Five Questions That Will Transform Your Relationships

Well, I want to say good morning to you, to everybody here, to everybody joining us on the Internet over in the Munsky Hall area in our wonderful venue service over there. It is great to have you guys here, whether you're visiting for the first time, the third time or the thousandth time. I hope you feel very much at home here.

And I want to invite you to grab your message notes that look like this. We often put message notes in the bulletin to help you follow along with the sermon and to help it live on after Sunday morning in your lives. And I got to admit to you something though. I got a problem this morning, and perhaps you can relate to this. I'm having a little bit of difficulty focusing this morning because I'm still rather excited about the Niners victory last night. Can anybody relate to that? I mean, I'm seriously going, I'm relating everything to football and going, "Pastor Ben is like an awesome football coach." I'm praising God during the worship services, and it actually entered my mind. Thank you, Lord, for the 49ers victory. I'm just getting too distracted.

So I will attempt to concentrate on the sermon if you do to put up your right hand and let's all vow. We are going to concentrate on that message. I'm going to do my absolute best to do that. So let me ask you this. What if I guaranteed you that you could improve your marriage, guaranteed you that you could improve your relationship with your children, improve your friendships, improve every relationship you have and will have if you follow a simple set of tools based on biblical principles? Well, that's what I want to give you this morning.

When you leave today, if you dare to apply what I'm going to give you in the next few minutes, you're going to be better equipped to do what our key Bible verse talks about today, 1 Peter 3:8. Finally, everyone must live in harmony. Be sympathetic. Now, that sounds good. I want harmony. I want sympathy in my relationships. But how do I get that? Well, this morning I want to talk about five questions that will transform your relationships. They are going to increase the harmony. They're going to increase the sympathy factor.

This is a set of relationship tools that I first preached about several years ago that truly changed our family. In fact, my wife and I call these the five magic questions. That's how much they have benefited us. And this is the wrap up, the third and final message in our Your Home, Your Castle series. That's right. Today, this beautiful castle set will begin to come down as in preparation for the wow weekend next weekend.

And incidentally, Dan Baker has asked me to ask you if anybody here feels particularly skilled at destruction. They need a crew to help take down the castle. And he assures me there will be free pizza. And so that begins right after this service. You can make it for that. So let's talk about these five magic questions that will transform your relationships.

Question number one is, do you think the Niners will go to the Super Bowl? How many of you believe in this? Okay, no, just kidding. That's not really question number one. Question one is, what are your expectations of the 49ers in the postseason? Now, this really is a magic question. Lori and I ask this question of each other all the time. We ask this of the kids all the time. Vacations coming up, we ask each other, what are your expectations of vacation? My day offs coming up. What are your expectations of this day off? The evening. The afternoon. We will ask each other after church, what's everybody's expectations of this afternoon?

Why is this question part of the fabric of our family's life? I'll tell you why. Because of things like this, I used to get all morose typically on our last day of vacation. I'd be grumpy. I'd be in a blue mood. And Lori would ask me, what's wrong? And I'd say, well, I didn't get to noon. None of the stuff I wanted to do on vacation. It's over. I didn't get to do my stuff. And she'd say, well, what stuff are you talking about? We did a lot of stuff on vacation. Not my stuff. Well, like what? Well, I wanted to go to the beach for a whole day. I wanted to get some meet-up. I'm like, have a whole afternoon without family or anybody where I was just away somewhere, just kind of getting some cave time. And I wanted to go to see these two movies and we didn't do it.

And she goes, well, I did not know you wanted to do that. And I would say, you're my wife. You're supposed to know me so well. You can magically meet my needs. Don't you know anything about marriage? You know, and we'd get into arguments. So now Lori and I have learned to ask this question, what are your expectations of this vacation in advance? What are your expectations of me during this day off? What are your expectations? We clarify in advance our expectations. And this is biblical. I love this proverb. Proverbs 13:12 says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. But a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

A lot of people are heart sick because they have unmet hopes. But the problem is those hopes are unspoken. If a, catch this, if a longing fulfilled is a tree of life, if you're married, find out what your mates' longings are. If you have children, find out what their expectations, hopes and longings are. If you have friends, do the same thing because you may be able to delight them in easy ways if you just knew their expectations. Some of you are staring at me blankly. Let me give you an example.

