Steve has also asked to leave his job in the finance world in 2000 and dedicate his full attention to the work of the Lord at Hillview.
He served as an elder at Hillview for 25 years where he was involved in high school ministry for 17 years and college ministry for over 10 years.
He also has a passion for shepherding, counseling, discipleship.
The Lord has recently called Steve and Vicky to leave California to relocate Lobuck, Texas.
where Steve helps administrate and teach at the Discipleship Intern Training Program.
Pleasure to have you here with us, Steve.
Before we begin, let's just ask the Lord to bless our time together.
Gracious God and Heavenly Father, we just thank you again for your great love for us. We just thank you for the hope that we have in Christ. And we just thank you that we could be here together as married couples, Lord, that we just pray that you'll bless this time as we are here with our brother Steve as he ministers to us. We just pray that the spirit might speak through him and give us things that might
help us and strengthen us in our marriage relationships, Lord. And we just pray that
This weekend will also bring honor and glory to you. We pray for those who are still traveling, Lord, and those who will be joining us tomorrow. Pray for their safety and their travels as well.
And we just, again, want to commit this weekend into your hands and we just pray that you might have your way.
So we look to you now with thanksgiving and praise in jesus name we pray
Amen. So Monday's going to do a couple of songs for us.
I just have some quirks for tonight, but I think we're going to do a couple of songs that we know by heart.
And one is because he lives
And then the next one, Lord, I lift your name on i
God sent this.
They go in Jesus.
He gave you love.
Healy, then, down.
Okay.
stay in control.
Because silly.
I can pay…
B, D.
of the reader.
Because sometimes…
June, eight, nine pieces.
because the
have free to hold. See you soon.
As the following day.
NBA.
Okay, there's see.
Robots.
Okay.
Eve.
Be gone, let's see.
i can pick
Big deal.
Three is gone.
We go seven.
P.
Two, eight.
In Germany.
you can't believe
And then one thing.
Thank you.
And then…
Explain.
I'll see the…
Pretty unique.
Be cozy.
I can't pay.
B.
Thank you.
The earrings.
be equal time.
It will…
two and last week.
Yes.
The next song will be, Lord, I Lit Your Name on high
Lord, I lead journey.
Wow.
Stay in.
Do you think so.
Sure.
The book.
That's great.
It shouldn't they?
Each of me.
We'd love to see.
Question.
Thank you.
Victoria.
Thank you.
You can get all the technology figured out here.
Okay, good evening.
to y'all.
I am not a Texan. I am from Texas currently.
But my story is a little bit longer than that and i will
spend a little bit of time telling you about that tonight because I think it's important
to know who you're listening to.
I also feel it's important to know who you're talking to.
So I'm going to ask for some participation from you tonight to find out who you are.
And so what I'd like from you as we get started to get to know you a little bit is I'd like
One of you can introduce
yourselves as a couple.
So I need to know your name.
First and last name.
How long you've been married. So guys, check out your day timer, figure that out.
How many children you have, if any.
and something
unique about your family so that I'll remember, oh, that's the
soccer family okay so something so
Name, first and last name.
How long have you been married? How many children, if any.
And something unique about your family.
Okay, so we'll just kind of start across the front and go serpentine pattern
to the back. Okay.
Pastor Mike, okay.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. Sorry for the AV.
Challenge rate right off the bat.
Hello?
All right. So Mandy and Leah.
We have been married for 6,354 days.
That's a while. Yeah. 17 years. Okay. We have five kiddos.
And something unique about our family
Is that unique in the room? I'm from Texas.
No.
I'm from Texas. We have families of 10.
then yeah my wife from family of 10. Okay. So that's impressive.
are…
Nice. Okay, that's unique. I'll give you that. All right.
Craig and Jean McKendrick.
for 16 years this past september
And we have five children.
And she was going to say something unique about her family.
represent college age, high school, middle school, elementary school
and um
Preschool. Wow. So what's the range there
19 to three.
Yeah. Awesome. That's cool. Yeah.
Although picking them up after school is probably not so cool.
All right. So I can help with the… I can.
Lou, Angus and Shannon Fry will be married 12 years this Sunday.
Oh, congratulations.
But then I brought a cake.
We have two children together and one child from a previous relationship.
All the children are six years apart.
Well, it was not planned that way. Norway is too, you know, this plan is kind of two. And the oldest child has a one-year-old
Joining them also.
are unique. We are exact opposites in almost every way
She shy, I'm not.
I guess you'd have to know us to get a little more of that. I'll get to know you a bit more this weekend. Thanks.
Yeah, as long as it goes to everybody, I don't particularly care if you follow my directions or not.
I'm John Sheet, and this is my wife, Carmen.
And we've been married
44 years.
And we have
Four kids.
for in-laws.
Good. Eight.
grandkids.
With one on the way.
And that's
Five grand dogs.
Grand dogs? Dogs, P-O-G-S. Dogs, yes.
that when we all get together, we get to have them at our house and
We don't want them in the house and they're all in the side dogs. So that's me.
Did they get along okay?
Kind of like the in-laws? Never mind.
I meant the dogs, yes.
That's unique. The in-laws don't get a little
We'll talk later.
The dogs, they put up with each other okay so
And what's unique is
My wife is the master of the house.
