And as we start this, you know, it says, what did you expect? And so there's a little bit of discussion of expectations, and we come to about everything with expectations. And so I know when I got married, I had expectations about how things are supposed to work and all that, and it didn't, Some of them were right, some of them were wrong. What kind of expectations did you have or would somebody have in approaching marriage? And this is something that single people can answer, widowed people can answer. What kind of expectations? Go ahead. Yes, Diane. Yeah, like you said, you know, Hollywood portrays marriages or you get married and it's happily ever after. There's no no problems. And so we can look at the culture that's pushed out there and kind of come up with that expectation. Any other expectations that. Yes. especially the Christians, that we think everything that's good must be God. So it happens in life, it's like, oh my gosh, it wasn't from God. It was horrible, because that's false. We groan when we lose those things. Yeah, sometimes we have that expectation that, you know, if this is God's will for me, everything's gonna be good coming from this. And that's not always the case. Any others? Yes. I remember thinking that he would fix everything that was wrong with me, like my husband would be the balance to everything that was not right, and that I could fix what I was doing. So what Patti said is, she kind of looked at it that her husband would be the balance to fix everything that was wrong with her, and then she would be the one to help fix everything that was wrong with him. And yeah, that's an expectation that I think, yes. Yeah, many of us go into marriage with that kind of expectation. So what are some dangerous things about unrealistic expectations? This is just discussion, so there's not a wrong answer at this point. Yes, Jake? If the expectations aren't met, then it's time to get out, or it's time to give up. Yeah. One of the dangers of unrealistic expectations is that you have this line that it's time to give up at this point. I think a lot of times people are just looking for happiness. And if they're not happy in a marriage, they don't want to work at it. And it does take a lot of work. Yeah, that is very true. Laura. And you can look at Hollywood for how fast the marriages all of a sudden just break up and it's like they don't want to do any work. They don't think they have to. It's really sad because there's a lot of people that look to Hollywood and think That's the way it should be and it's not. We need to look to God. That's right. When I got married, I thought everything was going to be great because I was marrying my best friend and we enjoyed a lot of the same things together and didn't think there was anything we could fight about. We've been married for 19 years now, and you know, she's the right one for me, but I've had to grow a lot, and we've both had to grow a lot. And he happened to marry a sinner. Who was selfish. And yeah, and so this book, we didn't have this book when we first got married, in fact we just recently came across it, but there's a lot of things in here that we had to learn the hard way, and God had to kind of bring us to that spot where we had to say, wait a second, that's not how this works, why are we fighting, what is wrong here? And that's It's been an amazing journey, and we're kind of excited when we saw it in this book laid out this way. And the most exciting part is this is just, not just how it works in marriage, but this is how, most of this is how it works anywhere in life. And when we come to any relationship with unrealistic expectations, it causes conflict and problems. But with that, the way this is actually going to set up, we have a video that we're going to watch. It's about 25 minutes each week. And then we're going to sit and discuss what's on that video. So with that, we're going to go ahead and start the video and watch that. And we'll talk a little bit more about it afterwards. There's spots for notes on his slides in the study guide as well. So it's on page 6. I guess the question to ask here in the beginning is, when you got married, what did you expect? What were the expectations that fueled your hopes and your dreams in your marriage? And maybe the more dangerous question is this, how close have you come to realizing your expectations? I just saw a wife do this to her husband. That means not close. I think there are thousands and thousands of couples that get married every year with unrealistic expectations. I'd be sitting with a future husband and a future wife, and the future wife would look at her husband with sort of glassy, romantic eyes and say something like this, I don't think I could ever be angry at him. I'm angry just to hear it. Because I know where that's going to go. Maybe it all starts with the weirdness of Western culture dating. Can we talk? I don't know why I'm asking permission. I'm going to. I think Western culture dating is just a step above used car sales. Because when you're dating, the last thing you want is for that person to get to know you. So a man who doesn't like to shop will shop. He'll say, yes dear, I'd love to go to another 12 stores and look for those shoes that are in your head and probably never ever been produced. Because darling, when I'm with you I'm shopalistic. A woman who doesn't like sports will watch sports. She'll say, yes dear, I'd love to watch another game. Now somewhere in the middle of a game she'll give it away. She'll say something like this, my, aren't their uniforms