Relationship Reset | Week 2 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

today, I wanna talk to us about the seven deadly sins that we commit in relationships and so I know what you're thinking, you're like, bro, you can't get through four points and get us out of here on time. How are gonna get through seven? I'm gonna I'm gonna move quickly. Okay? So you grab your bible. I'm gonna pray for us and we will jump right into it. So father, this morning, God, don't do some magic incantation to get you to show up. Holy spirit, we know that you're here and it's us that meet that needs to be made more aware of your presence. So would you reveal yourself to us in new ways this morning? Would you speak to each and every one of us? It is in Jesus mighty and holy name all God's people said,

amen and amen. You should have gotten one of these on your way in. Again, passed them out last week. This is just a little guide, some of them my wife and I have used for a few years that we printed out that we wanted to just be helpful.

Our goal in this series is to really strengthen the relationships that are here. It's just a simple weekly check-in. Hopefully, those of you who got it last week got an opportunity this week to go to coffee or to go to lunch and down and just check-in with your spouse and go through some intentional questions.

That's what it is you got. Our our hope is that over this series and then you can even make it a rhythm for the rest of your marriage that you would do this weekly. But here we go. Seven deadly sins that we commit in relationships. The first one, if you're taking notes, is selfishness.

K? Selfishness is I I believe the default position that we are hardwired into this world with.

The scriptures tell us though we can disagree with it, though we can be frustrated by it, the truth is that all of us are born in Adam. The scripture says that we are born with a sinful nature. It is why the scriptures are clear

that we have a problem that God had to deal with. It's why we see little children, their first word is never yours. It's always, it's mine because there's a default setting we are hardwired with that we have to learn how to overcome

as followers of Jesus if we want to build healthy relationships. We were sitting in our jacuzzi last night with my family and we're kind of talking about this message and I was going through some of the points and trying to ask them like, hey, can you guys think about times in in our lives where you know mom has been really selfish and the kids are like,

no, nothing. We got nothing. I was like, okay, same exercise

but with me, you know, and you know, they're all fighting for who can go first in their stories and I'm like, this is terrible, know, and they're like, well, women are just more selfless. I'm like, okay, that's what we'll go with, you know, like I like I like that but the universally agreed upon story that they could all agree where I showed being the most selfish was a few years ago and in fairness, it was not my my my best moment. K? My my family all had COVID, like bad COVID. Like, they were all out for the count. They were sick. They were like it was on day two or three, and my wife is asleep on the couch, and I've kinda done all the stuff. I got the orange juice going. I got the vitamin c and ordered some food to the house, and my buddy calls me and invites me to play golf at this golf course that's like incredibly

difficult to get on. He's like, hey, we're gonna tee off in an hour. I got an extra spot. And I'm like, dang, bro. The timing is not great, but

I'm gonna try, you know. So I'm like, I go to my wife, I'm like, hey, so how'd you feel, you know, if I if I were to play golf, like I know. And she's like, it's fine. And I was like, she said, yes. She said, it's good. Like, I'm good.

So I wish I could tell you this was the moment that I like realized that as a follower of Jesus, I gotta set the model and so I stayed home and I served my family. I didn't. I went and I played golf and

I snuck out while my wife was asleep on the couch and then about an hour into playing, I get a phone call from her and my daughter and they're crying and they're like, you you really left us and you played golf and I was like, you were asleep. You said it was fine, you know, like, I don't know. You you have to learn at some point if your significant other especially your wife ever tells you that something is fine,

it's not fine. Okay? That is not what she means. She actually means she wants you to do the complete opposite of it and as much as I joke, the truth is that there's still this thing in me that I see come out sometimes that I've got to be really careful. I've got to be attentive to

as a boss, as a coworker, as a friend, and as a husband, and as a dad that my my my nature, my default nature at times will override my desire which is my desire is to create a healthy environment for the people around me to thrive in

but there's sometimes this hard wiring that's in us that comes out and if you if you don't know this, I need you to hear this morning that selfishness is a disease that must be radically removed or it will kill the relationship that you are in. The process of two people becoming one is two people learning how to get rid of the default natural easy wiring that we have which is to to to go after what I want, to go after my needs, to serve myself first in a world that tells us that what you want is ultimate, what you feel, what you need is supreme.