Well, I don't have my master's degree?
She has her master's degree in speech pathology. Nice. Okay.
Whoever, she's a master, I'm the captain. How's that? There you go.
And I'm a brat.
And you played hockey. I did play hockey, yes. I played soccer.
Nice. And I was on it.
I'm taking up too much time.
48 hour, we set a record.
Soccer game. He played a 48-hour game?
Okay, we'll have to talk about that later. That's interesting. I'm going to tread on less dangerous and more familiar
territory. I'm Jeremy. That's anywhere. Okay. I got a lot of room to work with here then.
I'm Jeremy. This is my wife, Sonia, last name Bassett. We have been married 15 and a half years.
We have five kids. No.
Three kids. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, three kids, those of you who have five, God bless you. Just try to keep up with the front row. I get it. No, we have three kids.
And they're fun. And then, um.
something that might be unique about us is we don't have a dog and a lot of people do. We discovered that
But anyway, we're also from two totally different dairy territories so
I'm from like an Oregon dairy territory and she's from a Wisconsin dairy territory. Wow.
It's a battle of the dairy battle going on. So anyway, yeah.
Two?
I'm Aldo and Hannah Gumma.
We have been married for 17 years. 17? 17.
And we have four children.
So some of the things that
You know, were unique to us were already said
But our children are, you know, we have a pattern of every two years okay see told you.
That's taken. What else?
I'm from Albania originally, Hannah was a missionary kid
So we got married in albania so
That's pretty cool.
Oh, okay. I see.
Come on.
Wow. I don't want to complicate this anymore, but they're sisters.
Okay.
I thought I had lunch with you. Come on.
No, no, no, no, no. Come on. I want to see if you remember how long you've been married.
16 years.
On the 11th of October.
No, ask me that.
bitter in the morning. Next year, I won't remember but
No kids.
Nothing unique about us. No dogs.
Yeah.
I don't know. What else?
Are you the only one in the room that has killed a bear?
Yeah, a couple of them. That's pretty unique.
Yeah, I guess that's it. All right.
So she's a bad aim.
So my name is Joseph and my wife is Tanya. Tanya? Tanya, yeah.
But her real name is helena
Wishy doesn't like so
Really nice.
Interesting. Okay.
We'll talk about parents later.
On that route, like I just spoke to her once before we got married
And she emailed me from a different name. I was totally confused. Wow.
See?
Rachel, Leah, I've heard the story before somewhere.
So what else? Unique thing about us, we both were born in an island
You know, that's the only thing I can think of.
from India and she was in Bahrain, which is like a
island itself you know
Okay.
Yeah.
It didn't.
Hi. Walt and Anna. Last name is Fuhr.
so i've
We're married eight and a half years.
We're both a little bit in the medical field. But what's unique about us
is…
Nine and a half years ago.
We talked for six hours and there was a mariachi band
that was playing and her loving family um
cousin offered the fact that his favorite song was I'll Love You for 100 Years.
And that evening.
our ages added up to 100 years and maybe we got 100 years of love in us so
That's a stretch, my friend, but we'll take it.
Well, 50 and 50, we were open yeah
So what she wanted to say was unique is that we are blended and blessed.
We have 165 kid years.
in our children. How many minutes is that where you're from?
And so we have a blessed and blended family. It's our second marriage.
And we have six kids.
And all guys and one girl. Wow, poor girl. And her kids add up to 90 and my kids add up to 75.
You're not a math guy, though. You're a doctor. That's just do all I figured. I'm the last guy here.
All right. The role in front of you hasn't been, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm Jim Quint, and this is my wife, Judy. I've been married for 47 years.
We have four children and 15 grandchildren. And probably the unique thing is
Where we grew up only about five blocks away from each other. Wow.
Three for three bucks a week.
Never met, as far as we know, until…
1975, I think it was so
And all our kids are named, start with a J. So we have Jennifer, Janine, Jamie, and John. Nice.
I'm assuming that was on purpose.
That's…
It's not unique at the chapel. We have another family that has all J's too.
Wow. Summer?
You guys need to watch Wheel of Fortune and buy a vowel or something.
Okay.
Thank you.
I haven't met Jamie yet, so we got to get me.
I'm Luke Myers. This is my wife, Jamie.
She's their daughter. One of them.
We've been married for 18 years.
We have five boys.
We've been married longer than all of them who have five. So it was our idea first.
And, uh.
The unique thing about us is we're going to be the first pickleball champion
on the couples retreat.
Bye.
Okay, my husband wanted me wanted me to do it. Sure, no problem. Obviously, since he's hard of hearing in case any comments.
John and Donna Duckhorn, we have been married 58 years. A record in the room, I think.
And we're the oldest in the world.
And we were missionaries in Columbia, South America. We have two adopted Colombian boys. Well, they're not boys anymore.
They are 59, which I always get a kick out of telling people since we've been married 58 years, 59 and 56. And they…
We have three granddaughters between the two of them.
One lives in California, the other lives in Florida.
Well, they get together a lot. Excuse me. One less in California, the other lives very close to us in Milwaukee. Okay.
They'd like to be in Florida someday, apparently.
And, um.
We were missionaries in Colombia for 12 years well he was
when you're married. I mean, unmarried
This is getting interesting. I start writing this stuff down.
