(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

I came today to shake up hell a little bit, but how many of y'all have watched yesterday this thing on YouVersion Gather?

Come on, come on.

Hundreds of churches across the world have gathered for the last 24 hours to make hell shake a little bit, so that they know that the Church of God is alive, well, and strong all across this world.

Hundreds and hundreds of churches.

Now, I've been, I do this every year.

I do the Bible in a year plan.

I do the Nicky Gumbel and PIPA and all that, and I've never actually done it in a year.

Like, it's always like a year and some change, you know, like a year and a month because, you know, stuff happens and you miss.

But I'm fired up about a year and a month or a year and two months because the first time I read the Bible cover to cover took 32 years, but it's really cool because they have this new feature this year where every day that I complete one, I get like this, great job, great job, and it's just a little notification that's like a gold star.

Ladies, if you were sitting next to a man right now, there is still an eight-year-old inside of him that's saying, mom, look at me, watch this.

We love gold stickers.

That's it.

You know, like in football, every time you get a tackle, you get a sticker on your helmet.

I mean, my thing was covered and I felt like the man walking out there with all my stickers.

And not a whole lot changes as life goes on, but I wanted to talk to you today about something incredibly important.

I want to talk to you about marriage.

What makes that happen?

Marriage.

Marriage to your spouse, but also what we are as the Church, as the Bride of Christ.

Marriage, to define it, I want to make this really, really clear.

God created that institution.

It is for one man and one woman.

Period.

There's nothing else.

That's it.

God created this institution for one man and one woman.

Here in this country, and it kind of pleases me to know that this has actually changed a lot in the last couple years.

A few years back, we had a 62% divorce rate in America.

Now, that number has dropped, praise God, to about 49%.

Not great, but that's a big change.

But I want to talk about the why.

It's the absolute highest form of relationship, biblically speaking, that we can possess with a human being.

So much so, it's the same image that God gave for him and his church, that we were to be married.

When we get married, and I want to take this second, if you're here and you're married, take some notes.

If you're here and you're not married, take some notes.

If you're here and you're thinking about maybe getting married one day, take some notes.

If you're like, been there, got the t-shirt, never doing that again, take some notes.

You are still married to God.

Absolute highest form, an institution created by God himself for one man and one woman.

I don't believe that 49% of the people that stand before God, everybody they've ever cared about their entire life and say that no matter what come hell and high water, I'm sticking it out with this one, don't mean it.

I think they absolutely mean it.

Now, I mean, I'm sure there's some folks that are that are crazy, but I don't think that they don't mean it or they don't intend on doing what they say.

I think what happens is that most people grow apart.

Growing apart is a choice.

It's always a choice.

Doing nothing is a choice.

Doing something is a choice.

Love is a choice.

It is not something that happens to you by accident.

You look at somebody and that happens in the beginning stages, but I'm here to tell you and I'm somewhat qualified.

I've been married to this pretty lady over here for almost 19 years.

I've been...

I have no other memory, like no memories without her hardly.

Like we've been together since our junior year of high school.

Like hardly any other memories, but there have been some good memories.

There have been some really bad memories.

We've been really good at being good to each other and we have completely sucked at being good to each other.

All in that time.

But...

It's always a choice and when you first get together, you have all that, you know, you see the newlyweds.

They're just like skipping down the park.

I love you.

I love you.

Real intimacy can't truly take place until that's gone.

That's crazy.

When you really think about it, real intimacy.

God-designed intimacy.

The love that God wants you to have with your spouse cannot truly take place until those butterflies fly away.

Until it starts to become a daily choice.

So the first thing that I wrote down is love needs action.

Love needs action.

Love is a verb.

Love needs action the same way that an apology needs change.

It's good to apologize.

It's good to say, I'm sorry, but if you want her or him to believe you, you should probably do something a little bit different.

Does that make sense?

That's why the Bible tells us to repent and believe the gospel.

Repent doesn't mean, God, I'm so sorry for what I did.

I won't do it again till Tuesday.

It means I have turned from.

I see where I have been wrong.

I see where I've messed up and I'm going back this way.

And you are going to continually have to do it.

You will not get to some point in your life where you're like, you know what?

I am completely free of all sin.

If you do, then you will no longer be sucking air.

The process of sanctification is lifelong, lifelong.

And just like that song, it's purifying, but it's not purifying without tests.

If you are married or you're going to be married, you have some tests.

But growing apart is a choice.