The scriptures stand in contrast to that. Philippians chapter two tells us here's how to do relationships God's way. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility, value others above yourself, not looking to your own interest but each of you to the interest of others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Think about this for just a second. Again, it requires us to remember that Jesus coming to this world to ransom humanity was not God's plan b. God did not create Adam and Eve, put him in the Garden of Eden, see sin happen

and then go, oh gosh, what do we do? Okay. Get the trinity together and they're like, Jesus, you gotta take one for the team because the humans revolted. We don't know what to do now so we're gonna send you. No. That's that's not the story. They always knew Jesus was part of creation.

It's why doctrine and theology is so important. Jesus is not a created being, he's creator. He was there from the very beginning and the original plan for humanity

was that we were always going to rebel but Jesus would step in and he would actually ransom us so that we can be reconciled back to God. Think about that for a second. Jesus stepped into this earth knowing full well that the humans that he was coming here to save, he was also going to serve even though

you and I were going to put him through a process that the prophet Isaiah would says that he would be beaten beyond all recognition to a point that he didn't even look human any longer. Then he would be crucified in the most vicious painful death that you could ever possibly experience.

He would agonizingly hang on a cross for six hours before he would ultimately succumb to death. Why? Because he knew that it was the only way to redeem what was broken in the Garden of Eden to restore us and Jesus steps into that position and he chooses to serve the very people that he knows is going to crucify him.

It tells me, Paul tells the church in Philippi that here's why you and I can serve the people around us because I promise you they will not disappoint you or hurt you or betray you any more than we've ever hurt or betrayed Jesus himself.

Here's how we how do we overcome the hardwiring of selfishness that's in all of us? We have to learn how to have the mindset of Christ which was what? He could have stepped into this world demand to be served because he's God, he came ruling and reigning but he didn't. He instead, the scriptures say, he took the humble position of a servant

and he chose to serve the very people that were going to betray him. Here's how you and I overcome the default wiring of selfishness in us by making a decision to serve. We overcome selfishness by serving. We've got to choose to serve our spouse. We've to choose to serve the people that are around us. A great question you can ask is how can I serve you this week? What's going on in your world that is causing you stress? How can I serve you? How can I how can I meet your needs trusting that as I meet your needs, God will meet mine? Here's the second deadly sin that we commit in relationships. It's unrealistic expectations.

This is something that all of us carry whether we know or not. And again, when I do premarital counseling, I take every couple through an assessment. A part of it is is getting expectations written down onto a piece of paper somewhere.

What did gender roles look like in the home that you grew up in? Who took out the trash? Who do you think is going to take out the trash? Do you expect to come home to have flowers waiting for you every day? How often do you think you're gonna have sex when you get married? Every night. Good luck with that. Okay? Like

Because here's the truth, because of the world we grow up in, the societies that we're from, the movies that we've watched, the romance novels that we've we've read, we've all created this idea of what a relationship is supposed to be. What every single one of us enters into, every

romantic, platonic, friendship, all the things, we walk into those relationships with expectations. K? But the problem is is oftentimes what we experience is far different than what we expect and because these expectations are unspoken,

they oftentimes go unmet and now there's a massive gap between my expectations and my experience. This is what is typically filled in with frustration. K? That's where frustration breeds from because there's a gap between what I'm expecting and what I'm experiencing. The scriptures

the scriptures tell us where this comes from. James chapter four verse one says, what is causing the frustration, the quarrels and fights among you?

Don't they don't they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don't have so you scheme and you kill to get it. You're jealous of what others have but you you can't have that so you fight and you wage war to take it away from them yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it. He's saying that the sin nature that is at war within us is causing

all of these relational tensions that we experience and because you've walked into this relationship with really unrealistic expectations

hoping that a spouse is going to fulfill something in you that they were never designed to fulfill you with, that they were never designed to meet, you go, you just walk around frustrated all the time and it says, what we begin to do is we just start to kill everything around us. Now, hopefully you've learned you don't actually kill your spouse, that's that's not a good thing. What what are we destroying? What are we killing with unrealistic expectations?

