I'm going to start this morning with a little exercise, a little mental exercise. Hopefully you're up for that. People talk these days about having their happy place, finding their happy place. And so what I want you to do, I'm going to give you 10 seconds to do it after I say go. And this happy place they describe is they visualize themselves a setting which brings them peace, serenity, and tranquility. So the idea is if you're in a tough situation, you find your happy place is what I've heard people say even this week. And so I'm going to say go and you've got 10 seconds. You can close your eyes if you want to. You find your happy place. Ready? Go. I can't let you linger any farther than that. I'm afraid I'd lose too many of you. Hopefully, how many people were able to think of a place that was peaceful, serene, and tranquil? All right. My question would be, those of you that were able to find your... By the way, I'm not condoning that when life gets hard that you need to imagine yourself someplace else. That is not what this is about. But I do want to do this for this reason. I'd like to know how many of you, in picturing yourself in your happy place, were with your spouse? I didn't mean anyone to raise their hands. Rhetorical question. So as we go on, how many of you were with your spouse at the kitchen table? How many of you were with your spouse at the kitchen table at 10 o'clock at night with the checkbook open or the bank statements out? Anybody? All right, well, that exercise is to demonstrate that as a rule, when we think about marriage and finances and harmony and tranquility and serenity, those things are usually not where we gravitate to in terms of our happy place. We know statistically that marriage and finances do not lead the majority of people to serenity and tranquility. In fact, 80% of people that are pursuing a divorce give their number one reason for pursuit of divorce is their inability to deal well with each other financially. And so it is a struggle for Christians and non-Christians alike, the idea of there being harmony and agreement, peace surrounding family finance. And so this morning hopefully what we can do is we can shed some light on some things that are at work for and against those that are attempting to find harmony in marriage and in finance and hopefully prepare us all better for planning and those kind of things. As you look for biblical examples of marriage, harmony, and finance, there's not a whole lot of biblical precedent for those things. And when we originally did this series, I had asked my family to brainstorm with me of the places in the Bible they could think of where there was a married couple dealing with finances. And we came up with three. And here's what they were. First of all, Jacob and Rachel. And what we see from that story is a good wife is worth much time and effort. And if your father-in-law happens to be a swindler and a cheat, just agree to work longer for your wife and you will get the wife you promised in the first place. Another one is Abigail Nabal. Again, I won't go into all the history there, but the moral of the story is, if your husband is a fool, and can't return generosity for generosity of a powerful man, go behind his back and bribe the party he has offended to save his life. When God strikes your husband dead, you can then marry the powerful man. And the last one is Ananias and Sapphira. And the moral is, if your husband is a fool and plots, you see a theme here? and plots to deceive the church into thinking he is a wonderfully generous man, just go along with it. In the end, the two of you will be together. So again, we don't necessarily have a biblical precedence for the whole package, finance and harmony and marriage, but we certainly have three things that I want to develop this morning. We obviously have the Bible speaking of harmony. We obviously have the Bible speaking on the topic of marriage. And then we will try to give some insights as far as those two working together. My three points are these. Point number one, harmony is the goal. Harmony is the goal. And that goes well beyond marriage. I'm going to keep citing the situation of marriage, but obviously we have harmony in our dealings with every single person. We have the potential of harmony in every single relationship we have. In marriage, in family, in the church, in work, there's all those relationships. Any place there's a relationship, there's a potential for harmony or disharmony, I guess you could say. So harmony is the goal. Point number two. Harmony in marriage is a testing ground. I originally wrote the testing ground, but obviously there's many testing grounds for for harmony. But we'll talk about harmony in marriage being a testing ground. And lastly, financial harmony in marriage is atomic testing, high risk and high reward. So let's begin with harmony in marriage. As I think of Sorry. Harmony is the goal. The point I want to make is that harmony means that you have distinct people, is what we're talking about mostly, that they're distinct, but they are in sync. And I want to give you a little illustration of this from music. When you think about harmony, a lot of us, if I said name the top five things that come to mind when you think about harmony, music would have come up. So I want to do a demonstration. All right. This is middle C. I'm playing with one finger. That's going to represent one person. Harmony is not me playing that same note with two fingers. This is not harmony. So it's not enough just to say you've achieved harmony just because two of you are doing exactly the same thing. In fact, in any relationship, if two people are doing the same thing, there's no need for one of them. So that is not harmony. Also, and I think this is the most The poignant thing I want to say about this illustration is Harmony also is not trying to be as close to the other person as you can. In fact, these two notes are as close as any two notes on the piano. If you want to sing a song or write a song, that's C and C sharp. They're right next to each other on the keyboard. That's not, I guess, arguably, it's harmony, but it's not. This is