Embrace Your Marriage Wholeheartedly

To begin our time this evening, I wanna remind you of a story I've told you before, years ago, but it's about Sir Walter Raleigh, who was the favorite of Queen Elizabeth, and he was a great sea captain, and he was used in a mighty way for all of Britain. And yet, Queen Elizabeth was followed by James I, and he despised Sir Walter Raleigh, so much so that he orchestrated his execution. And yet, his executioner was very fond of Sir Walter Raleigh, and yet he had to carry out his duties to decapitate him.

And so he thought that a good gesture would be to tell Sir Walter Raleigh how to place his head on the block to ensure a swift and clean decapitation, to which Sir Walter Raleigh responded to his executioner with these words, it matters little friend, whether or not the head is right, so long as the heart is right. So true, if the heart is right, the life is right. If the heart is wrong, the life will be wrong. If the heart is right, the marriage will be right. If the heart is wrong, the marriage will be wrong.

If the heart is right, everything in life will be right, because everything stems from the inside of a man. And so Solomon would say in Proverbs chapter four, verse number 23, these words, he would say to his son, guard your heart, watch over your heart, shield your heart, protect your heart with all diligence, with all energy, with all persistence, with all vigilance. In other words, whatever you have to do, make sure you do this more than anything else. Protect, guard and shield your heart. Because then he says, for from it flow the springs of life, everything about life flows from the heart.

Therefore, the heart must be protected. It must be right, it must be set in proper order. Paul would say in the book of Ephesians, that you're to put on the breastplate of righteousness, because it's a protector of the heart. Tonight, as we look at our fifth point in our outline, on how to embrace your marriage with your whole heart, with all of your heart, we're gonna talk to you about how you do that.

So many times we begin certain aspects of our lives gung ho, with all of our heart. But over time, things begin to become mechanical. Over time, things become cold or calloused. We lose heart. Why is that? There's an illustration of that in the scriptures. It's found in the book of Revelation, Revelation chapter two, when there are seven letters written to seven churches in Asia Minor, and the very first one is to the church of Ephesus.

Now, as you recall, Paul had started the church in Ephesus and had passed it for three years. And it was instrumental in the growth of that assembly. So the very first church to receive a letter from the spirit of God is the church of Ephesus.

And it says to the angel of the church in Ephesus write, the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands says this, I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men. And you put to test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not. And you found them to be false. And you have perseverance and have endured for my name's sake and have not grown weary. But I have this against you. Whenever God says that he has something against you, that's a problem.

And he talks about their perseverance. He talks about how they didn't grow weary, how they would rid themselves from hypocritical false teachers. He speaks about how they were staying strong doctrinally. And he commends them for that. And you think, wow, this is great. But he says, I have this one thing against you. Just one. He says that you have left your first love.

How does that happen? How does this church that was started by the apostle Paul, and listen to what Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians in chapter three, when he prays specifically for their love for God. He says that he wants Christ, chapter three, verse number 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Then he goes on to say, now to him who is able to do more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us. He actually prayed for the church of Ephesus that they would understand the love of God, how wide it is, how high it is, how deep it is, how long it is. And they experienced the fullness of that love. And then at the end, in chapter six of Ephesians, the 23rd verse, he says, peace be to the brethren in love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. He commends them that they love the Lord. It's an incorruptible kind of love. Yet years down the road, when the spirit of God addresses them, he tells them the great things that they have done, but there's one thing that he has against them, just one. And that is that somehow they had left their first love.

Something had gone wrong. There had become something mechanical about the relationship with the Lord. It had become dull, a lot like churches today. Oh, there are churches that people gather together in and they'll sing songs in and they'll do missions trips in and they'll gather together and hear the word of God preached and they'll have all kinds of ministries and they do all kinds of things. They're busy doing the work of the Lord, but they really truly don't love the Lord of the work. They get busy doing lots of things, but all of a sudden their love for Christ becomes cold.

Now you think about that in terms of a marriage. We can be married and we can have three meals together and it's about the day and we can sleep in the same bed and we can go to the same job and take our kids to practice and take our kids to school and come home every night and go through all the motions of family life, but all of a sudden there could become this dullness about the relationships in the home, a coldness, a callousness, where things aren't as vibrant as they used to be. They're not nearly as passionate as they used to be.