We're killing the joy, the contentment, the peace, the energy that is supposed to be a part of a God centered and God oriented marriage because we we instead of going to God to meet our needs, we're instead expecting our spouse

to meet our needs. Here's some of the most common unrealistic expectations that that I see and I hear in relationships. The first one is that my my spouse is responsible for my happiness.

Again, spent a whole week last week talking about this idea that until you and I are holy and completely satisfied with who we are in Christ, in our relationship with God alone, we almost have no business getting into a relationship with somebody else because it's not your spouse's job to bring you happiness and to complete you. You are not a half looking for your other half. No, the scriptures say that God made you whole and you are whole in Christ and when you know who you are in God and your heart has found satisfaction in him, you can begin to find a relationship that can produce much fruit and yes, it will also bring joy and contentment into your life, but if you are waiting for them to bring you happiness, I'm telling you it's an unrealistic expectation.

Here's the second one, gentlemen, I'm about to help us out here. Okay? The unrealistic expectation is that my spouse knows my thoughts and my motives. Ladies, hear me for just a second. We don't know what you're thinking. Okay? We don't. And when you ask us what are you thinking and we say nothing,

we're not lying. K? There there's a there's not a lot going on up there. It's like there's some sports stuff kicking around, a little bit of work stress, like, okay, there's some things we gotta do. I should probably eat at some point and I wonder if we're gonna have sex at some point today. You know, like that's that's about it. Like those are the five or six thoughts that circle around in the gentleman's head and so when you ask what do you think and you're like, nothing. You know, there's not much going on like we're we are not a complicated species and I can tell you just like my heart is like, want to understand my wife, I wanna know her, But women, you are so much more complicated than we are and it's beautiful and it's incredible and I love the way that God has designed you but help us help you. K?

Tell us tell us what you're thinking. Tell us what you're wanting so that we can meet your needs but don't think that people can just read your minds, read your thoughts, and read your motives. The the last one, unrealistic expectation is that my my spouse and I can solve

any problem and this is a lie that I think the enemy has perpetrated inside of relationships today, that it's us two against the world and we can we can overcome anything or we can get through anything on our own. I think that any couple can overcome anything, yes and amen, But there are going to be times in your relationship where you are you're walking through something that you honestly, you can't get through without help. It is why God has created

biblical community. It's why we have pastors in our lives. It's why there's counselors that are available because there are moments and there have been critical junctures over the seventeen years that I've been married to my wife where we have hit an impasse. We go, man, we're we're pretty good at this communication thing but for the last three months, we keep hitting the same roadblock and it doesn't we don't know what to do and so we've learned enough. Okay. Phone a friend like, let's go sit down with a pastor, let's sit down with a counselor, let's process through this thing and you get some outside support and outside help and all of a sudden you go, okay, we can figure this out But if you have the unrealistic expectation that you're just be you're gonna be able to figure anything out on your own, I'm telling you the enemy has you exactly where he wants you. How do we overcome unrealistic expectations?

We do it by recognizing the limited nature of humans and the limitless nature of God.

We just come to terms and have an honest conversation that sometimes our spouses are going to disappoint us. They're going to fall short of the standard that we think that they should they should live up to but here's the good news of the gospel. Is it the spouse that will let you down? God will never let you down. The spouse that

might destroy some trust at times, God will never break trust with you. God will be the same today that he was yesterday that he will be tomorrow. Understand that in him,

you can find a limitless nature you can run to and have your needs met but if you think your spouse is going to do all of them, you're setting yourself up for failure. Moving quickly, here's the third one. The third sin that we create in relationships that destroy them,

secrecy. If there's one thing that I see destroy more marriages than anything else, it's this one. You got to realize that the currency of relationship is trust and the problem is is when trust is broken, the foundation that the relationship is built on has now been eroded

and this is the number one goal of the enemy inside of your marriage if you didn't know it. He wants to introduce this thing called shame.