harmony. That's C and G. And G is a long way from C. In fact, it's closer to the next C up the board than it is to the lower C. What makes harmony, harmony? What makes that pleasant for this? OK? So I just want you to think about what makes something pleasant to listen to. And it's not trying to be the same person. It's not just trying to get to be as close, because we know we're not going to be identical. Any two people are not going to be identical. And so that's not even realistic to think about. And there's no need to try to just get close to always agreeing all the time. Here's what harmony is. And I really debated a long time about getting in this. I'm going to try to just make this short. But basically, when you look at music notes, it's a sound wave. Okay, picture a wave, has a crest and has a trough. The time it takes for that thing to do one full period, it's called its period, how long it takes to do a crest and a trough. And then how many times it does that in a second, let's say it's called its frequency. So they have, I didn't play middle A, but if you hit middle A on a keyboard, it's tuned to, it's called A440. In other words, it oscillates, it does, it's the period of 440 times per second. That's what makes A, A440, okay? Well, it turns out that A, the next A up from that, the A above middle A, I guess you'd say, A1, I forgot my music theory. But anyway, that is actually A880. It's exactly twice the period of A440. And the reason I didn't play octaves, but octaves sound good together as well. And the reason any two notes sound good together is because they are coming back together and starting a period together again. And so the reason that two notes that are real close together don't sound good together, like C and C sharp, is because the numbers would be something like, I'll just use A and A sharp, A 440 and A, let's say 441. It's probably farther away than that. But the next time those two are together, think about least common multiples. The next time those two together is way down the road. They hardly are ever together because they're so close to being close together that they take forever to get back together again. Example, think about the numbers two and four. If I count by twos, two, four, six, eight, those are the multiples of two. If I count by four, it's four, eight, 12, 16. Well, every time I count by a four, I'm also counting, it's also one of the multiples of two, right? So those two come together at every multiple of four, the multiples of two and the multiples of four come together. So those would be very harmonic, if you will. They coincide greatly, their multiples do. Well, think about the numbers like four and five. If I count by fours and count by fives, those two numbers don't have a common multiple again until 20. And so it's only it takes every 20 they will be together again. Again, they're not the same number. But when I count by those numbers, it takes and if you think of numbers like oh, seven and nine or something there, the numbers are close together, but their common multiples are very spread out. And so what makes harmony sound good is how close those multiples of their sound waves are, bottom line. So again, it's not because they are the same note or the same number, it's not because they are close to each other, like even four and eight are quite a ways apart, but they still coincide at every multiple of eight. It is more that it's how often they actually coincide. So that should in some degree take the pressure off. Our goal as married couples, your goal as a young person that's not married and looking at marriage from the outside is not to find someone that thinks exactly like you do. You need to find someone that coincides with your thoughts, okay? You need to find someone that gets back to the same place you do very often, okay? How does harmony happen? I've kind of explained the mathematics of it, the science of sound waves and so forth, but how does it happen in relationships? Is it a deal where I sit under a tree with my legs crossed and hum to myself or say a mantra until I find harmony? Well, you might find something. I don't know what you'll find by doing that, but that's not how you... Harmony is not something that happens by accident. In fact, I want us to look at some scriptures and there's a number of them here, so I'm not going to have you turn. If you want to turn to something to be prepared, you can turn to Ephesians five. That's where we're headed. But I want you to think about what these verses say about harmony. and not just the planets lining up in a special way or anything like that. Think about what this is saying about harmony. And harmony is what you would describe between both parties. You could say that peace is what's being experienced in the whole situation and in each individual. So peace and harmony are very synonymous. Here are a couple of psalms. One psalm says, Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. Another one says, Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. It is the dew of Hermon which falls on the mountains of Zion. Another proverb, there's two proverbs here. One says deceit is in the heart of those who divides evil, but those who plan peace have joy. Another proverb says better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. In Matthew, we are told blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Romans says, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Another verse, Romans 14 says, so then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up-building. Ephesians says, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Second Timothy says, flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels. Hebrews says, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. And lastly, 1 Peter says, for whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." If you had to say a common thread of those verses that all talk about peace and unity and so forth, does it look like it's a passive thing that comes upon you, like a rainstorm? No, it says there are commands. It's saying you need to seek, you need to pursue. We see from scripture that peace and unity are