Beautiful.
because they're just
He wanted me to say, okay, then he didn't understand what we were laughing about, but we won't tell him um
He was in one year by as a single man in Columbia.
Then when he came home, we were home for a year and then we went back to Columbia together.
with the assemblies.
And what else unique?
Nothing.
Neil and Alex Salenki married
59 years? No.
21 years of marriage.
And we've got two kids, no pets.
I don't know. One of the unique things is that my birth date
or day is the 11th. Victoria's is the 11th my daughter
Alex's is the 26th and my son
His birthday is the 26th.
So that's the same number as the Walters? I didn't do any ads. Okay.
But thankful to be here.
I think we've been coming to the couples retreat
for tool uh
19 years, I would say.
So it's been fun.
And we do this every year. We do go around the room and say, you know, how many years you've been married so
It's nice to see that over the years so
I stole that from Steve Price.
Yeah, thank you. All right.
So the longest is 58 and the shortest is
Eight, seven and a half.
And a lot of children okay
Well, as you know now, my name is Steve Caldwell.
I currently live in Lubbock, Texas.
But that's not where I'm from, and I'll get there in a sec.
I was married on June 13, 1987 to Vicky, so you can do the math. Walter, how many years is that?
I think that's 37.
And I'm sorry that she's not with us.
probably she's more sorry than I am, but
That's how it goes sometimes. As it was mentioned, I was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
My aunt came over here.
in about 19…
63, and she called my father and said, you're living in a hole
It rained 338 days a year. What are you doing over there?
So my dad loved riding motorcycles and playing soccer.
He moved over.
stayed for a year, got homesick, went back to Ireland.
And then they decided that they would bring
my grandmother over. My grandfather had since passed. And so then my dad came back and we settled and
Sunnyvale, California for the next long while.
But I, uh.
live in San Jose, so this is my house in San Jose. I was there for 25 years.
Went to San Jose State University.
That spaceship there is Apple's headquarters, Apple Computer.
And the chapel that I go to or went to for 42 years
is about three miles from there.
So that's kind of where we grew up. That's a beach for those of you that may not be familiar.
And if it's just a beautiful place.
I have two children, my son there in the bow tie got married to his daughter Penelope.
Two and a half years ago, my daughter is an architect in Los Angeles.
And she's single and will be turning 30 here in a couple of weeks. I'm going to be bringing her to Chicago to do an architecture tour because she is an architect.
My background is kind of varied. I started off, I graduated from college in 86.
started at Lockheed Martin in February of 87.
I worked there for 13 years.
And I was trying to get involved in ministry as much as I could. A friend of mine who was working for Triple A Insurance at the time said.
Steve, you work way
more hours than I do and you make less money than I do. Why don't you think about switching over to selling insurance?
Because all you have to do is be organized and be nice.
And at least you're organized.
So after 13 years at Lockheed, I moved over to AAA and
I took a 50% cut in pay, actually.
But with the hope of growing to, you know, a multimillionaire.
10 months later, while I was still making like $30,000, the elders at Hillview Bible Chapel said, we'd like you to consider going full-time
here at the chapel and being involved in ministry.
And so I left that lucrative career at triple a
And went into full-time ministry.
And it's a little unique in the assemblies, I think, because I didn't travel the world
I stayed at Hillview and was involved in
As I mentioned, high school ministry, college ministry, shepherding, pastoring.
And kind of building up
the local body. And again, I don't know if that's controversial in these parts, but
Some people say, well, you're a pastor and it's not. It wasn't like I preached every week. It wasn't like I did everything. It was just I
kind of Ephesians 4, 12, building up the saints for the work of service and so
was able to do that for
25 years, I guess.
In the process.
I became an elder in 1998.
And we hived grace bible chapel in 99
about 100 saints from our assembly
kids and adults went about 15 miles away and started another assembly in San Jose.
After…
I guess it was 2018, they had some issues where one of their elders had passed away
one had moved to Pennsylvania as a doctor.
One, uh.
had some conflict and left. And so they were down to one elder.
And so they came and asked us.
If we would take over
that assembly as well, since that was our daughter assembly.
So for the next five years, we had a rotation of elders going between the two assemblies. And so I was kind of
part of the oversight of both Hillview and Grace for a long time.
Back in 1973, and I don't want to go too much
history on you, but there was a program started called the Discipleship Intern Training Program started by William McDonald and Gene Gibson, Jack Davies at Fairhaven Bible Chapel in San Leandro, California.
And they did that
training full-time workers and missionaries
For 20…
five years or so. And as they started getting older, Jim McCarthy had joined their teaching team
He had been a missionary in Ivan for a couple of years.
commended from Hillview.
And Jim came to Fairhaven, taught there for 10 years at the DITP,
And then Juana was really interested in planting a church.
He went to the elders at Fairhaven and they said, we're not at a point where we can do that.
So Jim said, well, do you mind if I
Ask Hillview if they're interested. So that's when Grace started in 1999. Jim came back down.
So when the elders asked me to go full time in 2000, they said.
There's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, but basically the intern program is going to move down to San Jose
Under the work of Jim and then
Gene and Bill would become guest speakers they were just two
old and tired to keep up the rigors of that program. So it moved down
to San Jose, I was one of the first students in that class.