Shame was never a part of God's original design. If you go back and read the story in the book of Genesis, what's what's incredible is the enemy, Satan never shows up on the scene until Adam and Eve are there together. The marriage has been created and now that a marriage has been created, the enemy steps in. Why?

Because Satan knew that God had a singular plan to build humanity on. The cornerstone of God's entire design for humanity that would establish the flourishing for all mankind was the marriage union.

This was going to be the thing that would hold the rest of the fabric of society together. It's why marriage is such a big deal to us as followers of Jesus. It's also why Satan knows that if I can go after this one thing, I can begin to destroy everything. I wanna show you Genesis chapter two verse 25.

This is after the union of marriage. God tells them to go be fruitful and multiply. We'll talk about that next week. He says this in verse 25. Now the man and his wife were both naked and

they felt no shame. Now again, the intimacies talk is next week there is a purpose of getting naked so that you can make some babies to the glory of God. Right? Like that's that's part of it. But here's what you gotta see, that God created husband and wife to live in front of each other unveiled.

There was no separation. It's the only relationship in your life that you can actually be completely exposed, naked. There's nothing hiding who you really are. Your imperfections,

your flaws, your brokenness, the parts of you that you're not proud of, the only person in your life that is supposed to see every single part of you is your spouse. It's how God designed it. You have one place that you can be fully known, fully supported,

fully loved and accepted not for who you pretend to be, not who you present to be in social gatherings or online, but for you who you really actually are. And what does the enemy do?

The enemy comes in and he goes, no no no no. I want you to step into this thing and all of a sudden when we step into sin, see it with Adam and Eve what happens when they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All of a sudden once they experienced sin, they felt this thing called shame and what did it do?

For the first time, Adam and Eve had something that was that was covering them. The bible says they took fig leaves and they covered themselves. Yes, they were hiding from God but they were also now there was a barrier between

each other. There was something separating them, there was something veiling them, there was something that they were they were hiding from the other person and I'm telling you it's why secrets are so damaging inside of a marriage. So often we think the lie that we tell ourselves, the rational

lie, the way that we rationalize our way into secrecy is we go, well, I don't I don't I don't know how to tell them about this, I just wanna protect them from this, it's really it's not that big of a deal, I can control it and we think we can compartmentalize

the sin and it'll just it'll stay here and won't get bigger and it won't grow and we tell ourselves a rational lie that I'm gonna protect my spouse by just not telling them the truth

and hear me after dozens and dozens and dozens of conversations with couples having walked through this stuff personally in my own marriage, I'm telling you secrets don't protect the relationship, they are the very thing that sabotage it.

Secrecy inside of a marriage is how you are going to destroy that thing from the inside out. Your secrets eventually are going to come to light. Those things that you think are hidden are eventually going to come to the surface and here's what I've learned, the consequences of confession,

they're always less than the consequences of concealment.

If you make a decision, just continue to conceal, it's not that big of a deal, it's not that big of a deal. What you're doing is you're you're hiding from your spouse and you're running from them, you're building separation between you and them and eventually, it's gonna come out and I've sat through so many of these conversations

surface, when the infidelity comes to the surface, when the overspending, when the alcoholism or the hidden drug habit comes out, the problem is is what we think is gonna be the most damaging is the sin itself. That's not what causes the pain. It's the secrecy.

It's the it's the deception that's connected to where the spouse is like, I I I just don't know why you couldn't trust me with that.

I wish you would have told me that you were struggling so that I could have I could have helped. You gotta realize you have one person in your life if you're married. You have one person in your life that you're allowed to live unexposed before.

You you're allowed to live naked that has no separation. That's your spouse, but you've gotta fight for it. Paul says, Ephesians chapter five, what do we do? We we are to take no part in the worthless deeds of evil in darkness. Instead,

you've got to expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. Our natural trajectory, every single one of us in this room is to live secret lives that we think other people don't know about and think that we're gonna get away with it and somehow build a healthy relationship.