We had a birthday party for our daughter Elizabeth way back when she turned five. And I'll never forget this because we had just begun to agree to incorporate this question in everything that we did in our family. So I asked Lori on the morning of this fifth birthday party, all right, what are your expectations of me today for this party? But she thought about this. She said, well, let me jot this down. Here's two errands for you. We need to pick up some chairs and pick up some balloons. And then the party's a tea party. The girls are all going to come dressed really fancy. And so what I was really hoping you would do is dress like a waiter, like in a black suit with your white shirt and black tie.

And what I want you to do is put a towel over your arm and take their orders and serve them at the tea party. And what I was hoping you would do is to use a fake French accent and go up to him like, may I help you and offer them red or white like cherry punch or lemonade and then whatever they decide go, excellent choice, Mademoiselle. Well I'm glad I asked that question because I never would have guessed that. But I did it and I had a blast and it was a tree of life to my wife because her longing was fulfilled. But I never would have been able to do that if we hadn't made this question part of our regular daily dialogue.

Here's another example. Often back in the day when we'd go over to somebody's house for dinner, we would have these arguments coming out. Maybe you can relate. Why did we stay so late? Well, you know we have to get up early in the morning. I tried to give hints for the last hour that we needed to leave. Laurie would tell me. And I would say, "Hints? I didn't pick up any hints. What hints?" Well, I was kicking you under the table for 45 minutes. I thought you were just being affectionate, you know. So now we say in advance, I mean for years we've done this every time in the car on the way to somebody's house for, what are your expectations of the evening? When would you like to go home?

I'm telling you, this one question has eliminated like 90% of our marital conflict and family conflict. So I'm like, on my knees begging you, ask this of each other in your relationships all the time. What are your expectations? Now, is it possible to have unrealistic expectations? Is it? Are there any Raider fans here today? No, just kidding. Now, it is possible. God bless you, brother. But that becomes so much clearer when you just say it out loud.

Here's another example. A couple of years ago at Christmas, we had our annual Christmas expectation meeting. This is something now we do every year around dinner, before Christmas, a few weeks before Christmas. We go around the table and say, "All right, what are everybody's unspoken expectations of the Christmas season?" Why? Because, you know, Christmas would come and go and people would be all morose. Why? Not that Christmas is over, but because we never did get in the car and go around and see the lights. Or we never did get up to the city to see, or we never watched It's a Wonderful Life on TV.

And so now, the way we avoid that is we just say in advance, "Well, what are your expectations in advance of what you want to do at Christmas?" And we run around the table. Everybody had a couple of things. I want to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and I want to go to church to the Christmas concert, things that were reasonable. But the deal is you have to be honest about your expectations. And so I said, "Well, my expectations. I'm going to spend a lot more time with the kids. We're on the vacation. I want to go up to the city, see the Christmas decorations. I want to spend some time shopping. I'm going to catch It's a Wonderful Life, a couple of other classic Christmas TV shows, maybe catch The Nutcracker. Also spend some time alone meditating on the importance of Christ's Purse. Spend some time decorating the tree with the kids, making cookies with the kids. Also do about 10 performances at the Christmas production of the church and six Christmas Eve satellite services."

And I look over at Lori and the kids and their mouths are just like this, right? And I started laughing too because it became obvious to me once I verbalized my honest expectations they were ridiculous. And so this is a powerful question. Ask all the time of everything. What are your expectations? Ask it today of this afternoon and you'll see what I'm talking about.