We just kind of go through the motions. It doesn't happen all at once. It happens slowly. It happens gradually over a period of time and all of a sudden you wake up down the road and you realize, wow, there's just nothing here. How does that happen? What's gone wrong? Here's a church. Here's a church that was pastored by the Apostle Paul. Here's a church that was prayed for by the Apostle Paul. Here's a church that was trained, the leaders were trained. You read about it in Acts chapter 20 by the Apostle Paul and they did the work of the ministry effectually.

The Christ says, I have this one thing against you that you've left your first love. Your love for me is not what it used to be. Your love for me has dwindled. So he says this. He says, therefore, remember from where you have fallen. Remember from where you've fallen. Otherwise remember, reflect back on the way it used to be. Remember when you first got saved?

Remember when you first gave your life to Christ and you were excited about going to church? Couldn't wait to get there. When the doors were open, you were there. You were so excited. You were fired up about being with the people of God, hearing the word of God, praying together with those people, singing songs with those people. When there was a Bible study, you signed up. When there's an opportunity to serve, you served. You were so excited. He says, remember from where you have fallen. Remember how it was when you first got saved, when you were first baptized, when you first began to serve, when you first shared your testimony and how excited you were.

Remember from where you have fallen. Remember the way it was. Translate that over into your marriage. Remember what it was when you first started dating?

How excited you were to be together? How you'd stay up to wee hours of the morning, never tired because you were just excited to be together? How you would just do things off the cuff? You'd grant surprises and you'd do all kinds of notes and letters and gifts and all those things. When you first started dating, how exciting it was.

Remember those times? When your love begins to grow cold, you gotta remember the way it was when you first began.

Why? Because then he says, you gotta repent. You gotta turn around. You can't be going down the same path you're going on. He tells the church of Ephesus, you're going down the wrong path. You just can't keep going the way you're going. You gotta turn around and you gotta go back. You gotta go back to the way it was. You say, well, I don't feel like going back to the way it was. He never asked you that question. He never said, listen, if you really feel like going back, go back. No, he says, no, you gotta repent.

You gotta turn your life around and then you gotta repeat your first deeds. You gotta remember the way it was. You gotta repent and you gotta return to doing your first deeds.

So wait a minute, I don't have the heart to do that. You do, you just choose not to. Because if you choose to do the right things, delight always follows duty, always does. If you fulfill your duty, you will find delight. But if you don't, if you forfeit your duty, you won't find delight. But you'll always find it if you fulfill your duty. Same is true in the Christian life. For the Church of Ephesus, they had to remember from where they had fallen, go back and repeat their first deeds.

They had to go back and get back involved in going to church and get back involved in fellowshipping with the believers and singing the songs they used to sing and sharing their faith with the unbelievers and doing the things they did when they first got saved.

Because if you do those things, even though you don't feel like doing it, the delight will always come, but you gotta repent. Same is true in a marriage. Same thing is true. We get lackluster in our discipline. See, the problem with Ephesus was their heart. The problem with your marriage is your heart. That's the problem. It's not the person you're married to. We think, well, you know, if they were this way or that way, I could go back and do those things. Well, no, you have to go back and do those things even though they're not that person you thought they were.

Why? Because you're fulfilling your responsibility. And that's what love does. When you go back and you fulfill your responsibility, great things will happen. And so I wanna talk to you about that tonight. Because if you're gonna embrace your marriage with all of your heart, you gotta be all in. All in. Problem is when we get married, we're all in. And after a while, we're only partially in. If you're only partially in your marriage, guess what? You're partially outside your marriage. Outside doing what?

See? So how do you get into it 100%? How do you embrace your marriage with all of your heart? I wanna talk to you tonight about your heart because that is the issue. Not your spouse's heart, your heart. And how you deal with that in being the kind of person God wants you to be so you can wake up every day saying, I'm going to embrace my marriage wholeheartedly. With all that I have, I'm gonna remain steadfast, true, and committed. Because where the heart lies, lies everything else. If your heart's at home, your home will flourish.

If your heart's not at home, your home will not flourish. So number one, you have to have a seeking heart.

A seeking heart. That's number one. Number two, you have to have a heart that seeks after the Lord. Because your relationships all stem from what's on the inside. If my heart is right, my life will be right. If my heart is right, my marriage will be right. So I must have a seeking kind of heart. Listen to what the Psalmist says in Psalm 119. Verse number one, how blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.