Let me tell you today, here's how you overcome secrecy is you gotta make a decision to be vulnerable. You got to find appropriate places where you can live in the light and to live vulnerably. Okay? It's not Facebook or Instagram. You don't need to tell everybody your problems

but you do need to find something. I I feel led to say it in this service, gentlemen, if you are here and there's something that you're dealing with in the secret and you don't know where to go, every Tuesday morning at our headquarters at 06:00 in the morning, we do a Tuesday men's prayer gathering.

It is a gathering of dudes that come together with a singular purpose to go, we're gonna live in the light, we're not gonna let the enemy have a foothold into our lives and into our marriages and into our homes. If you need a place where you can be accepted, where you can go, hey, I'm struggling, I'm telling you come to Tuesday men's prayer gathering and watch a bunch of dudes who are running after the heart of Jesus together. Amen?

The scripture say when we confess our sins to each other, you will find healing. Here's the fourth thing that we do to erode our relationships,

negative speech. I know this is one of those ones that seems like it's not that big of a deal but it's a really big deal. There are so many things that I love about my wife but if there's one attribute that I could reproduce from her in every relationship that I get an opportunity to pour into, I can tell you lit legitimately, no exaggeration, over the twenty years of knowing my wife, there's never been a time, not once, that my wife has ever said anything negative about me in front of other people.

That's not because there's not ample opportunity for her to say negative things about me in front of other people. Right? It's not because I'm perfect. I I promise you I'm not, but my wife knows it is my responsibility, it's her responsibility to build me up. Behind the scenes, are we gonna have hard conversations? Is she going to address things in love, in grace? Yes and amen, and I'm thankful that my wife does that. Some of the most awkward and uncomfortable conversations and dinners that I'm a part of are with couples that haven't yet learned this and all of sudden, you've got one spouse who's just tearing the other one down the whole time, belittling them and telling them jokes and making fun of them the whole time. I'm telling you, we've walked out of those going, will we will never do this because it is impossible to live to build a positive relationship if you're gonna speak negatively to this person. I could preach an entire sermon of the power of our words. The scriptures tell us that our words have power to produce life or

death. Proverbs chapter 13 verse three says, those who control their tongues will have a long life. Opening your mouth can ruin everything.

And I don't know why it is, but the people who are closest to us are often the ones that get the worst part of our our language. We're usually the most uncontrolled with the people that are closest to us. I would never say some of the things to you in a lobby on a Sunday morning after meeting you that I would sometimes be tempted to say out of frustration to my to my wife and my kids and that's not that's not fair. The people closest to us should get the best version of us, not the not the worst version of us. Ephesians chapter four verse 29, here's the standard. Says, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may be that it may benefit those

who listen. Here's how to know if what you're thinking you need to say actually needs to be said. The scriptures say, does it benefit the person that you're speaking to? If not, then it probably doesn't need to be said to them. So the next time you're tempted to go, well, I just need to say,

I just need to get this off my chest, maybe you don't. And maybe what you're about to do is open your mouth and ruin everything.

Find appropriate places that you can just vent where there's people around that aren't that aren't part of the conversation, the tension that's happening but that that that can't always be your spouse. You can't just vent in front of them because here's the truth. Our words matter. There's a principle that is all throughout the scriptures that people tend to become what the most important people in their lives say that they can become.

The people in your life, they will become what the most important people around them say that they will become. So the question is is what are we what are we calling our kids to? What are we speaking over them? I have never once watched over the twenty years of being in ministry. I've never watched a husband all of a sudden step into leadership that her that her that her that the wife wants him to step into because she belittled his her his way into leadership.

But I have watched multiple times where wives made a decision to choose to honor their husband in spite of their shortcomings,

to honor their husband in spite of their lack of leadership and all of a sudden, the husbands start to live up to what the wife is speaking over them, but I'm telling you, if you think you can tear somebody down with your words and expect them to change their behavior, it is it is incredibly,

incredibly rare. Our words matter more than we could ever possibly imagine. How do we overcome negative speech? By being people who choose our words wisely. Here's the fifth thing moving quickly. The fifth sin that we make in relationships is comparison.