And then question two, ask your spouse, your kids, your friends, what makes you feel loved? Now this is such a huge question that I really, really want to take some time to drill down on this. What makes, not what makes me feel loved, what makes you feel loved? As a Christian psychologist and bestselling author, Dr. Gary Chapman, who talks about the five languages of love, for some of you this is brand new stuff, for some it's a review, but this is from his book, The Five Love Languages.

The first love language is words. He says everybody's got a primary and a secondary love language and people who speak words as their language of love need to hear things like, "I love you." "Thank you. I'm so glad I married you. I'm so glad I have you as a friend. I want you to know I really appreciate you and this is a major one for me." And then second, there's gifts. And people who speak the language of gifts as their primary love language love it when they're given little things. It doesn't matter what, but gifts say to them, "I was thinking of you when I saw this on my trip. You are valuable. You're appreciated."

Just kind of a quick poll. How many of you would say words are your primary love language? Can I see that show of hands? How many of you would say that gifts are really your primary language of love? Can I see that show of hands really? You raised your hand. Would you come up here for just a second? Because I have a gift for you. What is your name? My name is Remy. Remy, and you're related to kind of the church grandma, Trudy Nagel, aren't you somehow? We look related, but we're not related. Well, I saw you guys talking to each other. That's right. Both from the Philippines, just like Pastor Ben, I love the way you guys sit together, put your arm around each other, chat together before services. And I have for you the gift that this information is from Dr. Gary Chapman's book, The Five Love Languages. So congratulations. If that's your love language of gifts, you'll appreciate that.

So there's words, there's gifts, and next there's quality time. Time. Many men are into this. Women tell me he wants me to go fishing with him. He just wants me to just hang out and watch football with him. I don't get it. Well that's because his love language is quality time. Men who have this love language as their primary language of love might express it by saying, "Honey, come shopping with me." Or kids might speak this as their primary love language to one of our three kids. I think this is his primary love language. He just loves it. When I just sit on the couch next to him while he does homework, it doesn't matter even if we're talking. As long as I'm there reading with him, he likes time together.

And then next there is touch. And I don't mean just sexual touching. I mean people who just love hugs and love to squeeze your hand and they're always kind of putting their hand on your shoulder. They're probably speaking to you their primary language of love. Now some people, wives, husbands sometimes, don't get this. And I urge you not to be like the couple who go to counseling. She keeps telling the counselor in meeting after meeting, "Look, I need affection. I need touch, just little hugs." And her husband just doesn't get it. And finally the counselor says, "Look, this is what your wife needs." And he says to the wife, "Stand up." And he gives her a huge hug. And when he's done, she just glows. And the counselor says to the husband, "See, this is what she needs." And the husband nods and says, "Finally, I understand. I can bring her in on Tuesdays and Thursdays." You know, some people don't get this.

Fifth acts of service. Service. This is my wife's love language, sadly. And I say sadly not for me, but for her because I am the least mechanically inclined person in the galaxy, all right? Some of you know, one time I decided I would wow my wife by putting up mini blinds on one of the windows in our house. So I went to the mini blind store, measured out the window and everything, and I opened it up and the instructions said three simple steps, you know? And so I'm like, "First, get out the brackets, okay? Get out the brackets. Now screw brackets into all." And I thought, "I can do that. How hard can this be? I have a master's degree in theology." A useless degree, but still.

So I get out our electric screwdriver. I've seen people do this like on television, you know? Twenty minutes later, and I'm not exaggerating, I'm still struggling with the screws. They all just keep popping out. They're like magically being repelled from the wall. And my wife is now watching me because she's heard these exasperated, "Oh, stupid sting!" And she's like, "Can I help you?" "No!" You know? But I said, "I just want you to know this is why I never do this!" I said, "Nothing ever goes right for me!" It's like I'm cursed mechanically. Cursed! And she goes, "Well, René, do you have the screwdriver in forward?" I look down, didn't know that there were two speeds. That's what the F and the R stand! I'd had it in reverse the entire time, right? This is what she has to deal with, but over time—I'm not joking either. That is a true story. Some of your guys are like, "Our pastor is an idiot." Yes! Mechanically I am. But over time I have learned it gives her joy when—not when I put up many blinds, but when I do the dishes, when I vacuum or whatever.