And I was bugging McCarthy so much, I would say, hey, there's a
We were supposed to be going to a mosque next Friday. Who's driving?
I don't know, figure it out. And I say, oh, we have a guest speaker coming in in three weeks. Where are they saying? I don't know.
So by the end of the program, he said, Steve, you're so annoying with the details.
I want you to help me organize the program. So for the next 10 years, Jim and I ran the program together with a combination of Hilvia and Grace.
working as a team.
Then in 2010, because of finances and because of some of the issues that were starting to happen down at Grace.
The program kind of died.
We don't advertise it very well, or we never did and
Miraculously.
By the time when it was at Hillview and Grace went for 10 years, but it was every other year.
And it wasn't by design. It was when we
had an applicant had an application
we had enough for program. When we didn't have an applicant, we had none for that year. So I went every other year.
And then, like I said, it moved to to
Well, he died.
Jim McCarthy and one of the interns from the 2010 class had started then a program called Galilee, which is a three-week summer program in Lafayette, Louisiana.
for discipleship.
After a few years of
seeing 30 people a year go through that program.
they decided to restart DITP in Lubbock, Texas, which is where Brady Collier, this guy was.
And Jim McCarthy's wife had passed away. So then he moved to Lubbock and they restarted the DITP.
So they asked me to come a few times a year to help teach.
And long story short, over the years, the lore started asking Vicki and I to consider moving to Texas.
This was right in the middle of us trying to figure out this stuff with Grace.
And I remember coming to a meeting one Saturday morning and I said, guys, before we start, I need to kind of throw a grenade in the room.
The Lord may be asking us to consider leaving.
And so the elders prayed about that.
And we spent a year in Texas where we rented a house and came back once a month for long weekends to continue the ministry at Hillview to see if we could live in Texas and
the program really needed us, if Hillview could survive without me, which sounds terrible, but just reality of time.
And after about a year and a half.
I stepped down as an elder and they commended us to the work of DITP. So that's why I'm in Lubbock, not because I love flat, dusty, ugly
scenery, but because the Lord asked us to move to Texas.
So that's kind of my ministry history.
Sports is something that I love. I played
Baseball and soccer and ice hockey and street hockey.
flag football all organized.
refereed a bunch of soccer games and coached for 20, 30 years probably now.
So anything about sports you want to talk about this weekend, I'm all in.
I currently go to Freeway Bible Chapel in Lubbock, Texas. It's the only assembly within
Boy, 600 miles, maybe 500 miles. It's kind of an island
It was established, as you can see, in 1960, and that's a group of interns from a few years ago
As I said, DITP, the Discipleship Training Program is kind of my main
ministry and focus these days
That's a picture of me in the
Upper left corner with Jim McCarthy while i was a student
um and uh
a couple of pictures of graduating classes
We do campus evangelism. That Russian hat is a long story. You can ask me about that later, but we go to Texas Tech campus, which is where Patrick Mahomes is from, if any of you know that name.
And we're there every Wednesday for evangelism.
We have a Bible study on the campus.
And then a Bible study in my home on Friday night. That's what that picture is on the lower left corner.
And so it really is a full-time ministry. It's exciting.
It's really awesome. My wife, as you can see there, is involved in a lot of hospitality. We have people over
All the time, every guest speaker that comes from the program, and that's probably about 13 guys.
Stays at our house. Steve Price is involved in that.
In fact, he'll be at my house when I get there on Sunday night.
So we're very excited about that. Again, we're not sure
How long we'll be there. We still have our house in California, but for now we're serving the Lord in this ministry. And if you have any young men or women that are
interested in another level of training.
You can talk to me about that this weekend.
It's a really good program that I obviously am very fond of.
A verse that I think is very important in my life is Colossians 1.28.
And we proclaim him admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom.
This last part is really what captures my heart that we may present every man complete in Christ. And so I see my ministry as
Whatever a person needs in the next step in their Christian life, if there's anything I can do to help them get there.
That's my passion and so
It won't take you long to see that I'm not the best teacher in the world.
I'm really not the best at anything, which is fine.
But I have a lot of experience in a lot of different things. And so if there's
things that you want to talk about this weekend, I'll probably get a lot more out of that until you than listening to me ramble on about
merit, because I'm sure most of you
are doing pretty good in your marriages. And this is going to be a lot of reminders. In fact.
There's a great verse I like in
2 Peter.
113.
This is, of course, Peter talking and he says.
I consider it right as long as I am in this earthly dwelling.
to stir you up by way of reminder.
So I will be somewhat surprised
If you hear anything new.
This weekend?
But if you're like me.
you forget.
And so again, it sounds like this conference has been going for a long time and some of you have been here probably 20 times.
There's not a whole bunch of new information about marriage, I don't think, that's come out in the last, you know.
few years from the Bible. So you'll see very familiar verses.
And that's fine. And I'm not expecting to wow you with this new perspective on the scripture.
But hopefully it'll be a reminder. And hopefully you guys can get some time alone
That's a couple of students talk about your marriage and say, how are we doing?
And again, with all the kids that you guys are focusing on or have focused on.
