building community, and anyone wanting to understand how relationships can proclaim God's love. Find encouragement for the journey, knowing that grace covers our failures and the Holy Spirit empowers us to love like Christ.


This sermon was recorded at a Sunday morning gathering at Church of the Lookout in Longmont, Colorado.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast. Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love. Visit us online at thelookout.church. So uh this morning, uh just just kind of a heads up of where we're going. First of all, again, my name is Luke. So glad to have you. Um, we're gonna open the scriptures together, continue our journey through Ephesians, which is gonna come to an end next week. Boo, right? It's been an awesome journey. Um, but uh so today we're gonna do the message and and then have a time of response. But at the very end of the service, we're gonna do something special. We're actually gonna honor uh Bob and Betty Young together in a just a special season of transition that they're in. So I just want to encourage you, um, if you're tracking with time, you'll notice that kind of some of our normal stuff ends a little bit earlier than normal. Don't just beeline once you hear the singing later uh, you know, for the doors. Just hang out a little bit because the last part of the service is actually really important for our community here today. Sound good? So um if you have your Bibles open up to Ephesians chapter five, if you do not have a Bible, you will find some Bibles on either these back tables or out in the lobby. You're free to take one of those blue Bibles and uh we'd love for you to have your own. Um and and again, uh, if if you're just popping in for the first time in quite a while, we've been in this book called Ephesians. It's a letter that Paul wrote. It's a short letter, about six chapters, that Paul wrote as as the early church was exploding, and they were trying to catch up with the movement of as the gospel was just moving out and people's hearts were responding and churches were being established. Paul was uh he was doing his best to write letters to these churches. He was in a prison, but he's he's he was digging deep for language to express what what had happened in Christ and what that means for him now. And so we're kind of further along in that letter, and so now he's drilling in now. He's gonna start drilling in. If you thought it was just like conceptual and theoretical in the last several weeks, it's like he's getting down to where the rubber meets the road today, okay? So we're gonna start in verse 21. Uh just read with me here today. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does for the church. Because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Um, so you guys notice quickly out of the gate, we're drilling into some of the most intimate relationships. This little passage that we're getting into as Ephesians ends, uh, Paul starts writing about key relationships in the household of God. This passage that we just read has to do with the marriage relationship, which we know that the marriage relationship is part of um, you know, a lifelong expression of how God is loving the world. And it's, you know, it's an expression that we we grow into over time, and uh, and our relationship and relationships in marriage uh changes over time. There's a story about this older couple, Jack and Mary, that I read about. Um they they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. And at the end of a day long of festivities, they came home and they're sitting at home, and Jack took Mary by the hand and he said, Mary, I just want you to know I'm so proud of you. And uh, but she was kind of hard of hearing, her hearing wasn't what it used to be. So she said, What was that, Jack? And he said, Honey, I'm so proud of you. And she said, Oh, Jack, it's all right. I'm tired of you too. So 60 years of love, and it's still being worked on one day at a time. I'm proud of you. Yeah, I'm tired of you too. Um, and so, you know, I think to appreciate what we're getting into in the book of Ephesians, you have to understand why Paul starts talking about these kinds of relationships and what they matter. It's not just a new manual for how to do relationships. There's a bigger picture going on. When we started the book of Ephesians, he starts with a picture of awe, of see what has happened in Christ. Do you see what has happened in heavenly places, that that Christ has adopted us into himself, that we are already in Christ, chosen, sealed, beloved. Before he ever asks anything of us, we turn our attention to what he's already done for us. We don't earn our place, we receive it as beloved sons and daughters. Somebody say amen. And from there, Paul moves into what that means. He moves into this picture of unity, of we've been reconciled to God even in our sin. And because of that, now we've been reconciled to each other. It's the power of God that that changes, it reconciles us both to each other and um uh globally. I mean, it reconciles all the differences that have held us apart and all the dividing walls that have held us apart. It's a new humanity, a new family. The walls have come down. And so, because of that, in the church, as we come together in unity, God starts to release his gifts, and there's a fullness