the result of priorities, of choices, and of actions. We find that harmony or peace is something that must be valued and sought after and fostered. And even that sequence of events, the fact you value something and you seek after it and then you foster it. As I put that on paper, it made me think that's very much what the Spirit does. He changes our heart to even give us a desire for the thing. And then we start to pursue it. We go after it once we see its value. And then it has to be maintained. There's a fostering, a maintaining that has to go on. So is the case with peace and harmony. It does not happen by accident. Or you could say coincidence is not coincidence. To coincide with others is not coincidence. It takes effort. It takes intentionality, if that's a word, on the part of the parties involved. All right, let's move on to harmony in marriage. Harmony and marriage. You know, if you think about marriage, it's like a test lab or a controlled environment. And what I want you to think about when you think about marriage, and this is true of a family as well. What happens in marriage? Once we identify that harmony is a goal, and that's what we want to pursue, then the marriage is where you have to practice it the most often. Because relationships are based on contact, if you will, the more contact you have, the more opportunity you're going to have to create or diminish harmony. Just the fact that someone's in front of you, day in, day out, is going to provide the testing of your desire and ability to create harmony. And that's the same thing with your kids. Let me just say this, when families are disjointed, the family as a whole. If everyone is going in different directions all the time, if we're never with each other, then you never even realize that there is disharmony. I mean, if you don't have contact with people, you don't have to get to the nitty-gritty of what's being worked out. If you're not with people, you don't have to even think about the relationship. There's nothing to work through, if you will. And so, what more than marriage, what more opportunity is there than in a marriage that people are going to have to If you want to say it, think of it that way. People have to deal with issues. I guess you could argue that you could have one party that deals with them and one that doesn't, but the deal is that you can't just ignore them. A relationship does not happen or cannot be maintained for the long haul if there isn't some dealing with issues. So when we think about marriage, there are two groups of Scripture, two ideas that are found several times throughout Scripture, and I'll bet you guys can name those. When you think about marriage, and especially those that have the Scripture as a whole, what's one of the things that's repeated over and over about marriage? What's one of the things that Scripture says about marriage? It's a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church. In fact, that's brought up because we are told how the husband is supposed to love the wife in particular. So there's one group of Scriptures that's repeated over and over that says what the husband and wife are supposed to do. There's another group of Scriptures that are found in Genesis and Matthew and 1 Peter. Ephesians that say that kind of tell us about the institution of marriage, how it's supposed to occur, how it comes about, how it came about the first time, and how it comes about every time after that. Those two groups of Scripture, although they're listed in several places, are both found in Ephesians 5. So I've already directed you to get there. I will get there myself. Ephesians 5. Let's start with Ephesians 5.31, and this is one of the portions of script that you'd find three or four times throughout, New and Old Testament alike. Ephesians 5.31 says, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. In fact, that's the first words God said to Adam as he was creating Eve. He says, it's not good that man should be alone in Genesis. He says, because she was made from you, came from you, a man shall." And then he says this in Genesis. It's interesting that the very next verses after that in Genesis are, God also created a serpent. I mean, it's kind of bang, bang, bang. It's not good for man to be alone. Here's marriage. The serpent was more crafty than any other animal that God had created. I never noticed those were in so close proximity before. Let's think about these ideas of leave, cleave, and hold fast, become one flesh. To leave, and we think about biblical times, they didn't go very far. It's not like they went across the country. Sometimes they took up residence in another room in the house. OK, so when they talk about leaving, it's not just a geographical I'm I'm going to leave this location and go to another. The leaving that's described here is in terms of being independent. transferring primary attention, affection, and consideration of welfare from parents to the wife, because it's told of Adam, you will leave, these three things are listed here. And so it's not geographical, it's saying that I'm no longer primarily responsible for what's going on with my parents, I am now going to be responsible for the well-being. I'm looking out for this wife, for my wife. The holding fast or the cleaving is a reference to a covenantal faithfulness, a covenantal faithfulness. When I am holding what's described here, holding fast or King James says cleaving, it is saying that she was the one I committed to. She is the one I am committed to and she will always be the one I am committed to. That's the idea of covenant. In scripture, covenant is from here forward. It doesn't have an end. It is a ray. Nathan and I talked about rays this week. It has a starting point and no ending point. It goes on from that starting point. Again, it's a covenant of saying she is the woman I committed to, she is the woman I'm committing to, and she will always be the woman I'm committing to. That's the idea of cleaving. And lastly, to become one flesh. This becomes the primary focus as it is repeated by Jesus and Paul for the argument that if you have in fact become one flesh, how can anyone