cute? A man would never say that if a man thought that he'd be terrified. And then six months into marriage, this woman is crying, this is not the man I married. Check this out. This is the man you married. The man you dated was a fake. It took you a while. Maybe the best way to frame what we're going to do together as we look at this significant human relationship in God's plan is to start with a little bit of my own story. I've been married now for 42 years. I know you're looking at me and thinking this man is way too young to be married that long. So if you're trying to calculate my age, I was married at seven. And Luella and I have struggled, Luella and I have struggled with this issue throughout our marriage, it's the issue of time. Well, it's really been my struggle. Luella was raised in Cuba, and she has sort of an island and a Latin view of time. She lives on a bit of a vibe. You know, you go to the islands because time slows down. If we agree on a pointed hour for Luella, it's a rough estimate. I was raised by a man who thought that the sole litmus test of the value of a human being was punctuality. You're on time, you can live. Now it's Easter morning in the Tritt family at the point of this story and if you have Multiple children, you know that Sunday morning's not the most relaxed morning of the week. We're stuffing children in vans saying, shut up, we're going to worship. We call that preparing our hearts for worship. And our church, for reasons I don't really understand, had decided the best way to celebrate the resurrection was to have a full breakfast before the service on Sunday morning. I don't know what that has to do with the resurrection, but it was a tradition. Well that meant we had to leave an hour and a half early. I woke up with feelings of futility. And about time for us to be ready to leave, I go into the bathroom where Luella is, my then nine-year-old son, and I can tell by the way Luella is dressed that she's not near being ready. And I start saying helpful things to her, like informing her It's not an Easter dinner, it's an Easter breakfast. She found that very helpful. That's a lie. Telling her that a couple of our children are already in the car waiting as usual. Reminding her that I'm an elder in the church and my arrival before the ham and eggs is very important to my ministry. I'm cranking up the heat. About then my nine-year-old son said, Daddy, may I say something? I should have said no. He said, Daddy, do you really think this is a way a Christian man should be talking to his wife? I slapped him. No, no. That's a joke for you overly serious people in the room. I said, what do you think, trying to escape the conviction? And he looked at me very sincerely and said, Daddy, it doesn't make any difference what I think, what does God think? I walk out of the bathroom being duly corrected, and I hear this little voice behind me as I get to the threshold of the door saying, Daddy, may I say something else? I want to say, no, no, please don't. He said, Daddy, what I mean is, what does the Bible say about it? I went into my bedroom and these two thoughts hit me. First, my pride reared up, I want to be a hero to my son, and it was embarrassing that I saw through that moment and felt the tension that Luella felt. But hear what I'm about to say. That didn't last very long. I immediately then thought how could it possibly be that God would love me this much that He'd give one twit of care about that little minor moment in the trip bathroom. That just wasn't a Paul moment or a Luella moment or a Darnay moment. God was in that moment. Now think about this. This is one moment in one room on one morning in one house, on one street, in one neighborhood, in one city, in one state, in one nation, on one continent, in one hemisphere, in one globe in the universe, and God is in that moment. That is love of such magnificence, I can't wrap my brain around it. Now why is that important? Oh, hear what I'm about to say, because you don't live in big moments. Most of us won't be written up in history books. You only make three or four big decisions your entire life. Several decades after we die, the people we leave behind will struggle to remember the details of our lives. If God doesn't rule, you're mundane. He doesn't rule you because that's where you live. The character of marriage isn't set in three or four big moments. The character of marriage is set in 10,000 little moments. I would ask you right now, be honest. What's happening in the little moments of your marriage? What would I see if I watched the video of the last six weeks of the little moments of your marriage? The little moments of your marriage are profoundly important precisely because they are the little moments. Because that happens to be the address where your marriage lives. Now I think that's where we get in trouble. A husband will say something nasty to his wife in a little moment, but he'll walk down the hallway and say, she knows I love her. It was just a little moment. A wife will lash out in bitterness in a little moment that she's carried for a while, but she'll later say to herself, it was just a little moment. He knows I love him. Yes, it is true that those little moments are significant and important because that happens to be the place where your marriage lives. I have little interest. and the time that we have together to talk about the big moments of your marriage, because that's not where you live. But I have lots of interest in shining the searching light of Scripture on the little moments of your