that starts to happen in the church. Christ is filling his church all in all, that the that we might be filled with the fullness of God. And that's what I signed up for, guys. I don't know about you. I signed up for the fullness of God. I hope that's what you signed up for because that's what he's inviting us into, his fullness. Be filled with the fullness of God. And he keeps just, he keeps, he takes it up here until look what's happened in heavenly places. He starts working this in. And now he arrives to this chapter about relationships. He brings it all home. Literally, he's bringing it home. The cosmic, sweeping, breathtaking language, the fullness of time, it's all coming down into the living room now. Because how many of you guys know? The gospel can be proclaimed in the sanctuary, but what really matters is how it plays out in the living room. You can have revival on a Sunday, but what's happening on a Tuesday morning in the kitchen, man? That's that's what Paul is saying. You cannot separate the two. And when we try to do that, that's it's part of the issue, you know, when we talk about revival and revivalism and this whole thing. I I love, I love church. I love church services, I love the power of God, I love worship, I love what we're doing here this morning. But how many of you guys know, man, the measure of our maturity is worked out into the quality of love in our relationships, especially the relationships closest to us. All right? So if you want to ask me how I'm really doing, don't judge me based on how I preach or how I teach or how I lead. You go talk to my wife and my kids. They'll tell you how I'm really doing. Okay? Don't talk to me. I'll tell, yeah, I'll I I I can perform well, leaders can perform well, that's what we do. There's nothing wrong with that. But listen, the quality of the gospel played out in our lives is measured in our most intimate relationships. And it's not just husband-wife, it has to do with our community, our friendships, those that God surrounds us with. And that's what we're talking about. This passage starts to talk about husbands and wives, and later on, we don't have time for this today, but he talks about children and parents. That there's a mutual submission and self-giving love between children's and parents, children and parents. And then he moves into a passage about slave masters and servants, which I know is kind of, you know, your red flags go up immediately when you read a passage like this in the Bible. Um, there's a lot contextual happening here. We'll get to a little bit more of that in a second. But for all sakes and purposes, you could talk about employers and employees and workers. There's there's something that has to do with the whole household of God. And Paul, what he does is he starts going through these relationships, he does what no other philosopher or religious teacher had done before him. He takes all of these relationships and he runs them through the logic of the cross. Okay? Which brings us kind of to where we're at today because what happens in your household is more significant than you think. It's actually a prophetic sign to the watching world of heaven coming to earth. What happens in our household is actually can be and should be a prophetic sign of what God is doing. This is why it matters to Paul.

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T. Wright, one of the premier, one of my favorite New Testament scholars, he talks about this. He says that, you know, Paul knows that a Christian household has the chance, the vocation to be a shining light in a dark street. He wants the neighbors to be able to see in to our homes and our relationships with their own eyes and ears, what it means, what it looks like to live in mutual submission. In other words, to live out the gospel of the crucified and risen Jesus. That our households have the potential to be a shining light on a dark street. Who wants that to be the case? Come on. Not a perfect household, not a household without conflict or struggle. Somebody say amen. But a household with a different spirit operating inside of it. Different spirit operating inside of our households, inside of our relationships. Something that the watching world can say there is a different flavor, there is a different texture. I don't quote, I don't quite know what it is, but there's an aroma of something different coming out of those relationships. I believe, I believe this is possible for us in the Spirit of God. This is a kingdom vision for us, for our homes. Now, again, I'm today I'm not gonna spend as much time talking about children and parents and slaves and masters. Um, but I will talk about, I want to talk to our singles, I want to talk to our married couples today. Um, and and specifically, I just got to name something, a couple things real quick. Coming into Ephesians 5, you read a passage like that. Um, it it doesn't sometimes you read this and it doesn't quite feel like good news. In fact, it feels a little bit like a minefield, can we be honest? When we get to some of this language, it's like, yikes! How are we gonna navigate that one? Well, welcome to church, okay? Um, and maybe you've been in this passage before, and you've and and and you've this passage has been used as a weapon in your relationships. Can we just acknowledge that for a