I'm going to quote Frank Sinatra.

Some of y'all know who Frank Sinatra is.

He had this really good saying.

He said, if you are with a woman for seven years, you will likely encounter some problems.

If you leave her and you get with another woman and you're with her for seven years, you will likely encounter some problems that look a lot like the first set of problems.

Does that make sense?

But I want to tell you, 90 percent.

Hear me when I say 90 percent of your problems in your marriage and in your relationships as a whole are you.

It's you.

There's that little 10 percent cusp.

But the problem with it is, and why marriage is so hard, we always blame the other person.

So I was like, no, well, they've changed.

Well, yeah, they did.

We've all changed.

We're all constantly evolving.

But what happened is you forgot who you were talking to.

You forgot all the things that you had said about this person, all the reasons, and you started looking at things differently.

You forgot what God meant in the garden.

Ladies, I want to throw you a bone real quick.

In my research for this, I was researching Genesis 2.18.

And this is where God creates Eve, and she is a suitable helper.

Man, I want you to hear this too.

Suitable helper.

Now, I'm country, so when I think of that, I think of like a little apprentice.

You know, like, I could do it without you, but it's good to have the help.

You know what I mean?

She makes my life better.

She adds a little value.

That is absolutely not what that means.

In fact, I wrote it down.

Can I have my phone real quick?

I'm sorry.

This is a little impromptu.

I want to make sure that I say the word right.

Ezer k'negdo is the Hebrew.

Ezer k'negdo.

Ezer means strengthen.

Strengthen in a way that you didn't have before, that you were incapable of prior to.

She adds a level of strength to your life that you would not have without her.

That's not that kind of helper.

This isn't a helping hand.

This is a completion.

The first time that God said something that's not good in the Bible, He said it's not good for man to be alone.

And Eve wasn't an afterthought.

God took something from Adam to make Eve.

Ezer is also the word that is most commonly used throughout the Bible as God's relationship with Israel.

Let that sink in.

This woman, this man that you're talking to is going to make impacts on generations and how you treat them.

And the reason why I want to talk about this today, because I think the biggest issue, the biggest thing that the church is facing right now is moms and dads not loving each other the way that they should.

If mom and dad get it right, the kid wins 100% of the time.

If mom and dad don't get it right, the kid suffers 100% of the time.

Our view of love has been shaped by the media and rom-coms and sitcoms where all of it is, you know, the wife talks terrible about the husband and the husband talks terrible about the wife.

And I'm here to tell you, if that is you, you are dead wrong and you are jacking this thing up.

It's not what it could be if you would devote it to God. 100% of the problems in your marriage to God is you.

Romans, if you have your Bibles with you, turn to Romans 12.

Romans 12 is pretty fantastic.

This chapter really tells you how to be the church.

This is like the blueprint.

It's really, really simple, but it's a lot packed into it.

It says, Love must be sincere.

Hate what is evil.

Cling to what is good.

Be devoted to one another in love.

Honor one another above yourselves.

That last bit.

Honor one another above yourselves.

The reason why this is hard is because we as a whole are so incredibly selfish.

I'll make you squirm a little bit today.

You can hear the seats.

We're so selfish and we'll argue.

No, I do so much, though.

You have no idea how much I'm doing for the other person.

I did this and I did this and I did this and I did this and all of that.

But the reality is that we're selfish.

Lust is one of the biggest problems in marriage.

Lust is all selfishness.

It is all about me.

And so then when we get married and we look at our wives and then the kids come and everything is different.

I don't know what's going on.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

It's because you're not loving her in the way that you should.

Your marriage is going to go through seasons.

If it doesn't go through seasons, if there are not trials in the marriage, how on earth is it going to be purified?

How on earth is it going to be lifted into something that God, if that's the way that God does everything else to make it great, why would your marriage be different?

Why would there not be some difficulty in it?

But I wrote down some bullets that I wanted to share with you.

Number one, change how you look at your spouse.

Change how you look at your spouse.

We decided to use this LED wall for a tool.

What I mean by that is stop comparing them.

When Adam and Eve were in the garden, and this is this is significant, something that was pointed out to Tasha, when God brings Eve to Adam, and I want you to bear in mind what Adam has just gotten through doing.

Adam has just seen every single one of God's incredible creations and named them all.

That's what went down.

This is a literal book.

The whole book is literal.

This is exactly what happened.

Just looked at every single one of God's creations and named them all.