pull one flesh apart? CS Lewis talks about you become one organism. And so he says it's not, you know, it is like losing an arm or a leg, you know, that that is what you're trying to accomplish by taking one organism and making it two again. It's just not to be done. Alright, let's back up some verses then. The other point that was brought up, let's look at Ephesians 5.22. Same passage here, but a little earlier. Ephesians 5.22. And this again is repeated in several places in Scripture. It's not just here. says wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, the head of his church, his body and is himself its savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having clothed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother, shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. All right, so like I say, those are the things about marriage that are repeated over and over and over as a teaching of what marriage is about, what the institution is, and then what the roles of its parties are, the husband and wife. So you might ask two things. It says that the husband is the head of the wife. There are two questions I want to answer that come up very naturally. Why headship? And then why the husband? Why headship and why the husband? And this is straight out of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. First of all, why headship? Well, when it comes right down to it, someone is going to have to make a final decision. If you've got more than one person involved and there is any kind of a disagreement, if there are two differing opinions and a single decision needs to be made, then someone is going to have to have the final say on that decision. Now there's lots of ways that you can come to a final decision, but there will be one decision. And so ultimately God says that one decision is going to rest on the shoulders of the husband. The husband will be accountable for the decision that is finally made. So you have to have someone that has final say. In any group, any organization, you're going to have to have a means by which there is a final say. Secondly, then, why the husband? And again, I don't know that I would have come up with this, and C.S. Lewis was single at the time he wrote this, but I think it may have given him more opportunity, more freedom to see things from the outside as well as to speak his mind without repercussions, maybe. C.S. Lewis says that when it boils right down to it, most people would agree that it would be unbecoming for the wife to be the head of the home. That's his argument. He's as much a thinker as he is a theologian, but he says that we don't think it becoming for the woman to be the head. Now, you know, times change, societies change. And so maybe we've reached a new a new level that we feel more comfortable with that idea. But he challenges this. He says, even those women who desire to be the head do not really admire the same state of things when she finds it going on next door. In other words, even the women that would want to rule over the husbands do not look at someone else doing that and admire the women that are doing that in their homes. Again, I'm not a woman, so I'll leave that up to be established or thrown down as a false argument. But ladies, as you think about a household, if you can picture a household where the woman is in charge, is that something that you admire about that woman? Secondly, he says that same person, the same woman that would seek to be the head of her home, probably would not even be flattered if anyone mentioned that the fact that she was the leader to her face. In other words, she may desire, I mean, we all want to be in control. But that same person that says they want to be head, that same wife that says she wants to be head, probably would not take it kindly if someone came to her and said something about her running her home, her being in control of her husband. And so he just says that based on those things, is it really becoming, do we really see it as a becoming thing that the woman should be the head? I want to read you something as well, another thought. He says there's a second reason he sees this for the woman not being the head. And this is verbatim here. He says. But there is also another reason, and here I speak frankly as a bachelor, because it is a reason you can see from the outside even better than from the inside. The relations of the family to the the relation of the family to the outer world, what might be called its foreign policy, must depend in the last resort upon the man, because he always ought to be, and usually is, much more just to the outsiders. A woman is primarily fighting for her own children and her husband against the rest of the world. Naturally, almost in a sense, rightly, their claims overwrite for her all other claims. She is the special trustee of their interests. The function of the husband is to see that this natural preference of hers is not given to its head. He has the last word in order to protect other people from the intense family patriotism of the wife. If anyone doubts this, let me ask a simple question. If your dog has bitten the child next door, or if your child has hurt the dog next door, which would you sooner have to deal with? The master of that house, or the mistress? Or, if you were a married woman, let me ask you this question. Much as you admire your husband, would you not say that his chief failing is his tendency not to stick up for his rights and yours against the neighbors as vigorously as you would like? A bit of an appeaser, the husband. I mean, that's his take. I mean, that's not that's not theology. That's his observation of the nature of women, that the women have a vested interest in the well-being of their family that overrides other interests and can cause there to not be a what he calls a foreign policy that's beneficial to the neighbors. Again, just food for thought. Here's another thing he also says early in the same chapter, and it's just kind of a glancing sentence, but I think it is really the essence of what the when people struggle with the idea of headship and submission, those kind of things. Think