second? This book, the scriptures, which I believe are holy, which I believe that God has given to us, they also can be used as a weapon from time to time. And in our lives, and we can use that in our relationships. And sometimes a scripture like this is used to keep women silent, to justify control, to dress up power dynamics and religious veneer. And just acknowledge this morning, that stuff is real and it's caused very genuine harm to real people, and I don't want to minimize that. I also think that having the right context and having the right frame to view it in is super helpful to understand what to do with it and what the true invitation of God is in this. So if you're single, you know, passages like this about marriage, they feel like it'd be easy to kind of skip over, like, oh, this is for somebody else. Or maybe like you you wandered into the wrong room, or this would have been the better day to skip church and go hiking, right? Um, but that's not the invitation today. Listen, if you're single, this has everything to do with you and your relation, the covenant relationship with the Lord. And if you're single, it is in your best interest to pray for the marriages in the room because you need the marriages in the church to win. Okay? And and for the married, I would say the same thing for our singles. We want our singles to thrive and flourish in the relationships in the community that we surround them with. Um, as a single, you're called to cultivate rich, God-honoring community marked by many of the same qualities we'll discuss today. It's just they're different vocations for for the time. And if you're married right now and you're here today, or maybe uh maybe you've come out of a marriage, maybe you're headed towards a marriage, um, uh, and and and possibly things are hard right now. Can we just acknowledge that, gosh, marriage is not like we read about it, it sounds so good when you read it, like what Paul has to say about it. And remember, Paul was a single too, and so he was writing about marriage. He's as a single, he's like, this is how good, this is this is why your marriages matter, right? So just remember that. Paul was elevating the marriages. He's like, You're married, you gotta, you guys, you guys gotta get this right for the rest of us. But with Paul, uh, or with in our marriages, we can acknowledge that that sometimes it's hard, and the last thing you need is a sermon that makes you feel more behind. Okay? I'm just gonna acknowledge that. That sometimes you can hear even a great message and still start feeling like, gosh, mine's not quite like that. Okay. I just want to say grace to you. Grace to you in Christ Jesus. There's a place for there's an invitation for all of us here today. And we gotta get through passages like this so we can see God's invitation. And I do believe it's actually for all of us to see the vision around it. And and I think per you know, again, the first thing we need to understand is Paul is not primarily writing a marriage manual, he's writing a theology of the cosmos and the church, but made visible in your living room. Okay? It's huge. It's huge. Now, in the ancient Greco-Woman Roman world, the oikos, the oikos, which is the Greek word for the household, this is not just a place you slept and ate. It was understood to be the foundational unit of society. And what happened in a household was considered to be a direct reflection of the values and the order of the world that belonged to you. So every philosopher from Aristotle onward had a version of what we'd call a household code, okay? And uh, and they believed that the household was to model what was happening in the state and in civilization. So all of these philosophers were writing instructions for how various members of a household should relate to one another. And pretty much in that time period the logic was already always the same. Authority flows downwards. And in their in this case, most of them believed like the male rules the wife, the male rules the children, the male rules the slaves, the male rules everything. And that's the order of things, and that's how all civilization holds together. So, this is what makes this so counter-cultural when Paul and the writers of the New Testament show up and they start writing about their own household codes, but they start reverse-engineering it with the cross at the center rather than power being at the center. And so when you read through the scriptures, you're gonna find this in different books of the Bible in Ephesians and Colossians, 1 Timothy, Titus, uh, 1 Peter. You'll read these sections of the scripture called household codes, and you'll know them because you'll be reading through these letters, and it's all these huge ideas about God and you know, massive theological concepts, and then it drops back down into so husbands, wives, slaves, masters, uh, children, parents, they start naming all of these different kinds of relationships within the church because they had a new household code. And so here's what is so counter-cultural about Paul's household code that we just read. In verse 21, right before the the right before we start talking to wives, he sums it all up in verse 21 saying this submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Submitting, if you want a household code, let's start here, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. All of these relationships that Paul starts talking about, there's kind of one thread that he's saying, your relationships must, if they're gonna look anything like Jesus, anything like what God is doing on earth, they must be marked by mutual submission and self-giving love. Before he says a single word, he says, listen, there is a calling within your relationships that they're cross-shaped, self-goting self-giving, others-oriented. Why? Because the world organizes relationships around power, but Jesus organizes them around the cross. I'm just telling you. If you just sit with that for a second, the world organizes relationships around power. Jesus organizes them around the cross, which doesn't mean every relationship, every single one. There's no no exception. Every relationship is now flavored through Jesus and his work on the cross. And Paul, his claim is that when a household household starts operating by that logic, when a mutual submission becomes a culture of a home and community, something prophetic begins to happen. People notice, neighbors notice, the street notices because they've never seen anything quite like it. It's not happening in the world. Where else is it gonna happen? In the Church of Jesus Christ. And so again, this ties back into where Paul has been taking us all along, Ephesians 1, that God's plan was to unite all things in him, all things in heaven and on earth. He wants to bring everything together. And the big idea in the scriptures is that heaven and earth are coming together. They were fractured at the fall, but they're being brought back together in Christ. It's the great cosmic reconciliation, which is why Paul then goes in in verse 32 in chapter 5. This is why he says, This mystery is profound. I'm saying it refers to Christ and the church. And so you gotta catch this. This is so important. Marriage is not just a social arrangement. It is not uh it's it's it's not just something we do so we can grow old together. It's beautiful. Um, it's more than a partnership, more than a lifelong friendship. It's a living parable of the gospel, it's a sign pointing to something bigger than itself, the union of Christ and his church, which is which which which the church is supposed to be a prophetic picture of heaven and earth being joined together. And so what that means is we can understand marriage by looking at the way Jesus loves his church, and we can understand the church by looking at the way a husband and a wife love each other. They both learn from each other and they're both windows into the same reality. Okay? They're both windows into the same reality. So it's not just about whether you're happy together and whether your kids are growing up healthy or you know, about surviving hard seasons. That's all a beautiful picture of marriage. But this is a but marriage in and of itself is to be this declaration, a signpost of the incoming kingdom of God, a good kingdom that uh that that is marked by self-giving love more than self-protecting power. The cross is not just a historical event, but a new way of life that can transform everything. Which is which is which this this what should happen when we read this kind of passage, it should elevate, it should bring us into a higher altitude of what we're doing. When a husband and a wife make a covenant before God to each other, it elevates the importance of what we're doing because it's not just about us, it's about God and the message that He's sending to the whole world about how he's trying to love the world until the very end. So, let's talk about a couple things, a couple questions here. When people hear phrases like, wives submit to your husbands, we immediately things get weird in the room. Some lean in, some cross their arms, some check out entirely. I just want to say, you know, you know, it really deserves a more full treatment, but we believe here at Church in the Lookout, we believe in the full equality of men and women in the household of God. And I believe that's what the full counsel of the scripture would talk about. And that's what happens when we come to the gospel. While men and women are wired differently and have a different place, there is an equality in the gospel. And uh, we believe here in this church that women are also called to lead, women are also called to teach and to serve at every level of the church's life. And that's not a concession to culture. I think it's a conviction this read in the scripture. You even see it in the women that surrounded Paul, uh, the early church. Was shaped by women, apostles like Junia, Priscilla, Phoebe, even Mary Magdalene, as we read last week, was one of the first people commissioned to proclaim the good news of the resurrection to the world. Go and tell the others. So there's a beautiful thing about, you know, when you read through, you know, when you're trying to reconcile some of the strong language about men and women in the scriptures to the way it lives out, I believe that I believe fully in my heart, and I know as a church we believe this that women's voice are incredibly important in the household of God. Are you guys with me on that? And so equality is the foundation that's not negotiable. But with equality, everything in the in the, this is why Paul writes in other places, you know, when you