Sometimes you kind of lose track of who you are.
you know the the kids take so much time and attention and effort and energy that we think, okay, well, this is my partner in crime here. We kind of get this done but
maybe there's a little bit of a drifting that's gone on in your own personal relationships and so
Maybe this weekend you'll just have a chance to reconnect a little bit and
remember how special that person sitting next to you really is.
The theme verse for the weekend is Psalm 112.
127.1.
Again, probably very familiar to all of you.
But I'll just read it for context.
Psalm 127.
Verse 1.
Unless the Lord builds the house.
They labor in vain who build it.
You know, I mentioned that uh
I've been involved in a fair amount of counseling
I think I've got a, I get to perform a wedding here on December 21st, and I think that'll be
20th wedding I've done. I can't remember the exact numbers but
Every time I start the process.
And my fellow elders back in california
are the ones that pass this on to me. So are kind of our mantra for
50 years has been, we're not interested in performing Christian marriages
We're interested in establishing Christian homes.
And you might think that's semantics, but it's not.
It's so significant that
christian holmes
are founded on the scriptural principles
And on the Lord himself.
And so unless the Lord builds the house.
your efforts
are going to be insufficient.
for really honoring the Lord and raising children that you want to raise.
So tonight we'll just kind of do a bit of a brief overview and then we'll get into the meat.
Tomorrow, but God's designed for marriage. That's kind of the tagline.
for the weekend.
And I'll have, I think, most of the verses up on the screen. You're happy to turn there.
Obviously, if you want, but I don't think there's any
mistakes or changes, you know, sleight of hand so you can hopefully can trust that those are the verses there to save time. But again, I want all of all of the things that I talk about this weekend to be scripturally based. And I'll tell you some stories and anecdotes, but
really the important aspect is looking at the scriptures and what it says.
And what the Lord says.
And so we read in Genesis 1.27 that God created man in his own image.
in the image of God, he created him male and female he created them
God bless them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply. You guys are doing a good job of that.
Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
And so we see here that God
Established.
mankind and
Marriage. Again, not a surprise.
But in our society today you know when
When things are so confusing and again
I'm from California, probably the leader in in weird
It's amazing what's going on.
you know reminds me of Romans 1 where it says there in about verse 28 or so that they were inventors of evil.
You know, it's like people have run out of just kind of normal
evil. They're kind of making it up.
And it's just so sad to see what's going on and
I'm sure you guys are aware that
that marriage is just being attacked like never before.
And
You know, it seems like, you know.
as I said, teaching Sunday school, high school class for many, many years
the number of broken homes that are represented over those
15 years continue to increase.
And it's becoming more and more common
for marriages to be falling apart.
And so it's good to remember that god
God established it and established it
He wants us to honor what he
began. And why did he do it?
Well, in the next chapter of Genesis 2.
In verse 18 says, the Lord said, it's not good for the man to be alone.
I'll make them a helper suitable for him out of the ground, the lower form, every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.
Just can you imagine that?
If you were Adam, I don't know how many species there are these days but
You know, it's like, okay, here's all these animals and uh
And so Adam, you know, he's feeling probably pretty proud of himself. And he's like, all right.
rhinoceros. Pretty cool name.
Hippopotamus.
Rangutang. And on and on and on he goes. And, you know, it's getting, again, I don't know how many animals there is it?
Then there's like fly, ant, you know, whatever, just…
But it's just amazing. We read the Bible and it's like, okay, it's just a story and we read through it. But you just stop and think through what was that like?
you know we saw that that god
made man in his image. And part of that is
to be creative. And so then he says in the next chapter, okay, Adam, be creative
And you can call all these things whatever you want.
And so he did.
And then gave names to all the cattle and the birds of the sky and every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper suitable
for him. And so the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept.
Well, after naming all the animals, what do you expect?
Then he took one of the ribs and closed it up the flesh at that place and the Lord fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man.
And he brought her to the man.
The Lord said, now this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
So what is the purpose?
Well, we saw be fruitful and multiply.
But here we see here
It wasn't good for men to be alone.
And so I think the
Perhaps the foundation of marriage maybe the
And I want to say the most important thing, but certainly one of the top three
would be companionship.
And, you know, I've i've um
heard the phrase and you may have used it yourself
You know, when you were first married, well, we're going to start a family
next year.
Meaning we want to start having kids.
Well, I don't think that's what God meant.
when he brought the man and the woman together.
They were family.
And so we'll talk about this in more detail tomorrow afternoon, but children
don't make a family.
They're a welcome addition to a family for sure, and they're a miracle and they're a blessing
But for those that don't have children.
that's a family. And I think we need to be careful
Well, there's two things we need to be careful about when it comes to marriage. One is that somehow marriage makes me a better Christian.
you know and and it's we don't
blatantly say that but
When we look for people to take on ministries, it's like, well, who's going to do the third and fourth grade essential class? Well, we need to get a couple in there.
And we kind of subtly tell the single people
you're just not mature enough or there's something wrong.
or many of the illustrations we use, and again, I can do it this weekend because it's a marriage couples retreat but
from the pulpit, a lot of times the illustrations have to do with families and marriage and it's
Again, it's not on purpose.
But it really sends a message to the single folks that they're just not quite
there yet. And when they get married then they can really
be complete. And again, there's some aspect of it here because it says it's not good for the man to be alone. And so I'm not saying that marriage is bad.
