DISCLAIMER:  This text is not a verbatim transcript.  Communication Access Real Time Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication credibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.    >> Thank you for joining us today. We want to let you know about a few items of interest. First, go to our website, firstcolonychurch.org, and go there often. You'll find links to our worship services; Bible study options; online giving; and our podcast, Anchor Point. You can also download our church app. Just search for "First Colony Church of Christ" in the App Store or on Google Play. The app is a great resource where you can stay connected to First Colony Church. Thank you for joining us today. We're glad you're here. >> Richard: Good morning, church! How are you today? Are you ready to worship? >> Yes! >> Richard: Three of us are ready. Come on; let's all stand and give God the glory! He alone is worthy! ("How Can I Keep from Singing" playing) >> Richard: Yes, if we know that truly, that's why we sing. We are loved by the King! (Applause) ("Your Love Defends Me" playing) >> Richard: Thank you, church, for your worship today. You may be seated as our communion leaders come up to lead us in communion. >> Billy: Good morning, church. My name is Billy Granville. This is my son Max, and we're honored in leading you in celebrating the Lord's Supper this morning so please pray with me over the bread, which represents the body of Christ; and over the cup, which represents the blood of Jesus. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we give You thanks this morning. We come before You as a church family, as a body of believers; and we celebrate Christ. We love Him. We reaffirm our faith and our confidence in Christ, and we thank You for all that He has done for us. Thank You for His Sacrifice. We thank You for His death, his crucifixion. We thank You for the shedding of his blood and forgiveness of our sins. Lord, we desire union with Christ. We desire union with Christ so this morning, Lord, as we partake, we pray for forgiveness for our sins. We pray for repentance. We pray for brokenness. We pray for healing in our souls and restoration, reconciliation in relationships. We pray for these things, Lord. So restore us and renew us, Lord; and help us to receive afresh Your life and Your love and all of Your grace and mercy that we need on an ongoing basis. Let's partake together. >> Max: I will be reading from 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 4-6. (Reading) ("My Jesus" playing) (Applause) >> Shane: Amen! Fantastic, guys! Wow! What a time of worship and fellowship this morning, amen? We will have our time of offering now, and we thank you for your offerings together because we partner together with God to bring grace and truth to the world right here from Fort Bend County and where we're at and around the world. Thank you for your offering and the difference that makes. You know, you can give online. It's safe and secure. You can text to give. In the building, there are giving boxes in the back of the room; so as we take our offering, let's pray over it, okay? Let's pray. Father in heaven, we ask that You take these offerings because we want You to use them, God. We acknowledge every good gift comes from You, and we want You to change us to become more generous and have a generous spirit in every way right now but also throughout the week as we follow Jesus. Would You change us and make us more generous like You? It's in Jesus' Name we pray. Amen. >> Joel: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. It is good to be with you on this chilly January morning. So I have an arrow here, and it's pointing off in this direction, which is your right. And really, we come to church so that we can learn to make right decisions. We know that when we make wrong decisions, things don't go as well. And as a matter of fact, I had the opportunity to go to a conference this last week, and I made one wrong turn -- actually, I missed my right turn. That's probably a better way of saying it. It took me about 20 minutes to self-correct. It was kind of a pain. You're just like, "No!" as you see it go by. But life is like that, and every day we have decisions that we have to make, and we want to make the right decisions. Now, this little illustration is cool because really all you need is an arrow on both sides, and you want it to point in both directions, all right? So we have our right side, and we have our left side. Right will represent the right kind of decision, and left we'll just say the other side. Now, the question is, how do you make right decisions consistently? That's where we look at God's Word, and God's Word tells us in Psalms 119:5, "Your Word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against Thee." Who is the Word? The Word is Jesus. Where do we hide it? In our heart. When we hide God's Word in our heart, those direction arrows where we're saying, "Which way are we supposed to go?" They line up the same way. Wait, what? How is that even possible? (Laughter) Dude! Mind blown; I know. Well, the key here is we want to point up to Jesus Christ, which is pretty cool; but hide God's Word in your heart. My challenge to you