about this. As long as the husband and wife agree, no question of a head need arise. And we may hope that this will be the normal state of affairs in a Christian marriage. In other words, when does it come to bear that one person has to be the head? I mean, it's when there is a disagreement. You would hope that in a Christian marriage, when people are both submitting themselves to Christ, that that designation of he is head and she is submitting will be less and less of a thing to be considered. In a well-run home, that designation probably shows itself less than in a home that is not under the leadership of Christ. Let's say it that way. In other words, if we as a couple are both striving to the same ends, then that designation of I have to make the final decision is not as obvious or come to bear. Again, you can agree or disagree, but I think that's the case. I want to finish with the last point, financial harmony and marriage, the atomic testing, high risk and high rewards. I began to list down the things that stand as hurdles or detriments to there being harmony in marriage. And here's some things I listed. Enemies of harmony is what I call them, impatience. Envy. And that could be envy of something, someone outside the home, what they've got, what we don't have. Or it could be the way he spends our money versus the way I get to spend our money. Envy. Selfishness. Greed. Pride. One party or both parties demanding control. And fear. as well as misunderstanding and difference of opinion. And we'll deal with those last two. But when you think about impatience, envy, selfishness, pride, demanding control and fear, if I said those were the things we were fighting against, We're trying to overcome those things. In other words, we are desirous of the opposite of impatience, envy, selfishness, greed, pride, demanding control, and fear. Is there any scripture that comes to mind, anybody? 1 Corinthians 13. If you want to turn there. 1 Corinthians 13. And again, I listed these things out before I had in mind where the answer to those things lie. But if you read 1 Corinthians 13 about what love is. And if love cannot exist in a marriage, where can it exist? 1 Corinthians 13, one more time, let me have you think about what the enemies of harmony are. Impatience, envy, selfishness, greed, pride, demanding control, and fear. Put those up against what 1 Corinthians 13 verse 4 says. says, Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. When you think about what love is and you think about what creates disharmony in any part of marriage or at that point in any relationship, it comes down to the battle for love to be supreme over me, over my desires. Those things that come out as an assault on harmony are really where love is lacking, because love is exactly the opposite of those things. The exact opposite of everything I listed is found in 1 Corinthians 13. We know that if you've been a believer for any time at all, and the Spirit has done a work in you, is doing a work in you, you know what the answer is. We know that we are to love each other. There are two commands, love your neighbor, love your Lord, your God, and love your neighbor as yourself, your neighbor, including your spouse, your children, everyone other than God falls in that category. We know that love is the answer to the problem. But I just want to reemphasize that when we In whatever context, whether it be at the kitchen table with the checkbook out, whether it be in dealing with a child, with a co-worker, whatever, the things that we war against are the natural self, overcoming the natural self. So it's no great revelation to anybody. that when we want harmony and desire harmony, and especially in the area of finance, that we're going to come against what is natural to us. And so just like Steve preached on, what it comes down to is we owe a debt of love to those around us. Owe no man anything but to love them. If you love your neighbor, If you love your wife, the things that have to be overcome will be overcome. In other words, those marital issues or financial marital issues are just one of the things that gets overcome by love. So you pursue love, you pursue harmony, and really the financial is a side point. It really simplifies matter. I should say that. Just because it's simple doesn't make it easy. It's not complicated, what we're called to do in terms of loving. But it is not easy because we are fighting against ourselves. I'm going to close with, I've got ten things if you want to jot these down in relation to finance and marriage. Ten suggestions. Number one is to develop a budget. Dave Ramsey says that a budget is putting a name to every dollar. You're going to designate where every dollar of this month's money is going to go. You're going to tell it where it's going. Three reasons why a briquette budgets are difficult is one spouse uses the budget as a weapon to attack the spending habits of the other, resulting in constant fighting and bickering. Number two, many create a budget that is unrealistic that inevitably gets trashed. Number three, many try to correct many years of bad spending habits in a matter of months. It took a while to dig the hole, it's going to take a while to get back out of it. Here's the other nine. Set long term goals as a couple. And young people, even if you're not in a relationship of two people accomplishing these things, I might just say if you're having trouble financially as a single person, you have nowhere to look but in the mirror. And those things need to be dealt with before you drag someone else into that relationship. Number three, share decision-making. I want to give you the analogy that the decisions made in a marriage are, Don and I followed a couple on a motorcycle this morning. If she was on back, he was driving. If she were to try to reach up and grab that handle, those handlebars from where she was located, there would have been a huge catastrophe. One person needs to drive. That's not to say that she can't have feedback, that she has input. into what's going on with the driver, but there needs to be one set of hands on the actual steering wheel and a navigator, if you