So look at these five. To kind of teach you this, I want to show you a clip from one of our favorite movies, Fiddler on the Roof. Anybody else love that movie, Fiddler on the Roof? Great. Well, I want to show you one scene, and I want to ask you if you can tell me what these two have as their love languages. Watch the screen. "Roldan, do you love me?" Do I what? Do you love me? Do I love you? With our daughters getting married and this trouble in the town, you're upset, you're worn out, go inside, go lie down. Maybe it's indigestion. Uh, no, Golda, I'm asking you a question. Do you love me? You're a fool. I know. But do you love me? Do I love you? Well, for 25 years I've washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked your cow. After 25 years, why talk about love right now? Roldan. And so this conversation goes on for some time, but then here is how it resolves. Watch this next scene. Do you love me? I'm your wife. I know. But do you love me? Do I love him? Well? For 25 years I've lived with him, fought with him, starved with him. 25 years my bed is his. If that's not love, what is? Then you love me. I suppose I do. And I suppose I love you too. It doesn't change a thing. But even so. After 25 years. It's nice to know.

Isn't that a beautiful scene? I just love it. It's so sweet. So let me ask you a question. Look at that list again of the five languages. Now which love language do you suppose was his love language? Words. And what about her? Service. That's right. And often, usually you're married to somebody who doesn't speak the same love language as you. And so your job in developing harmony and sympathy with one another is to get to know better the stranger to whom you are married, right?

Now this is a very biblical principle. The Bible says in Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." All right, think about it. How did Christ love the church? Well in a chapter all about relationships, Paul talks about this, Philippians 2:4. He says, "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God made himself nothing, being found in human likeness and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. He became like us." God didn't stay up in heaven. He communicated his love toward us in ways that were meaningful to us. Theologians call it incarnational love. You incarnate. You become like them to love them in ways that they can relate to.

And listen carefully, this is about love that's much deeper than just attempting to put up many blinds. I want you to see an amazing example of this kind of Christlike love. Years ago I showed this to some of you. A man named Robertson McQuilkin was the president of Columbia Bible College and when his wife Muriel was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, he chose to leave his college presidency to care for her. And in a rare public speaking engagement years ago now, he talks about that choice. And I want you to listen to him talk about this as you look at photographs of Robertson and his wife Muriel through the years. Watch the screen and listen to this.

I haven't in my life experienced easy decision making on major decisions, but one of the simplest and clearest decisions I've had to make is this one because circumstances dictated it. Muriel now in the last couple of months seems to be almost happy when with me and almost never happy when not with me. In fact, she seems to feel trapped, becomes very fearful, sometimes almost terror. And when she can't get to me, there can be anger. She's in distress. But when I'm with her, she's happy and contented. And so I must be with her at all times. And you see, it's not only that I promised in sickness and in health till death do us part. And I'm a man of my word. But as I have said, I don't know with this group, but I've said publicly, it's the only fair thing. She sacrificed for me for four years to make my life possible. So if I cared for her for 40 years, I'd still be in debt. However, there's much more. It's not that I have to, it's that I get to. I love her very dearly. And you can tell it's not easy to talk about. She's a delight. It's a great honor to care for such a wonderful person.

It's powerful stuff, isn’t it? Where does the power to love like that come from? Well, it can only come from one place. From knowing that you are loved like this. I think Robertson sacrificially loved Muriel in ways that meant something to her because, listen, Jesus Christ's love gives us both the pattern and the power to have that kind of love for others in our lives. So what are your expectations and what makes you feel loved? And then the third magic question is this, will you forgive me? Will you forgive me?