How blessed are those who observe his testimonies, who seek him with all their heart. The blessed man is blessed because he seeks God with all of his heart. Verse number 10, Psalm 119. With all my heart, I have sought you. Do not let me wander from your commands.

The Psalmist knew, his heart was prone to wander, but he wanted to seek the Lord with all of his heart. You wanna seek the Lord with all of your heart, right? Everything's gonna be okay, don't worry about it. But anyway, all that being said, we have a hymn in our hymn book. It's called, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, written by Robert Robinson. Now he was a unique individual because he was saved at age 17. Saved at age 17, became a pastor right shortly after that of a Methodist church and then a Baptist church.

And at age 23, he wrote this hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. In the third stanza, it says this.

Oh, to grace, how great a debtor, daily I am constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. He was very prophetic in writing this. Because years later, he got involved in things he shouldn't have gotten involved in and his life lapsed back into all kinds of sinful behavior. And he happened to be writing in the stagecoach with this young lady who was humming this song.

And as she was humming the song and had the song sheet in her hands, she looked at Mr. Robinson. She did not know his name at the time, did not know who he was. And she said to him, do you know the hymn that I am humming and I'm singing? He looked at her and said, madam, I know I know the hymn, I wrote the hymn. And the sad thing about it is if I had had a thousand worlds to give, I'd give them all away to be back where I was when I wrote the hymn. He knew his heart was prone to wander. Psalmist says the same thing.

That's why I read you Psalm 119 verse number 10, because the Psalmist made it very clear, with all my heart I have sought you, do not let me wander from your commands.

Over in Psalm 27, it says, when you said, seek my face, my heart said to you, your face, O Lord, I shall seek. And then over in First Chronicles chapter 28, verse number nine, David says, as for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and a willing mind for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every intent of the thoughts.

If you seek him, he will let you find him. But if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. Consider now for the Lord has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary. Be courageous and act. You see, we must have a seeking heart. You say, well, I don't have a desire to do that. Well, listen, if the Lord has sought you, God told Israel through prophet Jeremiah, if you seek me with all of your heart, you will find me. The unbeliever has no desire to seek after God because his soul is dead. So the things of God don't interest him.

But if God has drawn you to himself, you begin to seek him. And a seeking heart is the kind of heart that truly, truly remembers from where it has fallen and begins to seek after God. And a seeking heart, number two, is a submissive heart.

A submissive heart. The Bible says in Psalm 40, verse number eight, I delight to do your will, O my God.

First Samuel chapter 12, verse number 24, or verse number 19, all the people said to Samuel, pray for your servants to the Lord, your God, said we may not die for we have added to all of our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king.

Remember, Israel wanted a king. They wanted to be like all the other nations. So they asked for a king. And it was an evil thing they had done. And so what happens is that they asked for forgiveness. And Samuel said to the people, do not fear, you have committed all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. You must not turn aside, for then you would go after futile things which cannot profit or deliver because they are futile. In other words, if you turn aside from following the Lord, you're gonna go after futility.

And they'll never satisfy. You might think they do, but they never do. That's why they're called empty things. For the Lord will not abandon his people on account of his great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for himself. Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, but I will instruct you in the good and right way. Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart, for consider what great things he has done for you.

You must consider the great things that God has done, that you might serve him and submit to him and follow him. It's imperative that you understand that a seeking heart becomes a submissive heart, submissive to the things that God says in his word.

The reason we're not submitting to what God says is because we are unwilling to seek him for who he is.

But when you seek him, you find him. You wanna listen to all that he says. So a seeking heart is a submissive heart. And a submissive heart becomes a steadfast heart. That's number three, a steadfast heart.

Listen to Psalm 57. Psalm 57, verse number seven, my heart is steadfast, O God. My heart is steadfast. Over in Psalm 112, the psalmist talks about the man who fears the Lord God. He says, how blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. His descendants will be mighty upon the earth. The generation of the upright will be blessed. Verse six, this man will never be shaken. The righteous will be remembered forever. He will not fear evil tidings. His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.

His heart is upheld. He will not fear. The steadfast heart is an unshakable heart. The steadfast heart is a heart that is secure because it fears no evil tidings. A steadfast heart is upheld. Why? Because it's fixed upon one thing and that's the Lord himself, firmly attached. So a seeking heart is a submissive heart. A submissive heart is a steadfast heart. And a steadfast heart is a singing heart. A singing heart. Listen to what the psalmist says. In Psalm chapter nine. Psalm nine. Psalm nine, verse number one.