The scriptures say that comparison is the thief of joy. I think you and I living in 2026 are uniquely burdened with the sin of comparison. Why? Because we live in the social media era, and what we are tempted to compare our behind the scenes life to is to people's

highlight reels. And I just wanna tell you as their pastor, as their friend, as people to know what's happening in their lives, most people's lives don't actually look like their social media feed appears that it looks like. K? So it's not helpful for us to go, well, I just I wish I wish my husband would do these things. I wish I wish my wife did this. I wish our house looked like this. I wish our I wish our vacation looked like this. We we've gotta learn how find contentment for what God has given us. Here's what Paul says to the church in Galatia

chapter six. He says, pay careful attention to your own work, to your own job, your own finances, your own marriage, your own children, your own vacation. Pay pay careful attention to your own work for then

you will get the satisfaction of a job well done and you won't need to compare yourself to anyone else. He says, you want satisfaction at the soul level, be content with what God has given you for we are each responsible for our own

conduct. How do we how do we stop comparing? Here's a couple ways I see people do this. We've got to stop comparing our relationship to other couples relationships.

It's amazing that that's how your buddy's wife responds when they have an argument. You're not married to her. It's not helpful. There are some days where I wish I could go, man, I wish my wife's love language was gifts. I've got buddies that just they I've got buddies that just buy their wife a bracelet, and then they go play golf. Like, it does nothing for my wife and it's not helpful for me to go, I just wish you were like her. Right? Like, it would be so much easier because you're not you're not married to them and comparing them to other relationships all does is steal the joy that's supposed to be there for yours. Stop comparing upbringings.

This is something that I hear all the time. Well, I just wish that my wife would cook because my mom cooked. You're not married to your mom. Okay? You're married to your you're married to your wife so you're gonna order Uber Eats to the glory of God. Alright? It's not helpful.

Sure. Your your upbringing can inform some things but it's not helpful to compare your spouse to your upbringing. Stop comparing effort levels that well, I just I work harder at this thing. I put in more effort. I try it's not helpful to compare effort levels. Stop stop comparing

the past. This is one of those ones that I always jokingly say to my wife because she always tells our kids, well, your dad, when we were dating, he used to take me to like nice dinners every night and we'd go to Disneyland three times a week and we go to movies five nights a week and I'm like, girl, I would do all of those same things today. Just gotta get rid of these kids so I can stop paying for them and then we can do all those things. Alright? Like, stop talking about when we were dating because we're not dating anymore. We got a mortgage and we got kids today. Alright? Life life looks different and so it's not it's not helpful to go, this is what it used to look like. We're not there any longer. We have a new life. So let's work on let's work on finding contentment in this season. How do we overcome comparison? Well, scripture say we overcome comparison by living in gratitude.

Wake up every day during your devotion time, give God your first, give God your best, make a list of five things that you're incredibly grateful for.

One of my favorite things to ask couples when I sit with them and it's like it's like tense tense like you can tell it's like it's not been good for a couple days or sleeping in separate rooms and they're there and they want me to like co mediate the the like argument that they've been having. I just go, what's your favorite thing about your spouse?

They're like, nothing. I hate them. It's like, okay. Hypothetically, if you had to come up with something, I don't know, I guess they're I guess they're they're good at providing for the family, you know? And all of a sudden, when you start to remember why you love your spouse,

you start to remember all the good attributes about them. All of a sudden, the seemingly insignificant things become just that. They're not that big of a deal. And what you focus on will determine the quality and trajectory of your relationship.

Here's the sixth one moving quickly. The sixth sin that we commit in relationships we've got to stop doing is fighting dirty.

So many times the damage, the pain, the devastation that comes in relationships, It has nothing to do with the issue that we're fighting about. The pain that's caused, that's hard to recover from, is how we fight about the thing that we're fighting about.

It's not that we're fighting, it's that we haven't learned yet. All relationships are gonna have conflict, but healthy ones learn how to resolve conflict. Conflict is inevitable. You've gotta learn how to have these conversations that are productive

and helpful that move somewhere and we have to make a decision that we're gonna refuse to fight dirty. What is fighting dirty? What are unhealthy tactics that we have to commit to not doing? The silent treatment can be incredibly unhealthy.