But just be careful that we don't
I'll leave the single people out.
And then the next thing is kind of the main point from this verse is that
Children are not
a family. Again, they're awesome and i love mine
but um
Just be careful that we don't subtly
pressure people or make them feel bad if they don't have them for one reason or another.
For this reason, the man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
And him and his wife were both naked and not ashamed.
So we see here.
the unity aspect of marriage.
one flesh one flesh
you know, we're i guess
Depending on your theology, we're either bipartheid or tripartite beings.
body and soul or body, soul, and spirit.
And when we become one flesh you know there's
there's a clear picture there.
But there's there's a
just a special bond
that bring us together in marriage.
He shall leave his father and mother and be joined or cleaved is the word probably in the King James.
And that work has the idea of being welded
Together.
And I've done a little welding with my dad and sometimes you
you make a mistake.
And if you reheat the metal, you can pull it apart.
But it doesn't look too good when you do that. Maybe another example is if you put, you got some Elmer's glue and poured it on this page and stuck it together.
I said, oops, that was a mistake. And then you tried to pull it apart. What happens?
It's a mess. And so
That's what happens when marriages come apart. It's a mess.
And that's why it's also important
For those of you that have older kids when they start
dating or courting, whatever terminology you use here.
They got to be careful because if those relationships don't work.
their scars and it can really hurt
Depending on how close they get.
But the Lord wants that unity that
commitment that joining
together.
This is an interesting verse on marriage that I hadn't really considered too much, but it kind of struck me as I was preparing for this weekend.
You say, for what reason? This is kind of the Lord talking to Malachi, and it says, the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth against whom you have dealt preciously.
Though she's your companion and your wife
by covenant. And just that word covenant there really uh strikes
significant meaning to marriage.
You know, when we think of covenants in the Bible, it's, you know, it's a promise
And it's a commitment. And when we see the covenants that the Lord has made.
They're pretty special.
And so he calls
marriage a covenant.
And, you know, as you stand up there, you know, I'll hearken you back to your wedding day for a moment and, you know, your vows and
You know, my wife and I still joke about it you know um
I did my vows first and I had memorized them and
It was, you know, I mean, like Shakespeare-esque, just unbelievable uh
And, you know, she, of course, lost it
at that point, and she was reading hers and she was crying and dripping on it and she couldn't even read it and you know we just joke about today. She's like, I'm such a failure. I can't even do the vows.
But when you were just thinking back to that special day and
You know, what were those things that you said? Do you remember?
You know, and it's sad today, some of the, you know, the vows that I've heard are like, you know.
I vowed on it to never burn dinner or, you know, I vow to not interrupt you when you're watching the Chiefs play or the Cowboys or whoever you like.
That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a covenant
before God.
And hopefully that's
what you're thinking about when you think about, boy, here's the person that I committed my life to.
And it's important.
So we'll just
A few more verses, and then we'll call it a night. But these, I mean, you could spend a week on each one of these passages, but we'll
We'll just touch upon them a little bit.
And again, like I said, this is nothing new. Some of you probably have some of these memorized.
But I want to stir you up
By way of reminder.
This is something that I was asked to do when I was going through pre-medal counseling and I've continued
with it today.
And you guys might think about doing this tonight or maybe before breakfast.
As we read this, think through this
Okay, now how does that look
In my marriage.
Okay, love is patient.
So again, I remember I wrote a paragraph on this when I was engaged.
And, you know, by the time my alarm went off in the morning till the time I was ready to go out the door was probably about eight minutes.
You know, just like I'm up poo, I'm going, brushing the teeth, comb my hair at the same time, eating breakfast and okay, I'm ready.
My wife, not so much.
And so I remember, you know, again, preparing for marriage saying.
Love is patient means that I'm not going to be standing behind her while she's in the mirror doing whatever girls do, saying, we're going to church today?
But I will go and read my Bible or do something, stay out of her way.
And just patiently let her take more time than me.
Now, you can tell she looks a lot better than me. And so that's, I mean, maybe I should spend more time but
Point being is, what does that look like? Love is patient. Okay, that's cool. We can like to say that. But in my marriage.
What does that look like?
Love is kind.
And again, I speak to me because I don't know any of you, so I can't
say what happens in your home but
You know, when I was dating
I was so careful about what I said because I know my girlfriend at the time was a little insecure.
And was afraid that I might like somebody else.
And I was pretty insecure. And so I didn't want to offend her in any way. So everything was so carefully said and thought through.
Well, after…
30-something years.
maybe you're not quite as kind.
After 15 years, that's kind of the average in the room.
Maybe.
Kindness takes too long.
They know that I love them. They know that I'm in a hurry.
I can just say i can just say
whatever needs to be said.
Love is kind.
It's not jealous.
But this is being recorded. Okay, I won't use any names. Somebody was visiting me.
from another state.
And they had
Somebody else from our church heard that they were coming.
And so they said, oh, I hear Joe's coming.
Making up the names to protect the innocent.
I'd like to have them over.
So Joe showed up at my house and I said, oh, by the way, Jane.
I wanted to have you over for dinner.
And he kind of had this funny look on his face. And I said.