I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart. I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and exult in you. I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. And then in Psalm 27. Psalm 27. No, that's not the verse number one, I'm sorry.

Psalm nine, verse number one. Psalm 57, verse number seven. I just read to you, my heart is steadfast. My heart is steadfast to the Lord. And I will sing unto the Lord. A steadfast heart is a singing heart. It just loves to sing praises to God. In Ephesians five, verse number 18, when you're controlled by the spirit of God, you speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to one another with grace in your hearts. There's something about singing. You know, we give praise to God.

We sing unto his glorious name. Because we realize all that God has done. You know, we had a thing in our home where we used to go around the table and we'd ask, what was the greatest thing that happened to you today? The greatest thing that happened to you today? And we'd ask our kids, you know, AJ, what's the greatest thing that happened to you today? Avery, what's the greatest thing that happened to you today? Lori, greatest thing that happened to you today? Of course, I'm asking the questions, right?

So they'd turn around and they'd say, Dad, what's the greatest thing that happened to you today? And I'd tell them, the greatest thing that happened to me today is that when I opened my eyes, I woke up next to the most wonderful woman in the world. That's the greatest thing that happened to me today. That when I closed my eyes at night, she was right beside me. When I woke up the next day, she was right there. That was the greatest thing that happened to me. And I praise the Lord for that. You know, so many times we, there are times I wake up and Willow's on my pillow.

You know, Willow's my dog. And she's on my pillow and I wake up, I open my eyes and there's my dog looking at me saying, it's time to eat, okay? That's not the greatest thing that happened to me on that day. But to realize that my wife is there, you know? Help my children understand that the greatest thing in life is the gifts that God gives to you. And your wife is a gift. For every good and perfect gift coming down from the Father of lights, right? He who finds a wife finds a good thing. And to realize that this gift that God gave to me causes me to celebrate all that God has done.

And a steadfast heart is a singing heart. My heart is steadfast, oh God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing praises into your name. Listen, the reason we don't sing praises into God's name is because our hearts are not fixed on Christ. Not firmly attached to Christ. If they were, you'd be singing his praises because of all the great things that he has done. And so understand this, that a seeking heart is a submissive heart and a submissive heart is a steadfast heart. A steadfast heart is a singing heart and a singing heart is a strong heart.

A singing heart is a strong heart, not a stony heart, but a strong heart is a very tender heart. It's like King Josiah in 2 Kings 22. The Bible tells us that Josiah had a tender heart. The Bible says in Psalm 10, Psalm 10, verse number one, these words, why do you stand too far off, oh Lord?

Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In pride, the wicked hotly pursue the afflicted. Let them be caught in the plots which they devised for the wicked boast of his heart's desire. And the greedy man curses and spurns the Lord. As he goes through, he talks about the things he's going through. When you come to verse number 17, it says, oh Lord, you have heard the desire of the humble. You will strengthen their heart. You will incline your ear. The Lord will always strengthen the heart of the humble.

If your heart is weak, it's because you're filled with pride. The humble heart is a strong heart. And you have heard the desire of the humble. You will strengthen their heart. Over in Psalm 27, the Psalmist says these words, Psalm 27, verse number three, though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear.

Though war arise against me, in spite of this, I shall be confident. Why? Verse one, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life. Whom shall I dread? Answer, no one. Why? Because God strengthens his heart. He does not fear. The Bible says over in 2 Chronicles 16, verse number nine, for the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth, that he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his.

If you have a weak heart, you gotta ask yourself, is my heart completely the Lord's? Because he's the one who strengthens the heart. He's the one who upholds the heart. He's the one that secures the heart. And a singing heart is a strong heart. And the singing heart is singing because it's steadfast. It's fixed. It's firmly attached to its maker, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And from there, you must realize that there must be a sincere heart. Hebrews 10, 22 speaks about the fact that let us draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

In other words, a sincere heart is a non-hypocritical kind of heart. It's a true heart. It's what's really there on the inside manifesting itself on the outside. A strong heart can be a sincere heart. A heart that's deceptive is insincere. A heart that's hypocritical is not genuine. It's not authentic. But a strong heart is that way because it's a singing steadfast heart because it seeks after God and is submissive to God. That's the strongest heart possible. With that strong heart, because it's a tender heart, is a very sincere heart.