For some people that are like, just need to time out, I gotta press pause, I need to go check out for thirty minutes and then I'll reengage and we'll we'll figure this thing out when I've cooled off, awesome. That can be helpful. Thirty minutes is allowed. Thirty days is not helpful. Okay? That's that's unhealthy. That is not moving towards progress. One of the other unhealthy things that happens often is in the middle of a heated argument, what do we do? We know that we're trying to win, we're trying to prove our point, so what do we do? We bring up the past and we start to beat people over the head. We bludgeon them over the head with their past mistakes.

Now, we've got to realize that God with us says he takes our sin and he casts our sin as far as the East is from the West. He remembers it no more, the scriptures say. The bible tells us that love covers a multitude of sin. So you've got to make a decision. If you've forgiven them, forgive them and stop reminding them about it. Stop bringing it up when things are are heated because it's not helpful. It's just it's hurtful.

You've got to stop doing what I'm tempted to do sometimes and use extreme statements like always and never. I'll say it like, you never do this. My wife's like, did that last week and I'm like, well, besides that time, you never do it, you know. It's not helpful. It's not true.

Most of the absolute statements we make are not true and they paint these very polarizing pictures that aren't helpful. One of the other things you gotta learn is to not involve friends and family unnecessarily in your marriage drama.

I I tell every couple I do premarital counseling with, you've gotta figure out when conflict arises because it's coming and I always loved the cute naive couples and I'm like, what do you fight about? Like, nothing. We're so in love. We never fight and I'm like, okay, this is cute. It'll last all of five minutes and you're gonna fight. I promise you like, conflict is inevitable because we're people that are broken and flawed and we live in a broken world. Conflict is inevitable and when you fight, you've got to figure out who you run to because who you go to in conflict is important and what they tell you, who you run to, I'm telling you is going to determine the success of whether this conflict grows you or begins to divide you and what is not helpful is often running to, this is usually women that are really close to their moms, they go to their moms to have relational conflict. I hear my husband's an idiot, I don't know what to do and what does your mom do? They take they take your side and they get frustrated at your husband with you. The problem is is you and your husband are gonna reconcile but your your mom still hates your husband and now you guys are good. You go over there for dinner, your mom still hates your husband. You're like, no, no, we're fine. We figured it out. Your mom didn't get the the privilege of going through the reconciliation

process that you did. You set them up for failure. So at some point, we got to realize that it's not healthy to go to them. We've got to find people that we can process with so that we can be constructive in these things. James chapter one verse 19 says, understand this my dear brothers and sisters,

you must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. How do we overcome fighting dirty? We overcome fighting dirty by attacking problems not people. Us realizing that when conflict arises, it's it's a problem that exists out here.

Your spouse, your husband, your wife, they're not the problem. The issue is the problem. So let's let's solve the problem. If the problem really is that I I would love to have dinner at the table when I get home from work, awesome. It's not it's not helpful to say, well, you don't cook. You don't do enough. My mom would do it if she was here. My mom used to cook every night for my dad. That's not helpful. But what is helpful is going, look, I'll order Uber Eats three nights a week. I'll cook two nights a week, and all of sudden, the problem out here is getting solved and the relationship can move forward and progress. Here's the last one, seventh sin that we commit in relationships. I'll end here. Maybe I should have started here.

I think the greatest sin that we commit that sets every relationship in our life up for failure is putting each other first.

If you put your spouse first in your life is what I I taught on all last week, that if you put your spouse first in supreme in your life, your relationship is doomed for failure from the start. The scripture say that anytime we put something or someone in the place that is reserved only for God in our lives, that's called idolatry.

God has to be first. God has to be supreme. God has to be ultimate and when God is first in your life, the principle is that everything else will be blessed with your finances. If you put God first in your finances, the rest of your finances will be blessed in your relationships. If you put God first,

the rest can be blessed, but as long as we start with the order screwed up from the beginning, I'm telling you, we're we're doomed for failure. There's a reason why. There's a reason why the entire scriptures start with one verse. Genesis one one. The first verse says, in the beginning, God.

Because everything else that follows when God is in his right priority, when God is in his right place, everything else that follows can be blessed.