marriage. Now I want to say something before we jump in about the Bible that will be our guide. I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but your Bible isn't arranged by topic. That frustrates some of you. You wish it was arranged by topic with little tabs at the end of the page so you can go to your topic of interest. The Bible isn't arranged by topic because of divine editorial error The Bible is arranged the way it is because of divine intention. The Bible is essentially a grand redemptive story. Maybe the best way to say it is that the Bible is a theologically annotated story. It's a story with God's essential notes. Now here's what this means. If all you do is go to the marriage passages to learn about marriage, you will miss the vast majority of the information that the Bible has for you on this profoundly important relationship because that's not the way the Bible's arranged. to the degree that every passage tells me things about God and things about myself and things about life in a fallen world and things about the disaster of sin and things about the operation of grace. To that degree, every passage tells me something about every dimension of my life. That's the way the Bible works. And so I want to take you on a bit of a journey. through passages I think are so wise and so essential that I'm persuaded you can't really understand why marriage is a struggle and how marriage difficulty gets solved without these passages. We're only going to examine three things. Three very important things. But maybe there are things that you didn't ask yourself and you haven't thought to consider. Here's the first one. A marriage of unity, understanding, and love is not rooted in romance but worship. A marriage of unity and understanding and love is not rooted in romance but in worship. Now if you're a woman in the room and you know who you are, Don't think that this is another Christian speaker who's disrespecting romance. I love romance. I'm a very romantic man. In fact, when I was doing my doctoral studies and I was taking those personality tests in areas like romance, I scored way off the male charts onto the female charts. That made me very comfortable. Particularly my professor thought that was so interesting, he posted my charts for all the class to discuss. But you got to understand this. Romance is never the cause of a good marriage. Romance is the result of a good marriage. Romance is never the cause of a good marriage. Romance is the result of a good marriage. And if you look to romance to form for you a good marriage, you're going to be anxious, discouraged, freaked out, disappointed, and ultimately hopeless. Romance is a result, not a cause. Now this is one of these passages that you can understand every word in this little passage, this principle, and not understand the principle. And the tricky word in that statement is the word worship. What in the world does it mean to say that a good marriage is rooted in worship? What does that mean? Well think with me. When you hear the word worship what do you think about? Most people when they hear the word worship they think about a Sunday morning or a Saturday night, if you go to a real cool church, activity. And what you need to understand is very important that worship is first your identity before it's ever your activity. Worship is your identity before it's ever your activity. You are a worshiper. Now, that means you don't just worship on Sunday. It means you worship your way through every moment of every day of your life. You could argue that the only thing a human being ever does is worship. Now what does that mean? It means I'm always attaching my identity. I'm always attaching my meaning and purpose. I'm always attaching my inner sense of well-being to something. I'm always serving something. I'm always in pursuit of something. You say, well, Paul, I sort of get that, I don't know how that connects to marriage. Well here's our first passage. It's an incredibly helpful passage of Scripture. Let me read for you. No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes or grapes from briars. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks." Now let me give you the helicopter view of this important passage of Scripture. Here it is. Jesus is saying that your words and behavior, wife, and your words and behavior, husband, are more formed, shaped, caused, directed by what's inside of you than what's outside of you. Your words and behavior are more caused by what's inside of you than what's outside of you. No one believes that. I'm counseling, let's say, a couple that has an angry, tense, conflictual marriage and I ask the husband what's wrong with his marriage, who do you think he's going to talk about? He's not going to talk about himself. He's going to talk about his wife. Because he's convinced that the thing that The things he's doing are caused by her. And if I ask the wife what's wrong with their marriage, she's not going to talk about herself, she's going to talk about her husband. Now, at that point, as a counselor, I'm out of a job. Do you understand why? Because there are no seekers in the room. The husband's only there to get his wife fixed. The wife is only there to get her husband fixed. No one actually wants my help. How can you have two utterly righteous people and a messed up marriage? What's up with that? It doesn't make any sense. Hear this radical truth. This is a place we have to start. Wives, look at me. I mean it. Your husband is never the cause of what you do and say. He may be the occasion, but he's not