You're going to have conflicts. Conflict is normal. But the key is how you handle it. There's a counselor named Dr. Robert Fisher who has a great story. He says years ago a couple came to him for marital counseling on the verge of divorce. They sat on opposite sides of his office and she said, listen, I don't believe in divorce, but I can't live with a man who's treated us all so coldly and is never in 28 years of marriage once apologized for anything. And so Dr. Fisher asked the husband, have you ever done anything you're sorry for? He said, sure, lots of things. Have you ever apologized for any of those things? I guess not. And so Dr. Fisher said, if it would save your marriage, would you be willing to tell your wife right now that you're sorry for those things?

You mean right now? Right now? Well, the man bowed his head for a few seconds and then he looked over to his wife and said very deliberately, okay, I am really very sorry. And when he said that, she jumped out of her chair, ran across the room, fell at his feet and wept convulsively and finally looked up at him, what the tears from her eyes and said, now I know you really care. Well that was their first appointment. The next week they came for their follow up appointment and Dr. Fisher kicked off the meeting by saying, okay, how have things been going? And the husband said, honestly, fantastic. I mean, it's been like a honeymoon all week long. It's a miracle. I apologize 25 times a day now. It really works. This question said sincerely, can truly change every relationship.

In fact, look at James 5:16 and it's a beautiful verse. It's in the NIV there in your notes. I'm going to put it in the living Bible up here on the screen. Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed, circle healed, admitting faults, heals relationships. Proverbs 28:13, a man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful. Proverbs 11:29, the fool who provokes his family to anger and resentment will finally have nothing worthwhile left. Now listen, what is the biggest hindrance to admitting your mistakes and saying, will you forgive me? This thought, well, they're not perfect either. They've done some stuff that they ought to confess to me and ask forgiveness for to me. And so I'll do my thing if they, if they're willing to do it.

Listen, these verses never say, wait on the other person to go first. They say you admit your mistakes no matter what they do. Now again, I just want you to understand where the strength to do this comes from. You're not going to find the strength to be forgiving or to admit you're wrong in your own good character. You won't find it there. And I want to make this really clear because you know, this isn't the Dr. Phil show. This is church and this isn't about trying to man up, you know, and do the right thing and try harder. This is about all these questions you can, you can think of them as downstream effects of what happens upstream when you really receive and understand and soak in God's infinite unconditional forgiving love for you.

When you get that, when you get what Jesus Christ has done on the cross, wiping away your sins, including that horrible sin that sometimes you still think about and it makes you wince and you, you regret it and you struggle with shame. That sin because of what Jesus did on the cross has been wiped away and you are cleansed. And when you get that upstream, that's when you have the power to do this downstream, to freely confess and freely forgive. So will you forgive me and what makes you feel loved and what are your expectations? These will all improve the harmony and the sympathy in your every relationship.

And then the fourth magic question is a tough one. And this is a long one to write down there. And so you're going to have to write very tiny. Number four is what's one thing we can do to improve our relationship? What's one thing you think we can do to improve our relationship? If you can improve just one thing, what could it be? Regularly ask this of your spouse. What about your kids? On vacation we asked this of the two kids who went on vacation with us. It's one thing that we could improve in our family. I guarantee you if you ask your friends, your kids, your parents, your spouse this question, you will get some great answers.

Now you might be afraid of asking this question first of all because you're thinking it might hurt to hear the answer. But look at Proverbs 15:31. This is one of the verses that we live by here at TLC and that I personally live by or try to live by. If you profit from constructive criticism, you will be elected to the wise man's hall of fame. But to reject criticism is to harm yourself and your own best interests. Be open to constructive critiques. Now I know it is easy to get defensive. I mean this actually happened more times than I can count. Laurie come up to me and said, "You know René, there is something you can do to help me kind of keep the house clean here. We all need to participate in that project. And for you, that little pile of socks and underwear and pants and shirt that you make next to the bed, that pile that you make every night, that's three steps away from the hamper, that pile."