What's wrong? He said, well.
I grew up as a missionary kid.
In another country where jane
lived. We grew up together.
And we kind of liked each other on and off over the years.
And I didn't marry her.
So my wife told me
Hey, you better not see
Jane, when you go to Steve's house.
And they're both
happily married, multiple kids, many years together
But there was still this jealousy of don't you even think about
talking to that person. And then like when they saw each other, they hugged
And so, you know, being the compassionate man that I am beside, I got a picture of that. I'm sending it to your wife.
He goes, man, it was a side hug. It was a side hug.
But boy, I mean, it kind of seems silly
But it happens, doesn't it?
And so when you're
spouse is talking to somebody else at church, are you like
Hey, why are they talking to that person?
Or do you just say, you know what, they're ministering.
Love is not jealous.
It doesn't brag and it's not arrogant.
It's hard in a marriage because we
We want to impress our spouse. We want them, we want to be the hero or the heroine to them.
And so it's like, hey, you know what I did today?
And it might seem like you're just catching them up on the day
But you want to be careful that you're not
I guess they call it humble bragging.
Yeah, you know, that couple came over today and what a mess they were. And I'm glad I was able to give them, you know, such great godly advice.
You know how hard it is to get five different kids, all the different schools?
And I do that every day.
Love does not brag and is not arrogant.
It doesn't act unbecomingly, inappropriately.
doesn't seek its own. Well, that's a tough one.
Don't I get a break once in a while? I mean, I'm serving all the time and I come home and I can't just like
expect my spouse to expect
take care of me.
Love doesn't seek its own.
isn't provoked
We know each other.
Better than anybody else, which is awesome.
But it's also dangerous.
Because I know the exact thing to say to really
get her if she's on my nerves.
Don't do that.
doesn't take into account the wrong suffering.
A guy said, yeah, you know, when my wife and I
argue she often gets historical.
And the guy said, oh, do you mean hysterical? I said, no, I mean historical. She'll break out some from like 15 years ago that I did.
And she's got no, it's like crazy.
Well, remember that time when you
In fact, sadly, I was dealing with a couple that unfortunately ended up getting divorced.
And they, boy, their kids were mid-20s, so they've been married, you know.
almost 30 years and
she was still…
upset about the first Christmas they got married.
And just couldn't forget the things that he had done to her.
And again, he was wrong.
But after 30 years, I had been eating at her.
And just really
destroyed their marriage.
It doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth
And I don't know, maybe that can relate to
some of the things that you allow into your house after the kids go to bed or
You know, the things that you laugh and joke about
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. So like I said.
I don't know where any of your marriages are at, but maybe just kind of
meditate on this a little bit tonight before you go to bed and think, hmm.
how does that apply to us?
What can I do to
to show this person that I really do love them more than anybody else on this planet.
So that would be my challenge.
Ephesians.
Chapter 5.
Again, another one that we've got another one
read and hear at weddings.
522.
Wise, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. And guys, notice that it says to your own husbands. So it's not like you're the boss of every woman in the world.
which unfortunately some Christian guys assume
Be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church.
he himself being the savior of the body.
But as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be to their husbands and everything.
Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church.
And gave himself up for her.
So that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.
that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing
that she would be holy and blameless.
So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his own wife loves himself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.
Just as Christ does the church.
Because we are members of his body.
For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be
joined his wife and the two should become flesh. You probably should remember that.
This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
Nevertheless, each individual among you
is also to love his own wife, even as himself.
And the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. It was interesting i was
Sitting in uh
a home this afternoon. I shall remain nameless.
And I saw a book on the
table called love and respect
I don't know if you guys have heard of that book. It's a great book. He repeats himself like 17 times.
So it gets a little bit tedious.
But the point is good.
It seems here that that wives
particularly need to know that they're loved.
and husbands need to know that they're respected.
And I'll start, I guess, at the bottom here because I caught my eye.
The wife must see to it
She respects her husband. And I used to always think, well, respect is earned
And I think there is a modicum of truth in that statement.
But it seems here like respect is commanded.
And, you know, guys are not always
Awesome.
Your husband does not always make the best
decisions you've ever seen.
They may, from time to time
be wrong.
you may be smarter than them.
Or more spiritual than them.
or more committed to the Lord than them.
And honestly, it seems like
Generally, women tend to be more spiritual than men.
And I think that's why
God reminds you that you need to respect him.
Because sometimes they're just downright
unrespectful.
Now, it's also kind of a
A reminder to guys, hey, be respectable.
But ladies
Men need to know that they're respected.
Guys.
Ladies need to know that they're loved.
Well, I told you I loved you 58 years ago. Didn't that count? Nothing's changed.
Can't you remember that?
And we're just so
Fixed scolds sometimes that
I do this all the time. It's like, I think something
But it just never really makes it out of my mouth.
And then my wife will say something. Well, I told you that.
No, you didn't. And then I started thinking and I go, oh, you know, you're right. I thought about it as I was walking up to the door, but I just never…
said it.
And we need to let them know that we do love them. In fact.
Yesterday, the day before, my wife asked me.
So do you still like me?
They need to be reassured, guys.
And, you know, you can be the macho
bear killing, protector provider.
But sometimes it's good to be a little tender as well.