the cause. Husbands, look at me. Your wife is never the cause of what you do and say. She may be the occasion. but she's not the cause. Enough of the blame game. Enough of keeping lists. Enough of pointing fingers. It does not work. Now to help us understand what he's talking about, Jesus says, don't you understand? You live out of the heart. You speak out of the heart. Now what is He talking about there? What is this thing, the heart, that He's talking about? Well the Bible essentially divides the human being into two pieces. Your outer man and your inner man. Your outer man is your physical self. It's the house that God has designed for your heart while you're here on earth. Like astronauts have a space suit, you could call your body your earth suit. Someday we're going to get a new suit. And some of us are excited about that. I think I heard some amens. And then the Bible talks about the inner man. It uses many terms for the inner man, mind, emotion, spirit, soul, will, and they're all collected by weighing one big basket term, the term heart. That term is used in hundreds and hundreds of passages of Scripture. It's one of the most well-developed themes in all the Bible. I am convinced you cannot understand the message of the Bible unless you understand the Bible's theology of the heart. Now I want to give you a definition so when you're reading your Bible you come across the word heart, you will know what the Bible is talking about. Here's a definition. The heart is the causal core of your personhood. Let me say that again. The heart is the causal core of your personhood. One more time. The heart is the causal core of your personhood. The heart is the steering wheel. The heart is the directional system. The heart shepherds, guides, shapes, motivates your words and behavior. Now to help us to understand that principle and its importance, Jesus uses two very helpful illustrations. The first is your talk. Jesus says it's out of the heart that the mouth speaks. Have you ever said to someone, ooh, I didn't mean to say that? What would be more biblical to say is please forgive me for saying what I meant. You get the point? You see if it hadn't been in your heart it wouldn't have come out of your sweet lips. Everything, wives, that comes out of your mouth was there already. Everything, husbands, that comes out of your mouth was there already. My mom was a member of a Depression era family of ten brothers and sisters. It was what we would now call in our culture a classic dysfunctional family. When these people reached adulthood, they didn't like one another very much. But they were committed to family reunions. You're right, they were creepy gatherings. They would rent a hall and they would sit at separate tables and glare at one another like warring nation states. Wonderful gathering. Like a bad UN or maybe like the real UN. And the centerpiece of the day would be this great buffet table because everybody would bring their best dish. And then at the end of the meal, there would be enough alcohol come out to float the United States. And this thing would get crazy. Well, my mom and dad had the habit of going for the meal, and they taught us how to work the tables and say hello to our estranged aunts and uncles and cousins and before this thing got too crazy we would be at our retreat. One Saturday my mom got involved with an evangelistic encounter with one of her siblings and didn't realize that another one of her brothers downstairs where my brother Mark and I were, little boys, had gotten very drunk and he was saying sexually perverse things about women in the room. My mom ran downstairs, she grabbed my brother Mark and I and she yanked us to the car. I remember very well, I don't think our feet touched the steps. And before she drove away she said to us, I want to say something to you about what just happened and I don't want you to ever forget it. I obviously never have. She said these eloquent words. Hear this. There's nothing that comes out of the mouth of a drunk that wasn't there in the first place. You see, the alcohol didn't create that sexual perversion. What the alcohol did was loosen the lips. And when the lips got loose, out came the heart. Your husband in his bad moments doesn't cause you to do the nasty things you do in response. That's caused by your heart. Your wife, when she doesn't live up to your expectations, doesn't cause you to beat her up with words. That comes out of your heart. That's what Jesus is saying. It's radical and humbling. things, but it's true. So as we kind of look through there and review what we've kind of covered in the video there, he started off talking about small mundane things in life. Why are those so critical in our life? And it's not just, he was talking about small mundane moments in marriage, but this is true of just life in general. The time with your kids, the time with your coworkers, the small mundane moments are really what defines us. Why is that so important? That's where we live. That's where, yeah, that's where we live. And life isn't bouncing from mountaintop to mountaintop, because we can think of mountaintops of points, but what really makes us is those moments in between. And that's where we all are in those times when you're out in the yard working with the kids or talking on the drive into church. So what does it mean to be a worshiper? Yeah. What does it mean to be a worshiper? Yes. I think something that he said in the video where you're worshipping something, right? So as Christians, we assume we're worshipping God, but all throughout