as you enter this new year: do you have a plan to put God's Word in your heart, to memorize it so that it pops up in those situations where you need it? All right. Thank you very much. (Applause) >> Shane: All right! Well, we would love to connect with you so that QR code in front of you will send you to a digital Connection card. We can connect with you all kind of ways here. We have a "New Here? Start Here" room with volunteers that would love to answer your questions. We'd love to meet you. Online, if you jump in the chat and introduce yourself, we would love to get to know you better. I want to take a moment now to let you know our Wednesday night offerings have started again this past week, and it was hoppin' Wednesday night. We have Bible classes for all ages, kids. Student Ministries are doing great things. We have men's groups, women's groups, FriendSpeak, something for everybody. Check it out Wednesdays at 7:00. Beginning February 2, Grant Wright and I will lead a parenting class called "Parenting in a Post-Christian culture." It's a six-week class and want our kids to grow in Christ and want them to engage culture in a way that is Christ-like with wisdom and truth and gray, okay? So this class will cover some things like tolerance or what is real truth; sexuality; social media; critical thinking; Christian worldview. So there's a lot. It's gonna be interesting. I hope it will be helpful to you. I think it will be. I hope you join us, parents, in the education Wing upstairs starting February 2. Kids 1-5, Ms. Danelle would love for you to walk with her to the chapel across the lobby. Parents, you can walk too. If you need to check them in, there's a kiosk. Everybody else, let's stand and greet another and have some fellowship greeting time! ("Forever" playing) >> Richard: Sing it out, church! >> Richard: Thank you, church, for your worship! You may be seated! >> Ronnie: Hey, Richard and team, thanks so very, very much for leading us so well. Sarina, that song" my Jesus," that is such a FANTASTIC, fantastic song, so very, very moving and encouraging. Everybody, to those of you in the room, great to have you here. To those of you who are with us online, we're so grateful to have you as well. Here's something I know about all of us in the room. None of us here ran the Houston Marathon this morning. (Laughter) Right? So I thought about it, but then I thought, "No, I need to go ahead and go to church." (Laughter) Anyway, glad that you're here. You can download our Order of Worship from our church app. We also have printed versions out in the lobby. You might want to pick one up there. Let me, again, thank you as a church for your incredible generosity in 2021, especially the way you finished the year. Very, very encouraging. Your encouragement, you support, we really appreciate it. In our first service today, we celebrated a baptism and welcomed a new member in our church family. Right now we want to continue on with a message series called "Upgrades" about a five-week series here before "Bring a Friend" day. Everybody likes an upgrade and go from coach to business or from a regular room to a suite. We have an opportunity to upgrade under the touch of God for the power of the Holy Spirit various areas of our life. Last week we talked about anxiety, and today is upgrading your marriage. Notice I didn't say "upgrading your spouse." (Laughter) Upgrading your marriage, all right? Now, when I say "The word "marriage," if we do a little word association here, the word "marriage" some of you -- I mean, are lot of positive thoughts come to mind. You may say words like “wedding;” “vows;” “ring;” “joy;” “happiness;” “romance;” “oneness.” Just a lot of positive words. Some of you might have some words where you think, oh, man, “hard;” “challenging;” “some sore spots for me;” “unfaithfulness;” or “divorce." If you're single, you might think, you know, people talk about it too much. Marriage can be absolutely beautiful. Marriage can be really, really hard. It can be at various places inbetween. As someone sass said, you will never know just how selfish you are until you get married. Or as my wife likes to say as well, "If marriage doesn't knock selfishness out of you, go ahead and have some children. That will take care of the rest of it." Now, your marriage -- I want you to have a joyful marriage and a happy marriage, but every marriage needs a goal beyond mutual happiness. If the goal and the aim of your marriage is just mutual happiness, that's too small of a goal. You need a bigger goal. You need more goals. One of the purposes of your marriage is actually to be a light and an inspiration to others; to connect in the church; to connect in the Christian community; to connect in the larger community; and for your marriage to be a reservoir of hope to others, for somebody to say, "You know, if Ronnie and Martha can push through that, if Joe and Susie can push through that," and for your marriage, yes, for there to be mutual joy. But to have an aim and a goal where your marriage actually is pointing to what? To the relationship between Christ and His church where the husband loves his wife as Jesus loves the church; where the church, where the bride, the wife, honors