And then God brings Eve and he says, at last, I mean, like, I hear my like, whoo, for me.

You know what Adam didn't do?

He didn't compare Eve to any other woman, because it won't one.

Eve didn't compare Adam to any other man, because it won't one.

And it's funny, however, it's significant that that's the way that God set it up.

Some of the biggest issues in our marriage is when I'm comparing my wife to some TV wife that doesn't exist, or when I'm comparing my wife to some lady on Instagram that's full of herself, or when I compare my wife to somebody else's wife, or when you compare your husband to your friend's husband, and that, well, he's so sweet, well, you don't know all the things that are going on.

But maybe if you would water the grass where you were at, it would be greener than the grass out there.

Ladies, you want your man to be the man of your dreams?

Start praising what he's good at.

Stop telling him what he sucks at.

He knows what he sucks at.

All of us do.

We lay in bed all night thinking, well, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this.

But if you will praise what you want him to be, he'll become it.

If you will lift him up, and I'm going to tell you that there is nothing on this planet more powerful than a praying wife.

Oh, if you will pray circles around that man, that's what got me here.

Praying over me and around me day and night because I was in hell and I didn't see any way of getting out.

I built myself a beautiful prison down there and thought I'd just stay for all of eternity.

But praise God for a woman that loved me and cared for me enough to deal with my mess and pray me out of it.

Change how you look at them.

Don't compare them to anyone.

This is who I've chosen.

This is the mother of my children.

Your daughter will likely marry a man a lot like you.

Are you the kind of man you hope your daughter marries?

Your son will likely marry a woman a lot like you.

Are you the kind of woman that you hope your son marries?

Number two, change how you speak of your spouse.

How you speak to and how you speak of.

Don't you dare ever run down your wife in front of somebody else.

Don't you dare ever run down your husband in front of somebody else.

What happens when we do this is we train our brains to see those things.

I'm just going to my friend.

I'm just venting a little bit.

I'm just letting it all out.

What you've done is you've hammered into your brain the things that you're frustrated about, the things you don't like about them.

And then when you come home, you think you're going to be kind?

You think you're just going to love them to death when you get home?

No, you are going to be fixated on those things because we see what we're looking for all the time.

Like you ever bought a new car?

It's everywhere.

Everybody's got this car.

They didn't flood the market.

You're seeing what you're looking for.

And if you speak kindly of your wife, if you never miss an opportunity to bless her in front of in public, to affirm her in public and affirm her to her face.

And if you never miss an opportunity to bless him in public and bless him to his face.

Oh, your marriage will change.

I'm here to tell you, I'm living proof.

My marriage has changed now.

It took us a long time, 19 years.

And it's only been like the last year or so that we really started to figure this stuff out.

What's crazy about is how incredibly simple it was. simple it was and God's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have a whole book about it.

Could've just read that, you know, or maybe stop looking for yourself in there and look for me in there.

And I would've showed you who you really could be.

I want you to catch what I said.

Stop looking for yourself in the Bible because it's not about you.

It's to you.

It's about Him.

It is 66 love letters on how to love and how really to love.

Because if you start looking at the Old Testament, because I have a lot of students that are like, but the Old Testament seems so terrible.

It's like, God is like a different God back then.

No, Israel is His wife.

And she keeps cheating on Him.

She keeps leaving and following the Asherahs and following the Baals and it breaks His heart.

But every time she'll turn her heart back to Him, He'll put a robe on her, rings on her finger, sandals on her feet, and He will elevate her to the queen that He's chosen her to be.

Chosen.

Change how you speak to your spouse and how you speak of your spouse.

Number three, this one's tough, Mitt.

Listen actively with empathy resulting in movement.

It's good to hear your wife.

Now, I've had to learn.

Ladies, your man is predisposed.

We are wired this way.

When you tell us your problems, we want to fix them.

That's how we love you.

Like you just told me that all this stuff was wrong.

Here's how we can fix it.

What I had to learn is she don't always want me to fix it.

Sometimes she just wants me to listen.

This is ludicrous to me.

Listen and be like, yeah, that sucks.

I'm so sorry that happened.

Like that was terrible.

They said that?

Man.

And that's it.

So I've got this phrase.

It helps me.

Are you looking for solutions or comfort?

Do you need solutions or comfort right now, baby?

Do you need?

Because sometimes she wants some help.

You know, there's also been some times when I'm like actively listening like, yeah, that's terrible.

She's like, well, and I'm like, what?