our lives, we could be worshipping money or jobs or, you know, even relationships. You know, there's a time where, where, you know, I focused on him more than I focused on my faith. So what are you worshipping I think is, is the question. Yeah. Yeah, we're all worshiping something. It comes down to a question of what are we worshiping? Anybody else have any other thoughts on worship? Nathan. I love digging into words. And worship is a combination of worth and shape. And so we attribute worth or value to something. And in our actions of that worship, we're declaring that worth to everything and everyone around us. So if it is like finances as an example, the steps that we take toward achieving the bottom line or whatever those goals are resonates and impacts our relationships to communicate to them indirectly that this is what's important to me. or where my stability is, where my security is. And then the latter half of that word for shaping is the idea that I'm now being shaped by what I'm worshiping. My heart, my ambitions, my drives, everything. And again, it comes out in the actions. What am I willing to sacrifice or negotiate or compromise or give up in order to achieve that thing? And if it's not Christ, it can only be a negative outcome that impacts the relationships. Yeah. In service to God. Yes. I think of worship, and sometimes I think of when somebody at work I work with comes in and they've just bought a brand new car, and that is what they talk about for all of the conversations you have with them. They want to show people their new car. They're going, they're building that car up as something that is going to bring them happiness. When we look at our relationship with Christ, we need to be looking to him as what's going to bring us fulfillment in life and that connection. And just like that guy with the car, everybody knows he's excited about. We need to be the same way. Everybody needs to know what our foundation or source is, that it is Christ that is the one that we're looking to. And we are worshipers. We're going to be worshiping something. One way I kind of looked at it is when we when you're trying to figure out what you're worshiping, is what are you looking to something else to get from? There are things that only come from God, and if we're looking to something else to get that, whether it's a spouse, a job, a car, or a activity, when you're expecting to get from that what only God can give, you're worshiping that, because we should be worshiping God in the first place, not alone. And then just the last question in review, why can't you build a marriage on romance? Exactly. It's not realistic. You're building something on the fruit and not on what causes it. We spend a lot of time trying to get certain results at work, and chasing the results doesn't always get it. You have to chase the cause of what makes those results. And we talk about quality, and we're all about quality for our products that we make. But you don't get quality products unless you have a commitment to doing the right thing. So you have to put the right things in the right order. Yes, Dorothy? Just thinking back from your last question, when Andrea and I got married, there was a lot of our own personal selfishness and a lot of exposure of our hearts. And sometimes we can go into a marriage thinking, oh, it's the other person, just like you said in the video. It took us several years to realize what was coming out was the inside of our heart. And that was a very sobering thing. It was very sad to start seeing these things after we said, I do. And you know, this couple that we were best friends, we were focused upon the Lord's per se, but we thought we would each see the perspective of life from the same way. And when those, when we didn't see our perspective of life and the other person, conflict would arise. But then I was, you know, in that moment of conflict, each of us were elevating our own sinful desires of wanting to be respected, of wanting to be heard, of wanting to be agreed upon. And in those moments, conflict would arise. And I've often told young married couples, and my husband has too, we didn't realize the selfishness of our heart until we got married. because our physical relationship wasn't very beautiful because we were selfish in so many other ways. All right, so. So what kind of small mundane moments in your lives have made a big impact on your marriage or your life? Unlike Paul David Tripp, I am not a romantic, to that degree. And I like routine. I kind of live by a list. Even in our marriage, I asked Jill, what are some things that you like, gift cards, places you like to go? As I'm trying to seek to dwell with her in a knowledgeable way, 1 Peter 3, 7 says, I'm trying to pick up on, even after 14 years, what it is that she really enjoys. It's one of the small things that she has shared with me is just making the bed every morning. For her, it's like giving her a hug every morning. And so I thought, I can do that. And it just becomes part of the routine. And so I do it. And if I ever get out of that routine, because it's routine in my life, it really bothers me. I forgot to hug my wife this morning. So just small things like that, knowing that it blesses her. It doesn't have as much of a monetary exchange of value in my life, but it just takes a couple minutes to do it. But I come away blessed knowing that it's a blessing to her. Our life, something my dad told us when we first got married, he said, be careful of what you say to each other because it might stay with that person. You