But when God is in the wrong seat in your life, I'm telling you, everything else is set up for failure. If you wanna know for sure that your relationship is set up to to have some major tension, make it first. Make your wife, make your husband, make your significant other, make them supreme

and put God at number three or four. What I'm trying to get you to see today is that you've got to make God first. The best thing that you can do for your marriage is work on your personal relationship with Jesus.

Run after your relationship with God. Here's why. Psalm chapter one twenty seven tells us that unless the Lord builds the house, the work of the builders is wasted.

It tells us you could put all six of these other principles in place. You could find a council that you meet with every single week, but if you never reprioritize

who and where God is in your life, the rest of it is a house that is built on sand. It's not a matter of if it's gonna fail. It's just a matter of when it's going to fail. So what do we do? We overcome idolatry by prioritizing our personal relationship with Jesus. The best thing that I offer my wife,

the best thing that I offer my kids, the best thing that I offer our church, the best thing that I offer our staff, it's not my it's not my wisdom, it's not my servanthood. It's not my leadership. The best thing that I offer every single relationship that I'm in is

my life being prioritized in the right order with God. It is a heart that is submitted to and surrendered to the process that God has me in of changing me daily,

showing me the areas of my life that I've gotta I've gotta wage war with sin that so easily creeps in. It's going through the sanctification process and I'm here to tell you today the same thing is true for you. The greatest thing that you can do for your marriage, your future relationship

is to prioritize your personal relationship with Jesus. And again, I just feel like in this service, there's some of you who are here. You you've never actually made the decision to bend the knee to the Lordship of Christ.

And that's how this whole thing starts just by saying, Jesus, I'm making you lord. I'm acknowledging you as my savior and as my king, and I'm putting you

as supreme in my life. And so if you're here today and you just wanna say, man, I just wanna say yes to Jesus. I didn't do this in any other service. I felt as I was backstage kind of praying for this service. I felt like God said there's people who are gonna be in this service who need to say yes to Jesus, who need to say yes to bending the the knee to the lordship of Christ. So wanna ask everybody in this room, you would just close your eyes and bow your heads. I wanna create a private moment as we wrap up this morning.

If you're here today and you've never said yes to making Jesus the Lord of your life, the scripture say that all we have to do is confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord and we will be saved.

If that's you and you're here and you wanna say yes to Jesus right now for the first time, acknowledge him as your savior and as your Lord. It feels like right now I'm speaking directly to you. I want to give you just a private moment between you and God for you to respond to what the Holy Spirit's doing in this room and in your heart right now. If that's you and you're in this place and you want to say yes to Jesus, I'm gonna ask on the count of three, just throw your hand up right in your seat so I can know who I'm praying with. Again, private moment between you and God. One, this is your moment. Two, don't let the enemy talk you out of this. Three, right where you are. Just throw your hand up right where you are in the room. Don't be ashamed. His hands are going up all over this auditorium.

I see every hand that's going up. I see your hands that are moving. Don't be ashamed. Let's you just throw your hand up right where you are. Atmosphere of faith, scripture says that without faith it's impossible to please God. But some of you right now are putting miracles in motion by responding

to the Holy Spirit is doing your heart right now. I thank you for every hand that's in this room. You can put your hands down. If that was you or you know it should have been you, just pray a prayer like this with me in the quietness of your heart. Say, Jesus, with all the faith that I have, I give you my life.

I give you my world. I give you my soul. I ask for you to come into my heart and set me free. I acknowledge you as my savior, as my king, and as my lord and I make a decision today to place you first in my life and to live for you and you alone from this day forward.

It is in the mighty name of Jesus all God's people said. Amen and amen. Can we just give it up for all the people who said yes to Jesus in this place? Amen. Come on. It's a big deal.

As you guys head out, I'm gonna have them put the list of all the seven deadly sins up on the screen behind me. Here's my encouragement. Find one, find two this week that you can go, man, I can work on that thing and watch what God will do as you make a decision to make your relationships stronger. You guys are amazing. Our prayers will be here in the front. They'd love to pray with you, but we'll see you guys next weekend.