The last three arguments are because I keep trying to fix things.

You know, as soon as you pull out a problem, I'm pulling out a D wall.

Listen actively with empathy resulting in movement.

That means I do something about it.

She told me this frustrated me last week.

This week, I want her to see me actively trying to correct it.

Like one of the things that, and listen, I'm going to be super transparent for a second.

One of the things that frustrated my wife that we've talked about over and over again, other than my closet is stop laughing.

I have a lot of shoes.

I like shoes.

My closet heaves sometimes and things end up outside of them, but she wanted help getting the kids to bed on time.

She's like, I feel like bedtime is all on me.

And in my normal, my brain, I was like, well, I feel like morning is all on me because I get up with him every day.

I get him to school every day.

All that.

I feel like this is a fair exchange.

Not really.

She didn't mean that she wanted me to just do everything for bedtime.

She wanted me to help her help, help, help, even if it's not your job, because we've gotten this stupid thought in our heads that our wives owe us something.

And you've got some stupid things in your head that your husband owes you something.

They are a gift to your life.

And if you will treat them as such, they will become more and more of that.

Number three, look for opportunities to bless your spouse.

Sorry for I'm from West Virginia.

I can't count like that.

Look for opportunities to bless your spouse, bless them.

I want you to wake up every day and say, God, what do you have for me today?

And I want you to wake up every day and think, man, how can I bless my wife?

How can I bless my husband?

How can I be good to them today?

How can I make a positive impact on their life today?

Last but not least, and this is probably the most important one, cherish your spouse, cherish them.

If you do good on these first few, the last one will be a lot easier when you cherish them.

I want you to think about them consistently.

I want you to think about blessing them.

And I want you to do all this.

And the reason why we're talking about this in church today is because I want the church to grow.

I want it to expand.

I want it to be generational.

I want you to heal generational issues because your parents didn't have it right.

And their parents probably didn't have it right because they weren't following what God said the constitution of marriage is.

And I want you to get it right.

Cherishing your spouse is a choice.

I'm going to love you to death daily, daily.

I want to get to the end of my road and leave nothing behind but a trail of love.

I want to give you your flowers while you're still here with me.

But I want to be really, really clear.

You are going to need to put God in the center of that marriage for any of this to work.

It's an institution created by God.

If you try to do it without God, it's not going to work.

It's just not.

But I want to challenge you, men, it's time for us to step up and be the spiritual leaders of our home again.

It's time for us to stand in the gap between our wives and our children and the enemy and say that if you want her, you're going to have to kill me.

If you want her, if you want my kids, you're going to have to kill me first.

Wives, I want you to stand in the gap for your husband and your kids, and I want you to look the enemy in the eye and say, if you want him, you'll have to kill me.

I will pray circles around him day and night.

I will pray circles around her day and night, and I'll pray circles around these kids because I know that prayer breaks chains.

Next thing I wrote down, love needs change.

Change.

When we get married, a lot changes.

We, you know, if you're a girl, your name changes.

Unless you're from California, then his name changes.

I thought I'd leave that in there for Richard.

Don't look at me like that.

Names get changed, the address gets changed, your license gets changed.

Some people need to go to the DMV still.

Suddenly, every choice you make impacts someone else's life.

So many of us don't really change though, which leads us to failed marriages.

A lot of times we want the benefits of the marriage, but not the work of the change.

There's a lot of people, especially, you know, a lady when she's getting about 30, 35, something like that and all of her friends are getting married and she sees that she wants to be married so daggone bad, but God ain't bless you with a husband yet because you ain't fit for one yet.

He's still working some stuff out in you.

And as men, he's still working some stuff out in you.

We've got to get to a place, but it's like that with God too.

We don't change often.

We want to go to heaven and we don't want to go to hell.

So we say that prayer that the preacher says, say, and then we don't change our lives because God's good.

He's going to forgive me.

He'll forgive me.

And it's true.

God's grace is never ending.

It's abounding, but God positively wants you to change the whole point of repenting and believe in the gospel is so that everybody say so that you change, not so that you can straddle some fence for years with splinters in your butt of picking which God you want to worship.

Some of us ain't read the Bible in years.

Last month, people were freaking out because they were taking tick-tock.

But if they'd have taken some of our Bible apps, it would have taken us six months to notice.

We love going to church.

We love sermons, but we don't love the word of God.

We love pastors, but we don't love what the book says.