her husband as the church honors Jesus. And that's a fantastic privilege for us. I'll have three points today. Here's the first one. As we upgrade marriage, we take a high view of marriage; and with a high view of marriage, you are in God territory. It's because God has a VERY, very high view of marriage. He defines it; He designs it. Reading from Matthew 19, “Some Pharisees came to Jesus to test Him. They asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" Notice Jesus takes them to the Scriptures. He says, "Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female?" And He said, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate." Now, based on that reading, I've got a couple observations. Number one: marriage is from God. Jesus' answer here speaks volumes. The question is, "Hey, can we divorce for any and every reason?" Jesus says, "Let Me talk to you about how it was at the very beginning. Let's reverse-engineer this thing." Jesus quotes from the Book of Genesis 1 and chapter 2. He does not quote the creation narrative as if it's some fable or myth. He says, really, the question you should be asking, is what's' God's dream and aim for marriage? He says some interesting things here. He said in marriage you leave your father and mother. It doesn't mean you start to dislike your parents. It doesn't mean that you don't have multigenerational relationships. It simply means marriage is not for little boys; marriage is not for little girls. Marriage is for people who can snip the cord and deal with their family of origin issues and become a real adult, not a whiny little 2-year-old when problems come along. But you bring your full adult self into problem resolution. You know, we have fallen natures, and our culture is not always walking in step with the Spirit. So we read this text, how God made them male and female. They become one flesh. So marriage is created to be heterosexual. But in our culture, we want to say, "Well, marriage can be redefined." God created two distinct genders, BOTH of whom EQUALLY reflect the image of God. They are alike; they are absolutely equal; but they are not the same. Marriage is created to be monogamous. You leave mother and father; you cleave to your spouse; but we want to keep our options open. It's created to be permanent. What God has joined together, never let man separate. Maybe this is a good point, though, to start and say, let me just remind you, God calls us upward; but there is grace from marital sin just like there's grace for any kind of sin. But this call of marriage, this elevation, this upgrading of marriage, we're in God territory because He designed it. He defines it. But virtually every fashion it of marriage is distorted and sometimes attacked and oftentimes just misunderstood in our culture. But Jesus offers us grace, and He keeps calling us back to God's ideal. Haven't you read, He said; and He defends the creative plan of God for marriage: heterosexual, monogamous, permanent. And what He is FOR should make it obvious of what He's not for, what He's against. You know, it's interesting, isn't it? The Bible takes us to Jesus, and when you read about Jesus, Jesus takes us back to the Bible. "Haven't you read God's plan for marriage?" Marriage is from God, and marriage is unique. You've heard me say before that a diamond is not like any rock, and marriage is not like any other relationship. You become ONE flesh, and that means a husband and a wife. They're united together in a way that is unique from all other relationships. Two individuals now build a life together with ONE story; one purpose; one reputation; one bed; one suffering; one budget; one family. As you come together in marriage, God joins you. This is not just a human contract. This is a supernatural reality. It's a beautiful thing! So marriage is of God. Marriage is REALLY unique. And with a high view of marriage, you're in God's view, you're in God's territory; and with a high view of marriage, secondly, you're in cross territory. You know, Jesus picked up His cross for us. In Luke 9, He says this: "Whoever wants to be My disciple must --" hear the words -- "deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow Me." So in other words, before I'm a husband, I'm called to be a disciple. My discipleship, my following of Jesus, should affect how I play the role of husband. Or how you might play the role of wife. So as we pick up a cross in our marriage, let me define it. That means we engage in sacrificial, concrete, devoted love. It is sacrificial. It's concrete. You can see it. It's devoted. Tim and Kathy Keller have a book called "The Meaning of Marriage." They talk about how cultures view, even here in America, has changed over the years. They say this: "Instead of finding meaning through self-denial through giving up one's freedoms and binding oneself to the duties of marriage and family, marriage was redefined as finding emotional and sexual fulfillment and self-actualization. Marriage used to be a public institution for the common good. Now it is a private arrangement for the satisfaction of the individuals marriage used to be about us, how our marriage will play a role in pour larger family, in the church and the community. Marriage