It speaks truth, not lies. And if the heart is right, the marriage is right. So my heart must be the seeking kind of heart that God speaks of in his word. It must be the kind of submissive heart that follows the direction of God and wants to obey the commands of God, that I might be firmly attached to all that God says.

Listen, everything about life stems from your heart. If you don't guard it and don't protect it and shield it, you will be prone to wander away from the Lord. You'll be prone to leave the God you love, like the church at Ephesus, like Robert Robinson, like people you might even know who used to be in church, used to come all the time, and now you never see them again. What happened to those people? Where did they go? They lost their first love.

There's something else that became a priority to them, something else that became their love, or someone else became their love, that became their priority. And therefore, their heart has grown cold and callous to the things of God. And so, in a marriage, why do marriages fail? Because our hearts have become cold and callous toward the one we say we love. And all of a sudden, we don't find ourselves embracing the marriage with all of our heart because we don't have a sincere heart. We don't embrace it with all of our heart because Ephesians 6 says that we're to do the will of God from the heart, right?

We don't embrace our marriage with all of our heart because our heart is weak, it's weakened by sin. It's not rejoicing in what God has done. It's not steadfast and firmly attached. It's unwilling to be submissive to the commands of God because it refuses to seek after God. The bottom line always resides on the inside. Where is your heart? So Solomon would say, speaking for God, my son, Proverbs 23, verse number seven, give me your heart. My son, give me your heart. God wants your heart, all of it, that you might serve him with all that you have.

Notice this, that a sincere heart is a sympathizing heart, a sympathizing heart. It sympathizes with those who have fallen to sin. It sympathizes for those who are disobedient to God. This is very important because we get ourselves locked up in a marriage and in our family situations where we no longer have sympathy toward the sinful person. We no longer have sympathy toward those who have wandered away from the Lord and our marriages are failing because there is no sympathy on our part for the person who has turned their back on the things of God.

But a strong heart, that's a sincere heart, is a sympathizing kind of heart. Remember in Luke chapter 13, when Christ wept over Jerusalem? Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets and stone those who have sinned to you. Oh, I would wanted to gather you together as a mother hen would gather her chicks, but you were unwilling. Our Lord was very sympathetic toward Israel and their rebellion against him because he had a sympathizing kind of heart. Yeah, they would bear the consequences of their sin, but it didn't negate the fact that he was very sympathetic toward their plight because of their rebellion against him.

Do you have a sympathizing heart toward your spouse? It's very easy for us to be critical, very easy to be condemning, very easy to be judgmental. We find ourselves doing that fairly easily, right? But to be sympathetic toward the needs of those that we say we love only happens because I have a seeking heart, only happens because I truly have a submissive heart. And a submissive heart truly is a steadfast singing kind of heart. And that's the strong and sincere kind of heart that sympathizes with those who have great needs.

And then on top of that, there's also this, there is a single heart. A single heart is a focused heart. Psalm 84, 11, unite my heart, O Lord, to fear thy name. That's a single-minded heart. Folks focus totally upon one thing and one thing only, and that is the Lord God himself. And from that comes a sanctified heart. 2 Corinthians 7, verse number one, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

God is good to those who have a clean heart. We need to have a sanctified heart. We need to have a selfless heart, a selfless heart. It all stems from the fact that we have a saved. My friends, so important. Listen, I don't know anything about your family or your marriage. I don't need to know. Only thing you need to know is that what happens in my marriage happens because of what's going on in my heart. Is my heart right with the Lord? That's the most important thing you need to understand. Because if the heart is right, the marriage is right.

Even though your spouse's heart might not be right, if your heart is right, you are on the road to rejoicing in what God is going to do. Because God's in charge. But if your heart is not right, everything is going to crumble. Everything's gonna fall down all around you. Because as Solomon said, guard your heart, protect it. For out of the flow, all the issues of life, you don't wanna lose your first love.

And that love is for Christ himself. Your love to pursue him and to proclaim him, to honor him and to live for him. And my prayer for you and for me is that every one of us would have the kind of heart that seeks after God continually. Listen, you're never gonna know him fully this side of eternity anyway. There's this constant search to know more and more about him. When you do that, you are well on your way to having the kind of heart that makes a marriage magnificent. Let me pray with you.

Father, I thank you, Lord, for tonight, a chance to be in your word, a chance to look at things that will help us understand our heart must be right before you.

And we pray that, Lord, you would cleanse our hearts, that we might be truly sanctified and holy before you as our God, in Jesus' name, amen.