may forget about it completely. And we've talked about even with the kids. sometimes you're surprised in what they remember, right, as they grow up. It's like they held on to this little tiny thing and you never, you know, you completely forgot that it even happened. So these tiny things, I think the mundane, like if he buys me like a special coffee or something, it's not about the coffee, right? It's saying, I care about you, you know? So these tiny mundane things are just expressing the consideration. Yeah? One of the ways to, in my life, I've noticed that my mind is constantly going, and I think for a woman, that is true for all of us. And when I'm doing the laundry, and I think of my husband, or I think of relationships, if you're single, if you think of friends or your relationship with your parents, what are the thoughts you're thinking? And if they are not thankful and praiseworthy, We need to watch that because it's in those moments when you're doing the laundry, cleaning the car, trying to serve somebody, our attitude and responses are going to come out vocally and attitude-wise later with that relationship. And that has been huge. So as I'm doing the laundry, I'm waking up in the morning, I try to think of all the ways that God has blessed me tremendously above and beyond what I could ever deserve. And that carries on into those other moments when I'm asked to do something that maybe I didn't really want to do. Or there's been a change of plans, and I love going with a plan and not changing it. It doesn't matter if it's difficult or not. It's the change that I really struggle with sometimes. And if in those little moments that I am thinking about how God has blessed me through this individual, or I'm thinking about his word, that really carries out into those other moments where friction could happen. Yeah, just an odd story of just kind of mundane. I grew up in a family where we would set off to do something, like say we decided we're going to go to the beach one day. It has happened, where we start heading out towards the beach and we'll see a garage sale sign and then end up hitting garage sales all day and never make it to the beach. That's kind of the way I grew up, and that was fine. We didn't have a problem with it. But with Dorothy, her family, if we say we're going to the beach, we need to go to the beach. you know, I've, you know, it took me a while to kind of realize like, you know what, I can love my wife by actually being more consistent and say, Hey, we're going to do this and then not changing it because some other circumstance comes up. And that was a growing thing for me. But, uh, it is just those little, little things and things that come up during the course of your day that, uh, are part of what defines that. Oh, Jake. If we have time, I was just going to share one of those really maybe mundane things that can end up meaning a whole lot to somebody. I used to work in the office, and Kelly would pack my lunch every day, and she'd write a little note to me. And she'd share a scripture, or she'd just tell me she loved me. And I I almost I knew I rarely use these notes as the napkins they were intended for. I'd always kind of just hide them away in my drawer. And then when COVID happened and we ended up working from home, I opened this drawer and it's just overflowing with all these notes I'd saved. And it was just really just a blessing. Just something small that she did that really meant a lot to me. And so anyway. No, our lives are defined by little moments, not by these big mountaintops. All right. So what things other than God have a tendency to capture our heart in life, marriage, and So Patty mentioned children. That's very true. What other things? Trevor? Work? Yes. Very often, as a man, sometimes you get caught up and it's like, this is what I do. And you can get caught up in what you do and miss who God wants you to be. Other? Any others? Do you want me to repeat that? Sure, repeat that. I was just saying it could even be good things like ministry. You could elevate ministry, you know, over and above some of the other responsibilities that you have. Yeah. Any others? So I have a personal one. So I have another example from my life. When it comes to driving a car, I'm a little bit of a control freak. I want to be the one driving, and I have trouble letting Dorothy drive or my son drive, and it's just kind of an anxiety thing, and I want to be in control of it. At one point, my wife mentioned that, you know, this is not a healthy thing. You need to work on letting somebody else drive. And she's right. But it's little things like that where you don't think a whole lot about it about, oh, I'm the one that drives. But it can hurt. And it's one of those little mundane things that can hurt your relationship. It was enough that she had to speak up and say, hey, you need to do something about this. And she's right. And I'm still working on being better about that. I'm not perfect, but I'm working on that. I do want to say the motivation of that was seeing my dad be a driver and not willing to let other people drive him after he had surgery or after he'd gone to a doctor's appointment where maybe letting my mom drive would be safer. And that was the motivation. I was a little bit scared as we got older. But I did let Samuel drive for much of that trip of Idaho, but I was sick enough I couldn't drive. All right, any other things in our lives that we let kind of just displace and add up? Tammy? Thank you. One of the things I've learned in 40 years of marriage is that whatever