She calls it my rapture pile because it looks like I just got raptured right out of my clothes. She goes, "If you could just take the extra three steps and put them in the hamper actually, I would really appreciate that." Now I say out loud, that makes total sense. I'm so sorry you've asked me through that several times and I just, I don't know why I don't do that. I will try to do a better job. But if I'm honest, that's not how I feel inside. What I'm thinking inside is this woman. This woman who will shave her legs in the shower with my razor. She is talking to me about a little thing like a pile of clothes. That's not even a sin leaving a pile of clothes. Ripping off my razor, that is a sin because it is stealing. And so I'm saying, "Yes, honey," but my face is going like the church lady, right? Because we all get defensive.

But don't be defensive. Ask this question. If it's tough to ask this question, it's even tougher to answer this question, right? I know some of you are thinking, "If I really told my husband the truth about how I feel about a relationship, he'd blow up. It is not worth it. Or if I really told my wife the truth about how I feel she'd accuse me of a one-track mind, it's a big risk in telling the truth." Yeah, there's a risk in telling the truth. That's absolutely right. But there's a huge risk in not telling the truth also. The risk in telling the truth is you'll go through a conflict maybe. The risk in not telling the truth is you'll grow apart and your relationship will atrophy and will effectively die.

And so ask God for the courage to ask for the truth and to tell the truth. We all need this. Nobody's perfect, and so no one is immune. Me, not you. Now, here's why you need to not just ask this question like once a century or something, but regularly. First of all, if you just ask it once every decade, the bottled up answer is just going to be like nitroglycerin. What you need to do is ask this regularly. In fact, I was talking to Nathan, our drummer today, between services, and their family has family meetings every week where they ask this question. And he says most of the time our two kids go, "Nothing. We like things." But they know this question is going to be asked every week, and so they know there's an opportunity for them to talk about things if there's something that's bothering them.

And look at this. I love this proverb that's found in Ecclesiastes 10:10. "A dull axe requires great strength, and so be wise and sharpen the blade." This verse is just saying anything, even the coolest tool, an axe, can get dull and old and rusty. What you need to do is it's going to drain your energy to try to use it when it's out of shape. You need to keep it sharp, keep plussing it just as Jim Harbaugh plussed the Niners lineup by Adam Colin Kaepernick at quarterback. But that's another story. Now, I'm trying, folks. I'm trying.

But this is why we put this resource list in all of your bulletins. It's different colors and different bulletins, but pull this out for me right now. On one side it says marriage and family resources at the top. We have conferences. We have Bible studies. We have classes on marriage and family and other relationships. There's a class that didn't even make the sheet here. It's starting on Wednesday nights and a week and a half it's called Sacred Marriage. There's another class on Wednesday nights about financial peace because often finances are causes of conflict. And then at the bottom there's a list of resources.

Now, we often say here we don't want to lecture you at Twin Lakes Church. We want to resource you. And so what we did was we bought some cases of a lot of these books I'm talking about. If you want to make 2013 the year that you are really going to be working on your marriage, there's a great book called The Love Dare Day by Day, A Year of Devotions for Couples. This is a great tool to sharpen it up. And then there's this book. This is my new favorite book on marriage. It just came out, Timothy Keller's book, The Meaning of Marriage. Half of this book is specifically meant for singles and kind of what singles concept of marriage is and how to live in a culture that seems to almost overvalue couple relationships and so on. This is a great book. I'd encourage you to pick this up if that sounds interesting to you.

Lots more resources out there. We don't make a penny on those books. We just get them because we don't want you to leave and forget about it and then not have these resources enacted in your life. There's never been a time in human history when there's been as many resources available to help your relationships. Never by a long shop. There's more conferences, seminars, classes, books, radio shows to help you. Yet relationships have never been in more trouble. Why? Because people aren't plugging into the resources. You need to plug into the power outlet. Ask God to bless your marriage and then look at all these wonderful resources.