used to be about us. Now it's just about me." Now, gang, listen carefully: I'm not saying that marriage should be unfulfilling, but if you make your satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness the foundation of your marriage, that puts a HUGE burden on your spouse that they're not intended to carry. You see, Jesus points the way for us in all things. He points to the cross, including in marriage where -- you remember His Sermon on the Mount teaching where He says if somebody forces you to go one mile, what do you do? You go two. That second mile is the Jesus mile, my friends. That second mile is where you meet Jesus. That second mile is where you get Holy Spirit help, not just the first mile. "I got to do this." The second mile is where you say, "I'm willing to carry a heavier load here. I'm willing to go extra. I'm willing to pursue excellence. I'm willing to forgive again and press on." And that second mile is the Jesus mile. I believe if you apply the principle of the cross, laying down your life for your spouse, concrete devoted sacrificial love, you've got the potential to renew and revolutionize your marriage. You know, a few years ago there was a young couple getting married, and they asked a friend to do their wedding ceremony. He was a deacon in their church. He was happy to do it, and he -- you know, handled the vows, handled everything. But he also did some really, really good preaching during that wedding ceremony. He got real specific. Here's one of the things he had to say. He said, "You two need to always speak the truth in love to one another because for truth to take root, it must be delivered with gentleness and consideration of the other's feelings. You got to put a filter on what you say and how you say it." He said, "Let's just say that your spouse crunches his or her toast unbearably loudly every morning. It is increasingly a source of irritation to you morning after morning. So she eventually you believe you've saved up enough stamps to justifiably cash them in so you finally crack and blurt out, "For goodness' sake, do you have to crunch your toast so much? I'm not worried about our neighbors; I'm worried about our neighbors four houses down listening to you crunch your toast. Please stop doing that." And he said, "Now, how do you think your spouse will react? Is it likely to be, "Oh, thank you, darling"? (Laughter) "I am so grateful to you for pointing that out to me." Not likely. More than probably you're going to hear something like, "Who do you think you are? Have you ever heard YOU slurp your coffee morning after morning?" So the battle is on in which there will be no winners, only two losers. Then he got real specific. "Here's how I recommend you handle that toast situation. You get up in the morning. You make your spouse his toast, her toast; and then when they crunch it, you overlook it." Love covers over a multitude of sins. Love covers over a multitude of crunches, too. Love means we serve one another. Concrete, sacrificial, devoted ways. When you have a high view of marriage, you're in God territory. When you have a high view of marriage, you're in cross territory. And with a high view of marriage, you will navigate unsolvable problems. You will. Now, let me very quickly put four stages of a marriage up here on the screen. Stage number one: falling in love. Stage number two: becoming a couple. Stage number three: disillusionment. Buyers' remorse, okay? (Scattered chuckles) Disillusionment. It is simply impossible to expect for two broken, sinful people to live together year after year -- not wound one another, not disappoint one another, not disillusion one another. You fall in love; you become a couple; you have points of buyers' remorse; but then you learn to love over the long haul. You learn to love over the long haul by investigating -- I didn't say "solving" -- navigating unsolvable problems. John Gottman leads the Seattle Marital Institute, and he's a fantastic marriage researcher. In fact, I think the best book is by John Gottman on "Seven Keys to an Effective Marriage" or something close to that. He said in every marriage there are two types of problems, solvable and unsolvable. He said in a healthy marriage, 69% of your problems are unsolvable, and you should not be discouraged by that. You'll be able to solve many of your problems, but you'll not be able to solve all of them. They will be chronic. You will keep coming back over and over. Here's a definition of an unsolvable problem. They are fundamental differences in your relationship that will never be resolved to your satisfaction. Notice I said "to your satisfaction." You'll see some limited improvement, but there will always be a measure of disappointment, and these unsolvable problems are simply caused by differences in personalities and preferences. How should we discipline the kids in this particular matter? What level of cleanliness do we want in our house? How much debt is too much? How generous will we be? How do we balance family life and career? How do we balance time as a couple with fun time with friends? And once you know you have some unsolvable problems along the way, you can deal with these differently because -- Hey, listen, you