So keep that in mind.
This passage is…
Again, it's controversial because of the be subject to your husband's
But it's very convicting to me because the husband has said.
challenged to love.
your wife just
as christ also
loved the church. And how did he do that?
Sacrificially.
to the point of death.
And I don't think that we should jump in front of a car every day so we can prove to our wives that we love them.
But it's this idea of dying to self.
And, you know, well, I could have been a professional singer. I want to be this awesome person at work and get all these promotions.
And so that takes time, that takes effort, that takes commitment, that takes sacrifice.
My wife will take care of those 5, 8, 15, 34 kids we have, whatever. That's her job.
And we don't die to our
Selfish goals.
Now, if you together decide that, hey, you know what you
you're going to med school. And again, obviously this doesn't apply to you guys but
it's going to these next four years are going to be brutal.
make those decisions together and that's okay
But guys, don't make these big commitments to other things
and don't and forget to sacrifice for the sake of your wife and your family.
Christ died.
gave himself up for her, it says in verse 25.
And just kind of a little side note as well, when we see verse 31,
quoting from Genesis 2, the man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined to the wife and the two should be one flesh.
The mystery is great, verse 32, but I'm speaking with reference to Christ.
in the church. And this is another reason why the whole
attack on marriage and the transgender movement and all these things are such an offense to God.
Because they're challenging
the picture that he has of marriage.
his relationship to the church.
And when you start messing with marriage.
you're messing with God's design and he takes that very seriously.
All right, finally for tonight and we'll wrap it up.
Oops, Colossians.
Chapter 3.
And this is kind of a sister
passage to Ephesians, but there's a few little different things here that i'll
just point out as we wrap things up.
318, wise be subject to your husbands as is fitting
in the Lord. Husband, love your wives.
And do not be embittered against them. That's something different.
Children are brought up here in verse 20, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.
Fathers do not exasperate your children so they will not lose heart.
Husbands love your wives.
And don't be embittered against them.
sometimes
Well, you know, we can come home from a long day of work and
expect things to be a certain way.
And they're not.
And maybe there's a really good reason for it and maybe there's not.
And we get
I have gotten a little bit frustrated with that.
And maybe to use the biblical word embedded.
And boy, I had a friend who he was an expert at the silent treatment
And I saw this because he lived with me for a while before he got married.
And he would go days with just not speaking to you.
And, you know, that's okay. I'm a guy I could kind of deal with it. But when he got married, he did the same thing.
I was like, how can you not talk to your wife for three days because she
cut you off in the middle of a sentence.
Well, she's not showing me any respect. That's totally rude. And I'm pouring on my heart and she just kind of runs over me and ignores me.
Yeah, that sounds like that was probably inappropriate.
But you haven't spoken to her in three days?
Well, yeah, because she deserves to know how I feel.
And maybe you're not that bad.
But are the little things that irritate you that
change the way you treat
your your wife.
And again, wives, I'm sure that the
Opposite might be true as well.
go back to 1 Corinthians 13.
That has a little bit here about
children and fathers in particular, and we'll spend more time on this
tomorrow night but tomorrow night
Just to give something to think about tonight, don't exasperate your children so they won't lose heart.
It's really sad when
you say something to one of your kids
And you can just see it in their eyes.
That was not the right thing to say.
or the right way to say it. We'll talk about tone
Tomorrow.
But, you know, kids are so
desirous to please us and to us
make us like them and love them and be proud of them
You know, maybe it's
you know they've memorized John 3.16 for the first time
And you're like, oh yeah, I've known that for 30 years.
Glad you finally got it.
Really?
Or they bring home an art project. And I wanted to bring a couple but
you know luggage and such um
what's that?
We have something, as I said, we have Bible study at our house every friday night and
The college kids were looking for the song books and they opened one of the cupboards and they pulled out
some some pottery.
that one of my kids had made. I can't remember which one it was yet or at the time
And they said, what's this?
I said, I don't know.
I think my daughter made it in fourth grade and I have no idea what it is.
But I've still got it today because I've got it today
I didn't want to destroy her
little fourth grade art.
But boy, we sure can we
hurt them by what we say or how we say it.
So hopefully this weekend we'll spend a little bit more time on a lot of these subjects. Again, my goal is to remind you
My heart is to talk to you.
pray with you or for you if there's any issues and
If I'm bored all weekend, that's awesome because that means there's no problems here.
But I do want to make myself available if that might be helpful to you.
But my prayer is that this would be a time for you guys to
to reconnect or reinvigorate things.
I'll remind each other how much you love each other.
And just be blessed as we spend time
Considering God's design for our marriages.
Let's pray.
Lord, I thank you for the
patterns, the principles
that you give us in the scriptures about marriage
I thank you for each couple that is here.
the families they represent.
Lord, I pray that as we spend time together in your word and
just together.
that you would perhaps open up subjects that need to be addressed?
remind these couples of how much they love each other.
And help them to remind each other.
Lord, our goal is to honor you with our marriages.
As well as make them just special so that we can enjoy the wonderful partner that you've brought to our side.
So thank you, Lord, for each one that's here.
And for those that are coming tomorrow, we just pray that
This will be a weekend for them to remember.
how good you are to them.
In Jesus name. Amen.