And the book is right 100% of the time, but we're also straddling fences with other gods.

We're praying to God, but we got crystals.

We put these rocks on our baby because it does something.

Honey, rocks don't do anything for your baby and they don't cast out any evil spirits in your house.

Jesus does that.

If you want to see it, I've learned this.

You know, I always heard there's power in the name.

There's power in the name because sometimes I'm just going to be real.

There are demons and they're as real as me and you.

And they've come and they were always whispering in our ears.

They're always trying to divide our house, trying to divide our kids, divide our love, divide, divide, divide, divide all the time.

If you turn on the news and watch Fox for a little bit or CNN for a little bit, you see how involved they are in politics.

But sometimes you feel that feeling in your house where something ain't right, or you start feeling that spirit of division because all of a sudden people are fussing at everybody.

Speak the name.

It's literal.

Jesus Christ changes it.

It changes everything.

Prayer changes everything.

I know because we have a prayer team.

I call them prayer ninjas.

I never see them.

It's crazy.

But if you ever walk in a room here and you get the distinct smell of olive oil, they've been there.

You look around the wall and you see some shiny little crosses.

They've been there.

But man, they've changed things.

That prayer team, I've been prayed over by them and it's changed my life, changing.

I want you to get rid of anything that would distract you from God.

Sometimes money is our God and we can't seem to quite get what Jesus has something to say about that.

You can't serve God and money.

You will love one and despise the other.

Some of us are burning sage.

I'm going to get weird for a second.

Sage, cast out spirits, that's my spacecraft.

If you burn sage because you like the smell of sage, burn it away.

The only incense that casts out demons, the only incense that changes the world is the incense of prayer up to the nose of God.

Sometimes we don't take the time to get to know our wives and we don't get time to take the time to get to know our God.

Our carnal nature loves shortcuts.

We'd rather buy a lottery ticket than just save.

We'd rather buy our wives something nice than just say I'm sorry.

Tasha hates flowers.

I did that.

I would say something stupid and I'd buy flowers because that's what the rom-coms say.

That's what the sitcoms say.

I had no idea.

I had no version of growing up with a good marriage.

That was terrible.

I knew it didn't want to be like that, but I'd be like, oh, here's some flowers.

Now I gotta buy her flowers just because, just because flowers work.

Y'all taking notes?

Just because flowers work.

Why did you buy me flowers?

Cause it's Thursday and you're hot.

That's why.

Do it.

See if she's mad.

Go ahead.

Why'd you wash those dishes?

You don't like it and you're hot.

Y'all laughing.

I'm so for real right now.

We go to church, but we don't read our Bible.

We listen to a sermon, but we don't pray for God to reveal himself to us.

Our marriage to God is very personal church and incredibly intimate.

Some of us have been overly reverent, and I'm not saying overly reverent is that we, in a way that we shouldn't acknowledge the fact that he's the God of the universe that I'm talking to.

You should.

He knows you better than anyone else.

He sees all of your terrible moments.

You've never hid anything from him.

You couldn't escape him if you tried.

David said that if I go down to Sheol, you are there.

If I go here, if I go everywhere I go, you're there.

But under the guise of tolerance, we allow all sorts of things in our lives that are not of God.

Under the guise of tolerance.

That's a word this country loves to use now.

Tolerance.

It's tolerant.

We should have these kinds of preachers and these kinds of preachers, and we should do this and we should have that.

All of these things, really, if you do it with the right heart, no, it's not.

I'm going to be very direct for a second.

The Ashuroth polls, they started outside of Israel until they started moving in closer and closer until Israel had to be cast to Babylon for their transgression.

We need to make our houses, our families completely centered on God that only serve God.

As for me in my home, we will serve the Lord.

And that's it.

If you bring something in here that's not of God, baby, you got to go.

I love you.

I want you to stay.

But whatever you have that speaks a word against my God must go.

That doesn't mean that we go around the world, point out all the darkness in the world and fussing at people.

We need to be the light that shines, that lifts them up.

But we do need change in our own lives and not to be lukewarm.

It is time for the church to be on fire again.

Because Jesus was really clear in Matthew 12 20.

Anyone who is not with me is against me.

And anyone who does not gather with me, scatters.

There's no in between.

Again, in Revelation, this is Jesus in his glory.

This isn't Jesus the lamb.

This is Jesus whose eyes are like hot coals, and his skin is like burnished bronze.

And he's speaking to the church in Laodicea.