have unsolvable problems in every area of your life. Your job. In the church, we have unsolvable problems. For example, do you focus on reaching new people; or do you deal with your existing people and long-term members? Answer: both. That's not a problem to be solved. It's a tension you manage. It's a tension you navigate. And in marriages we have lots -- Martha and I have lots of unsolvable problems. They're tension. You navigate over time. And here's a key to investigating those: you take the time to understand your spouse's perspective. You take the time to really listen and understand your spouse's perspective, even though you may have to come back to this regularly. If you don't do that, now you're the problem. The problem is no longer the problem. Now you're the problem. And the solution is often pretty simple. You accept unsolvable problems through the grace of God. You focus on accepting your spouse, not trying to change their behavior, not remaking them into your image; but acceptance. Now, there are some caveats. There are some exclusions. I'll come to those in just a moment. But the key is just like crunching the toast, we're gonna accept this in grace. You're saying, "Ronnie, we shouldn't talk about it and address it?" No, I think you should talk about it. I think you should address it. I think you need to be REAL calm and maybe talk about how you feel about this problem, how you feel about this tension; what you'd like to see, how it affects you; but you don't make any demands. You make requests, no demands. Requests. And you remind your spouse, "You have my love. You have my respect. You have my devotion." You're always looking out for possible win-win solutions. So accept these in grace and you look for God to maybe meet some of your needs that will never always be met in your marriage. You know, marriage is designed to meet many of your needs, but marriage in a fallen world was never designed to meet all of your internal needs. It's just not. In fact, often one of the blessings of marriage is it forces me to look to God for what only He can provide; and one of the best gifts, my friend, one of the best gifts you bring to your marriage is you walking with the Lord. You being connected with the Lord. You ask for the filling of the Holy Spirit to bring that into your marriage. In general, unsolvable problems should be talked about calmly but accepted in grace. But there are some unsolvable problems that just can't be accepted. They have to be confronted, really. I'm talking about things like alcoholism addiction, adultery, abuse. Those kinds of behaviors destroy trust. They lower moral boundaries. They create a horrible atmosphere where there's physical abuse. You got to get safe, and when you're dealing with those four As -- alcoholism; addiction; adultery; abuse -- you have to confront it. Marriages can be rebuilt through those, but they can't be just accepted. They must be confronted. Forget patience. It's time to dial the figurative 911 and help. You confront the issue and work with strong Christian friends and resources who can help you. Now, if you're taking notes, as I know you all do, I want you to write down this word: A-R-E. “Are.” It's an acrostic. Every spouse wants to know of their partner: Are you here? Are you with me in this? Dr. Sue Johnson said write down the word "are." Accessible Responsive Engaged. Martha wants to know, “Ronnie, are you accessible to me? Not just in the same room. Are you open to me? Are you paying attention to me?” “Are you responsive?” This is where we can respond to our partner's successes and joys and also respond appropriately and soothe when things are difficult. It gives the message to our mate they're not alone in this world, that they're taken care of, that we can relax. We can get our guard down. We are accessible. We are responsive when things are up or down. And we're engaged. This simply means all the yummy things that it means in a marriage when you know someone values you; they want to be involved in your world; they like you; they support you. Let me just remind you when you speak to one another, if you need to critique or criticize one another, do it with real low emotion. But when you are affirming and complimenting and blessing one another, do it with high and maximum emotion. We often do the very opposite. We'll go, "Huh, love you." And then something happens you don't like -- you hit the ceiling! Often you do that because you know it works. You can get your way. It works in the short term. It won't work in the long term. Maximum emotion when you're blessing -- low emotion when you're critiquing. Your partner wants to know; your spouse want to know, "Are you here? Are you accessible to me? Responsive? Are you engaged?" My friends, love your mate. Cherish your marriage. God has a high view of your marriage. Bring the cross into your marriage. Go that second mile. Johnson said they got it all wrong. Survival of the fittest, it is all wrong. It is survival of the most nurtured. When we are loved, we blossom; and may I just remind you for your marriage no one is for your marriage more than the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The very first miracle Jesus performed