come into Christ, there is no Jew and Gentile, male, female, slave or Greek. It doesn't mean that those differentiations don't matter. It just means that there's now a level playing ground from which God starts to differentiate and diverse expressions start to move out. And so that's why diversity also marks the household of God. Men and women are different. And within that, there are different roles, not of hierarchy or worth, but differentiation shaped by the logic of the cross. And so when we read words like head of the household, head, this Greek word kifale, in Paul's usage, I think it's really important that when we read the word head through a Western lens, we think boss. It doesn't mean boss. It means source, it means origin from one, the one from whom life flows, okay? So what does the head do? Well, apparently to Paul, husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her. So what does the head do? The head dies, washes feet, empties himself entirely for the flourishing of the one he loves. Anybody want to be a head? It's a death sentence, is what it is. But what else do you want? What else marks the way of Jesus? So if a husband reads, I am the head and confuses that for, I'm the one who makes the decisions around here, I think it's fundamentally flawed understanding of this passage. Fundamentally flawed, completely destructive. The head, by Paul's definition, is the one who sacrifices the most, the one who creates the conditions for the other person to be fully gloriously themselves. I'm so happy that my wife is so herself and she's not me. She has her own voice, and she will tell you that she does. And I love that. I love that. She's differentiated. We are one in flesh, but she is gloriously herself. And I'm better for it, and she is better for it, and I am not like her. And together, we love each other for the way that God has wired us together. And within that, we have multiple opportunities to submit to one another. We have multiple opportunities to forgive one another. Sometimes she knows what to do and I don't know what to do. Sometimes I know what to do and she doesn't know what to do. But it's the beauty of the coming together that's modeling heaven and earth coming together. This word submission is also a tricky one. Not one of our favorite words in the scriptures, all right? Not one of our favorite words as Americans, can we just say that? Submission. But submission is part of the life flow of relationships within the kingdom of God. It's a word that it doesn't mean coercion or silence or diminishment. It's actually a voluntary, active mutual posture. Voluntary, active. It's not passive, it's an active mutual posture. It's the posture of the cross operating inside a relationship. It says, I'm choosing to give myself to your flourishing. And that's what marriage is called to model. That's what relationships are called to model, though, even within God-honoring community. And that's the thing is when we read these passages about the household, they don't, in a modern sense, we have this whole thing of a nuclear family, this whole thing. That's a very recent idea, by the way. Historically, households were just like this robust network of dozens of people, children, parents, husbands, wives, uncles, aunts, grandparents, spiritual mothers, fathers, the whole thing, employers, workers, the whole thing, all kind of living within this intertwined network. And there's this dependence. So what we're talking about in marriage, mutual submission is to mark all of the kind of relationships that we hold within the household of God, that we submit to one another in love for God. And it doesn't mean that there's the absence of conflict, but it is a clear direction. And it's shaped by the love of Jesus. When a marriage has that quality, and when the household of God has that quality, it becomes a sign and a wonder, a window into the world that is desperate for a new way forward but doesn't know where to find it. And this is where I just think it's really important that we understand that the church and the household really have the same DNA. This is something that has been lost over the last 500 years with the Protestant Reformation. Um we missed this part, I think, of what Paul was talking about, the robustness of the church and the unity of the church. At some point it turned about, turned into we're going to unify around just agreeing with each other on everything. Um and that's and so it's led to this massive fracturing of the church, the global church over the last five, six hundred years since the Protestant Reformation. We just keep splitting and we keep shrinking the church down to gatherings of individuals who agree with each other. And when we stop agreeing, we leave. Now, there are certain things doctrinally that we agree with absolutely. But Paul, he sees something completely different. I think he'd be shocked if he saw what's happened globally in the church today, because he saw the church as the primary sign of God's cosmic plan. He said there's something happening that's so incredible that even the rulers and the powers in heavenly places are going to look down and see the wisdom of God and be shocked by how wise God has been. And the sign of that is going to be the quality of love within the church. That's why we talk about this so much here at the