If we spent a fraction of the time, money, and energy on improving our marriages and relationships as we do on our houses, on our roofs and carpets and lawns, man, most of us would have our homes turning into a castle. Now, it's not a perfect world and I know that some relationships also come to an end that nobody desires but that's why we also offer classes like the divorce care class. Again, retrovines, seminars like that because we want everybody here no matter what your situation to feel loved and to know that God loves and cares for you and has a purpose for you.

And then finally, the fifth question is to ask a question yourself. Ask yourself, "What's it like being in a relationship with me?" A lot of times you don't need to hear from anybody else, right? What's it like to be married to me? What's it like to have me as a parent? I wonder what's it like to have me as a child, to have me as a friend? Everybody needs to take some time every month to ask this question. Test yourself. Galatians 6:3 says, "If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions."

Now, when you ask these questions, can I just give you a little warning? Let me give you the communication equation. Albert Marabian at UCLA did a famous study showing that about 7% of what you communicate, specifically in one-on-one relationship conversations, 7% has to do with content, the verbal information that you're communicating. 38% has to do with tone, vocal tone. Like your mate asks you, "Hey, where are the batteries?" And you can say, "Oh, they're in the first drawer of the dresser." Or "In the first drawer of the dresser," you know, with a little parenthetical idiot, right? Your tone can say that they're stupid. And then 55% of what you communicate is visual, nonverbal, folded arms, bad eye contact, you know?

So look back over these questions from -- I'm fully aware of the fact that I've just given you 7% of the equation. These questions can help or absolutely cause all kinds of trouble. I mean, look these over. What are your expectations? You know, what's it going to take to make you feel loved, you know? Or "Will you forgive me?" You know, like when you've got little kids that are in arguments and you say, "I want you to apologize to your sister," and they go, "Okay, I'm sorry!" Right? So watch the tone and watch the nonverbals.

Now I want to leave you with this key thought for the whole Your Family, Your Home, Your Castle series. In Ephesians 5:31, Paul is talking about relationships, and he ends by talking about marriage. And he says, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh." And then he says in verse 32, "This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the church." He's saying that even the best ideal marriage that's operating according to God's plan is just a reflection of the greatest love, that Jesus Christ loves us so much that he wants us to be in a deeper union with him.

This is very important because we live in a society that idolizes relationships, whether Christian or non-Christian, and people think they don't just look for security and support in a family or in a marriage. Those things are valid. You can find security and support in a family, you can find love. But in our culture, even Christians are looking for meaning and purpose and significance and ultimate love in relationships, but you're not going to find it there. Don't put that burden on your family. Don't put that burden on your spouse. You will only find that in your relationship with the only one who can love you that way, and that's God.

And that's why Paul moves into this, the profound mystery is Christ's love for us, the secret of finding true love, discovering God's love for you. Once you rest in his love, that's when you're truly energized to love others. Once you get that upstream, then it changes your relationships downstream. And so let's pray to him and get oriented on that love today. Would you bow your heads with me?

Lord help us to realize that these principles really do apply to every relationship, but we want to focus now on our relationship with you. We want to ask you to remind us that you, no matter in what sad shape any of our relationships are, no matter what mistakes we might have made in relationships, you love us unconditionally. And Lord help us to bathe in that and to love you back so that we can find the strength for our downstream relationships, change our relationships from the inside out that way today.

Lord, I know that there are marriages, other relationships that are struggling here today. God, I pray for your strength. Heal them. Help those relationships to reflect your love and grace to us. But God, my prayer in this moment is that if anybody feels far away from you or wants to initiate a relationship with you, that they would do so in this moment by saying, yes, God, I don't understand it all, but I hear people talking about a relationship with God. I'm not sure I get what they're talking about, but it sure sounds good to me. So God, I'm asking you if you're there, I'm asking sincerely, help me as I take this first tentative step. And I say, yes, I choose to put my trust in you, God, to put my trust in your love for me through Jesus Christ. I really don't understand it, but I'm choosing to take that leap of faith so that you can love me and I can love you because you first loved me. God change me in that way in this moment. Help me to see your beauty and your beautiful love for me. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.