was where? At a wedding in Cana. You know what the problem was? They ran out of wine. So what does He do? He turns water into wine. He makes 180 gallons of this. So much more than was needed. Why such an abundance? Bible teachers for years said that's how He views your marriage. The flow of the account spirit, the flow of grace, the flow of health, the flow of help. How many times has God brought healing and resurrection into marriages you know? How many people do you know in this room that were at a stage of disillusionment and buyers' remorse but continued to walk in the Spirit day after day, go the second mile, make that apology? Make those -- step into repentance and grace and forgiveness – listen -- and the flow of God's wine of power, the flow of His help and abundance. No one is cheering you on. No one is helping your marriage more than our Great God, and He has these resources for you. You know what? I hope one of the goals of your marriage is mutual happiness and joy, but have some bigger goals than that, too. If you're raising children, raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, to be an inspiration of joy and hope and encouragement to others around you; to let your marriage be a reservoir of spiritual health. As you rub off on others, my goodness, what a blessing that's going to be. Steve, would you make your way, please, for our closing prayer? And everyone, let me just thank you for your presence here today. Let us hear from you. Those of you online, let us hear from you. Let us help you take your next step as a man or woman of God. We can set up a Bible study with you. We can baptize you into Christ, and if you want to talk to someone about being a part of this church family, it would be our joy to do so. All right, everybody. Let's bow and pray. Steve Harris, please lead us. >> Steve: Please join me in prayer. Dear Lord, we love You. We honor; we worship You. We are glad to be part of what is good and right in the world. There's so much going on that's not. We pray that You will raise up leaders in this country -- religious, political, business leaders that believe Your way is the best way. We pray You will create a spiritual revival in this country. We pray Your continued blessings on the seminaries that have been started in prisons that this church has supported. That You will continue to bless the amazing transformation of human life, drop in violence and spiritual growth that's going on. It would be just like You go bless that to the point it has an impact on the free world. That's what we pray for. Lord, we have seen so many times that Israel and Judah disappointed You. We pray that the activity, the ministries, the missionary efforts that this church is being part of will be a source of pleasure for You. We love being a part of pleasing our Creator. We pray these things in Jesus' Name. Amen. >> Shane: Amen! Thank you, Steve. Well, as we close today, I have a few things to bring to your attention. First, we have Bible classes for all ages at 9:45 so if you didn't know the hour before this we have Bible classes for tall ages, just come next week to check it out. Talk to us in the lobby at the “New Here? Start Here" info center. Also for those watching online, there's a class at 12:30 so stay where you are. That will start up shortly, okay? The second item of note is we have Grouplink next Sunday. If you're not in one of our connection groups or small groups, we want you to know how to connect to one. Go to the left in the lobby. There's kiosks the next two Sundays. We would love to connect you to a group. "Shane, I don't know about these groups. There may be some weird people in those groups." I got news for you: there are some weird people in those group and if you don't know who the weird person is in the group, it's probably you. (Laughter) Hey, I'm just saying we all got a little weirdness. That being said, come and check it out. Come and find community and a place to grow together and find us in the lobby the next two weeks, okay? Also note the Tuesday women's Bible study groups begin this Tuesday. There's no weird people in Missy's women's groups -- never. You can come Tuesday and sign up online. That's starting this week. Also FriendSpeak online training is next Sunday night. Sign up online for that. Another great thing you should check out is the Disciple Maker Cohort beginning January 24.S it's over Zoom, twice a month. If you want to be coached and grow and make disciples in evangelism and helping other people to grow in Christ, you need to sign up online for that and check it out. It will be really good. Finally, as Ronnie mentioned, of course February 13, Super Sunday. Bring a Friend Day. We have Barry Wilmore, who will be the commander of the next NASA space flight, will be here. Go to the website. There are things you can send to friends with information to invite people but also, hey, go to your neighbor and coworkers. "Come with me. You should hear this guy talk. It will be great." Let's stand and sing one more song together before we go into God's in addition field today. >> Richard: Amen, church. Let's worship! ("Forever" playing) >> Richard: Thank you, church, for worshiping with us today! You are dismissed!