will, someone who has input. You know, if you've been married and driven with your wife, you know how that can work. You know how that she can be an asset to helping you think through what needs to be done, where this place is at, that kind of thing. I've got my hands on the wheels, but that does not mean that I do not receive input from the co-pilot. Number four, live on one paycheck. live on one paycheck. We did this as a new married couple at work and we had two teacher salaries coming in and you just set yourself up for success in that if you live on one paycheck and have two coming in, there's lots of things you can do. that creates a lot of potential positive going forward. But if you can force yourself to live on one paycheck, because you don't know at what point that, you know, the second paycheck is no longer going to be available. And so if you've learned to live on one, if you can live on one or living on one, then, you know, if children come along or whatever it is that keeps that second paycheck from being there, you you have a means of making a go of it. Number five, create a wish list. This helps. There's two kinds of people in the world. There's spenders and savers. And this helps to have to have a wish list. Let's the spender know it's going to happen. You know, we can we can plan for this. We can make this happen. And it also gives security to the saver to say we're going to wait for this, that we're not going to go out of control and spend this. We don't have the money. Number six. Have the spender pay the bills. If you're in a marriage with a spender and a saver, have the spender pay the bills. Two things are accomplished. They get to see where the money goes, and they get to spend money. Number seven, set priorities. You need to agree on what priorities are, you know, what is important. And and so again, the spender can see that they're not being ignored, that things what money will be spent, but but there are priorities, spending allowances, You know, it does good to allow some money to actually every month say this is this is your spending money. This is blow money. You know, I can go do buy my fishing gear, whatever it is with that with that money and and the saver in the home can can feel good that I'm not out of control. Number nine, grow up. Grow up. If you are just now learning that you can't have everything you want, then good. I mean, there is a level of maturity that finally says that my needs and the way I've had things up to this point have to be set aside for this thing to work. I have to see beyond my own selfish desires. You've got to grow up. And lastly, number 10, start saving. This cites 2005, 2006 and both those years for the first time that as a net amount, as a country, we spent more than we brought in. Fifty years ago, households averaged 10% savings per week, per month, whatever time period you want to pick. Is it because we have less money? No, it's not because we have less money. It's because we are spending money in a different way. Let me close with this thought. When we were first challenged to think of Bihar's, the first thing that I thought of and the first thing that I shared in elders was my goal would be that every marriage succeeds, that every marriage in this church, every marriage that's represented here, the marriages that are started from here going forward, that those marriages would succeed. That to me would be a huge accomplishment. Because we face a 50% failure rate as it is in general. If we're going to do what everyone else does, that's the success rate we would have is 50%. I would challenge you to think about what could be gained for you, for your spouse, for your family, and for generations to come if you would make marriage the priority. I want you to close with this thought. I don't know if you know, but in Spanish, the word for spouse is the same as the word for handcuff. The word is esposa. Couple that with the idea, and I failed to look it up, but there was one of the discoverers that when they reached the shore of the country they were going to, they burned the ships in the harbor so that no one was going to try to escape and leave everyone else there. No one was getting out. OK, and I hope you don't see those things as negative things because I do not. The things when you think about being secured with someone else, when you think about that, we're in this together. for good, then there is a lot of security. There's a whole new realm of possibilities in terms of the way decisions will be made and the successes that can be had if we see marriage as that. Finance is important. Obviously, it's what rears its ugly head and brings to light the things that are going on in our marriage. It's the one thing that you have to do every month is pay bills. And so that's the reason it's the major area of conflict, not because it's the hardest thing to overcome. It's the one thing that couples have to do. They have to pay their bills. And so, again, if you find that finances is the point where that heat occurs, then you just need to realize that that actual conflict is taking place other places. You're just not forced to deal with it like you are with your bill paying. I hope you've been challenged. I hope young people that you start on a course for marriage, that you see marriage as a priority. You understand what you're getting into. Go into marriage with your eyes wide open. We tell our kids, you look. And then when you're married, you live life with your eyes half closed. And that's how you make it work. But it is worth it. You can look around and you can see how well it serves those that are part of marriage. So if you, as a couple, have gotten to the point where you're fearful that you're going to make it, Please contact someone. Don't let those things go and go and go. Again, if it's going to be a priority for us as a church leadership, it can only be dealt with to the degree that we know about it. Let someone else be a part of helping you through those things. Most of us have the tools it takes or can easily learn the tools it takes to make marriage work. And that's our goal is to make marriage work. a goal. I'm late.