And I think that this is a really good reflection of the American church.

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.

I wish that you were cold or hot.

So because you are lukewarm and neither hot or cold, I'm going to vomit you out of my mouth.

It's hard to swallow.

It's hard to take.

The change should look like I'm done with my image.

I'm done with my selfishness.

I am not living for me anymore.

Galatians 2.20, Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in I am the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

This is a radical change.

We are called to be a radical people because Jesus was radical.

We are called to be completely different.

That's what the word holy means, a holy nation, a royal priesthood set apart.

We don't look like the world.

We don't smell like the world.

We don't walk, talk and act like the world.

We give him glory in every situation in life.

I don't make a choice unless it glorifies my father.

That's the change.

I seek God in all things because I know where my hope is.

When it's good, I praise God.

When it's terrible, I praise God for what he's about to do.

Last thing I wrote down is love needs perseverance.

First Corinthians 13, seven, it being love.

Bears all things, believes all things, hopes in all things, endures in all things.

Love doesn't run when it gets hard.

It's going to get hard.

Love trusts, no matter what, in God.

We have to put all of our hope back where it belongs.

My hope can't be in my wife.

I love her and she is phenomenal, but she is a human.

Her hope can't be in me.

I've got to get that from him.

He's the source of it.

He's the source of my joy.

She is a resource of it.

He's the source of her joy.

I am a resource of it.

I am used to add value, but to not to be the value in her life.

It endures all things.

Love is faithful.

It doesn't disappear when the world shakes around it.

Loving your spouse means, no matter what the world throws at us, remember who the enemy is.

It's not her.

It's not him.

We are a team.

It is us against the enemy.

Prayer will help that.

Praying together, and I'll give you a statistic.

Billy Graham first said this in 1977.

He said, back then there was a 25% divorce rate.

He said 25% divorce rate, one in four marriages ends in divorce, but in a house where husband and wife both pray to God regularly, they read the Bible regularly, they speak the Bible over their children.

See, the Bible says it like this.

Write it on the doorpost, write it on your hand, write it on your forehead.

In those houses, one in 450 of them end in divorce.

You wanna change the church?

You wanna change the world?

It starts in my house.

I've got to be the man of God he's called me to be.

You've got to be the woman of God he's called you to be, and you've got to love him and her ferociously, because if mom and dad works, the whole place works.

Stop living for your kids.

I'm not telling you not to be good to your kids, but the most wonderful thing you can give them is a view of a happy marriage.

But lastly, remember where your hope comes from too.

Together we're on a journey that will absolutely get hard, but God will be with us.

If we remain in him, all things will work out.

Because of Christ and the work on the cross, and because he was raised from the grave, I can stand firmly in victory.

We have to remember that we are victorious people.

We're valorous people.

We are an occupational military.

Occupational, I'm not battling.

I'm not fighting.

The devil has been utterly crushed.

It's over, it's done.

All I'm doing is handling things as they pop up around the place he planted me.

All I'm doing is reminding the world when they get confused how much Jesus loves them and how much he'll continue to love them.

But it will lead you to another place.

Because we're his bride and he is the perfect husband, and we know he will bless us and that he is coming back for his bride.

And if you don't know him, I want you to know him today.

We get the Jesus in the New Testament who is the Lamb of God, but he is coming back, but he's not coming back as the lamb the second time.

He's coming back as the lion the second time.

You can be on this side or you can be on that side, but you cannot remain neutral.

He won't let you.

And if you're gonna pick a side, pick it today.

I don't know when the bridegroom is coming back for his bride.

All I know is that when he comes back, I want him to find me working.

I want him to find me with my lamp full of oil and the wick trimmed and ready to go, like, oh, I've been waiting.

I've been waiting to see those clouds start over there and come over here.

But the same way we need to be faithful to our earthly husbands and wives, we need to be faithful to our God.

Number one, change the way you look at God.

Number two, change the way you speak of God.

Listen actively, resulting in movement.

Pray and listen.

Look for opportunities to glorify, to bless God.

Cherish God.

Let me pray for you.

Father, thank you so much for today.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with your people.

God, thank you for every man, woman, boy, and child here.

God, I just ask that you would bless them, that you would bless these homes, Lord, that they would go home and put these things into action that you have given your church so that we could be more, so that we could be better for our children, better for each other.

But above all, that we might give you glory, Lord.

We love you, Father.

We praise you, and we pray all this in your Son's name, in Jesus' name, amen.