was not resolved in growing up in your family. So for example, I was number three out of four. I got overlooked a lot. So I wanted to be heard. I still want to be heard. Okay. That's not the reason why I'm saying this. I'm trying to help somebody, but you know, I mean, that's me, right? That's my human nature. And so one of the things that was really helpful in, uh, well, both of my parents were really good. My mom, whenever I would call her, Before I got married, after I got married, when I would say something about Dan that I was complaining about, my mom would always point me to myself and say, what did you do in this situation? You need to look at what you've done in this situation. And you need to go to Dan and talk to him about that. She would never let me. stay in that place. And I love that. And we surrounded ourselves with friends like that. So that was very helpful. So all those things that we didn't grow up with, even though, so I grew up with that, but my mom was very much pointing me to my responsibility and then, you know, Dan. So anyway, we grew up with that. But then I realized one of the things that Dan helped me with, knowing that about myself, he would always tell me, when we're in a small group, honey, you don't give me a chance to talk. And so I'm like, OK, so what can I do about that? And he says, well, why don't you just let somebody talk, and then maybe let four or five other people talk, and then talk again? He was trying to help me, right? But the thing that was so interesting about it was before we got to that place, he would always get upset with me. And it was like this silent treatment. And so that was the way he grew up. So then I'm like, OK, honey, this is not going to work. I'm too loud. You're not going to speak up. This is the way you grew up. This is the way I grew up. We have to meet a compromise. So then what was so beautiful about that was Dan's like, OK, we're going to look to God. So every morning, he would take what he was reading in the word of God. I would take what I was reading in the word of God. And we would come together, and we would talk about that. And that built our relationship year after year after year. And we still do it. And I can't imagine not even living without that. And he had no idea what he did to me in that. He was just trying to do what God had said, and then finding out that's part of the way you lead. But he was wanting to be faithful. So one of the things that he grew up with was his dad was very faithful, a very hard worker, very faithful. So there's good and bad from our families, but God is in the holiness department in all of our hearts. And that's what I love. We can be known for who we are humanly, And we can take responsibility for who we are. And God is OK. He knows that. But so long as we take accountability before Him, each other, we're on our way to holiness. So anyway. Very good. Yes, Patty? So going back to the question that's in there, I think Maybe just for the unmarried people, what tends to capture your heart in marriage when you first get together is the other person. And they can become godlike to you. Rather than God being the source, the triangle, it becomes two sticks and a tendency to look at that person through godlike eyes. Any other thoughts? That last question. Any other thoughts or comments from just the video that came up or something that somebody else has touched on? Yes, Dwayne. I liked his point about so much in Scripture is not by topic. So if some were to say, what's in the Bible about marriage? Everyone goes to Ephesians 5. I would have never thought about going to Luke 6, the passage. And so just the idea that there's so much in there about the inner man and our relationships and conflicts, our relationship with God, that's eye-opening. Yeah, that's one of the things that really excited me is that he's talking about this in the reference to marriage, but he's taking principles that apply to everything in life. And what's inside is what comes out of our mouths. And that true, in our marriage, relationship with our children, relationship with our coworkers, relationship with the next door neighbor, it's what's inside comes out. We can't blame the other person for what's coming out of our mouths or what's coming out in our lives. It's, as he put it, they're the occasion, not the cause. And that's the part that really, you sit and you stop. Okay, if I'm the cause, what does God want to do in my heart to grow me and change me to be more like his son? That's something that applies to all of us. It's not your sister or your brother that poked you and made you get upset. It's what's inside of your heart. Any other thoughts before we wrap up? All right, well, let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer. Father, I thank you so much that you are concerned about just the little things in our life, the day-to-day moments that don't seem big, but they are truly where we live. Lord, we thank you that you are concerned about them and that you You have a plan in Your Word to help us grow to be more like Your Son and to just reflect You to this world around us. Lord, I pray You go before us. Help us to look to You and as we see these things coming out of our hearts, help us say, Change us and look to your word and to build the truths of scripture and of your love into our lives. Thank you again. I ask that you go before us for the service to come. Lord, just prepare our hearts to hear what Jake has prepared and allow us to be changed. Lord, I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.