Lookout. And so marriage, Paul says, shares that same theological DNA. It's differentiated unity. We're all equal but completely different, submitted to each other in love. And this is why Paul's instructions, this is really important. This is why Paul's instructions to the household are not just a footnote. This isn't just like, oh, the afterword. This is the appendix of the real good stuff. No, this has everything to do with how the gospel is lived out. If it's not lived out in the home, then it hasn't taken root in our heart. I don't care how loud you sing, I don't care how many people got healed, how on point your prophecies, prophecies are. It's like love is measured by the quality of love in our households. We'll die on that hill. We should die on that hill. Because we've let too much happen in the church around gifting and power, but haven't expected the same thing to play out in our relationships. Shame on us. This is what God expects of us. And he gives us his Holy Spirit to empower us to that end. We're not on our own to figure it out. Thank you, Jesus. So when our relationships, our marriages, relationships reflect mutual submission, self-giving love, you're participating in the proclamation of the gospel. One of my mentors at Pizza Casero says he says, uh your marriage is your loudest gospel message. And you're single for singles too. The quality of your community and the people you give yourself to is your loudest gospel message to the world. No matter what comes out of your mouth, the quality of relationships is the what you broadcast to be a sign and foretaste of the kingdom that's coming. And so we get all these chances to work this out. We stumble through this. I stumble through this. I'm thankful for grace. I'm thankful for forgiveness. I I was reminded of a couple years ago, about this time, a few years ago, um, I was watching the the Nuggets play and I was really excited. And uh watching the Denver Nuggets play the Lakers in the playoffs. And it was game three, and it was in LA. And I'm watching, it's late at night because sometimes those basketball games go late. And uh so my decision-making uh ability was was running thin. And uh I I put the I put together the logic, like, oh, they're winning game three, that means game four is gonna be back in Denver. I should probably buy tickets to this game. Okay, and so I something came over me, and my hands just kind of went to my phone and just bought some playoff tickets. And I just didn't quite think it through. Um, and and again, my willpower had just denigrated just all day. It's like you know, 11 o'clock at night. And I I just thought, this is gonna be a great idea. I'm gonna buy some tickets, I'm gonna buy a few tickets to the Denver playoff game. So I went online and just like boom, bought some tickets. Then I looked at the amount and I'm like, oh my God. Uh immediately, immediately, like buyer's remorse, you know, and I'm like, oh God, I didn't even talk to my wife about this. Because we have a kind of a thing, uh, you know, for a certain amount, we talk, we talk about our finances together, as you should, and uh, and you we kind of have an agreed-upon amounts of like, hey, anything above this amount, like let's talk it through. Well, this was above that amount. Okay. But I just lost my mind, okay. And so immediately I'm like, oh God, I can't tell her I did this. Like that, this is terrible. I'm not being a good husband right now. And so, so I'm like, you know, uh, I was thinking, okay, well, I could tell her and just go to the game, but I'm just imagining in my head what that conversation is gonna be like. But then I went to the next like plan B, which was okay, I gotta fix this and not tell her at all. So I'm gonna sell these things, all right? I'm gonna sell them. I'll never have to tell her. It's just gonna be over. And uh, and so I'm trying to scheme up all these ways, like, oh, this is not good. And so I list the tickets, and like a couple days go by, and the game's getting closer, and these tickets are not selling. And I'm like, oh man, this is like, this is not good. So it was like the more like the afternoon of the game. And I'm realizing, like, okay, dude, you gotta buck it up, man. You go talk to your wife, tell her what you did. You need to fall on your sword, you need to make this right. Whatever you have to do. You're cooking dinner, you're doing dishes, you're you're doing whatever, however many back rubs she needs, like, whatever. I'm working this up, man. Just own this. And so I call her, I said, listen, babe, I gotta confess something to you. She's like, What? You know, uh obviously when you start a confession off with, I need to confess something. That's not a great way to start a conversation. Because now her imagination's running wild. And so I told her, I said, listen, I I bought these playoff tickets uh the other day, and uh it's for a game tonight, and I I realized I we didn't talk it through, so I feel super bad about this. I'm really sorry. Will you forgive me? And uh she said, Oh, just take the boys. Oh. Like that's it? Like that's okay, yeah. I mean, yeah, that's what I was thinking too. I'll just that's why I bought the tail, I'll just take the boys, you know. She said, Yeah, Asher's birthday's coming up, just take the boys. I'm like, oh yeah, good, thank you. I'm glad we're on the same page, you know. And uh, and I was just kind of shocked because I had an imagination of how this conversation was gonna go, all right, if I were her. And she was just very gracious, and she was like, hey, this is this is actually really good. We needed a birthday present for Asher. Anyway, so let's go. So I ended up taking the boys, ended up being one of the most memorable sporting events. Like you ask my son Asher, he'll tell you it's probably it'll probably go down as one of the best playoff games, you know, one like jump shot at the last second, beat the Lakers. It was awesome. And uh I remember walking away from that, just reconciling what I needed in that moment, and just kind of this sense of like I had my imagination built up for what I deserved in the moment, and her ability to kind of absorb the energy, recycle it, bring forgiveness, turn it into something new. And I was thinking, thank you, God, for a great wife. And then, you know, and then it was a couple months later, you know, she she asked, like, so how much were the tickets? And I told her, and she's like, You spent what? So we got to that part later, but man, it was like just mutual submission, guys, mutual submission, heaven and earth coming together. And the nuggets won. So, anyways, so that's the end of my sermon. Um here's what I want to do. Uh, we're gonna kind of wrap up our time. And again, I just want to encourage you just to stick around for a bit. Here's what I want to do. If there's one thing I want you to remember this morning, it's this your relationships, the way that these play out, be it single or married, are the primary way that the gospel expresses itself in your life. It's the primary way. And so to that end, you know, this morning, there's probably a lot of ways we could end, but I just want to end with a chance to receive a blessing. And uh, and if if you're here in the room and and you're single, you just want the blessing over your friendships and your relationships. We want to have a chance for you to receive that. If you're here and and you're married or you're preparing to get married, we want a chance to bless you as well. So here's what I'm gonna do. The worship team's gonna come up. I'm gonna invite some of our ministry team and some of the couples um in uh that are part of our prayer team just to come to the front, to the sides of the room. If if if if you're a part of that, you can get up now and just kind of go to the sides. And and here's what I want to invite us to do. Like a message like this can kind of land in different places. And sometimes when we evaluate our relationships again, sometimes I can feel like, ah, maybe you're aware of like where you're falling short or where others are falling short in your life. And certainly there's no, there's there's all kinds of places we can go, but one thing I think we can all agree on is we need the blessing and favor of God to mark our homes, to mark our marriages, to mark our friendships, to mark our work relationships, all of the things. And if nothing else today, I just want to give a chance for that. So what's gonna happen is in a second, the worship team is gonna start playing. I'm just gonna ask you if you'd like a blessing today, uh, just go to one of the couples or one of the, you know, uh, you know, the single ministry team leaders around the room, whoever you want to go to, and they're gonna pray a short blessing over you. It's not gonna be, you know, long and blown out. They're just gonna put their hands on you and bless your household, bless your home, bless your closest relationships, that they would be marked by the power and the love of Jesus. Amen? Amen. So I'm gonna pray and we're gonna sing, and you can go do that, and then just stick around after that because then we're gonna honor Bob and Betty, okay? So, Jesus, I thank you today that as we talk about relationships here in this room, this hits us in all kinds of ways, but I just thank you that there is no but better example for our relationships and our households than what you've modeled on the cross. I thank you for your cross. I thank you for the way that you have laid down your life for us. And I thank you that you are the head of your church. And we submit to you, and Jesus, we say we love you today. Our hearts move towards you. And I thank you that as we love you, that you teach us how to love each other, to receive your love and to love each other. So this morning, as we end with blessing, I just thank you to visit us and be with us in Jesus' name. Amen. So let's stand together across the room. Thank you for giving us a little extra time this morning. And listen, I just want to invite our ministry team members, if you could just kind of um be available as well. If you did not get prayer yet, if you didn't get a blessing yet, and you would like one, and you should ask for a blessing, um, we encourage you to go to one of our ministry team members. They just want to pray a short prayer over you before we go. For the rest of us, listen, if you're a guest, we want to meet you in the back at our Connect with us sign. We'd love to say hi. For the rest of us, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make his face to shine upon you, may He be gracious to you and give you rest. Go in the strength and joy of the kingdom of God. Thanks, guys.