Unless The Lord Builds The House

In America today, among conservative Christians, there is a judgmental spirit on the part of many that has been promoted by seminary professors that the only kind of sermon that is biblical is a sermon that exegetes the text of Scripture. And of course, the people that tell you this is the only kind of sermon you should do are professors of exegesis. You know, have you noticed that whatever your gift is, that's how you judge other people. If they don't use your gift, if they don't have your gift, if they don't affirm your gift well, to heck with them, right? If you don't know this in yourself, women, you certainly know it in your husband, okay? We all have our pet themes, right? Exegesis professors say, go verse by verse, use your Greek, use your Hebrew, diagram.

You know, that's how you have to do sermons, and I've been judged at times by men who were very proud about being committed to expositional preaching, and I will get out sermons by Jonathan Edwards. And of course, Jonathan Edwards is known to be one of the greatest preachers America's ever produced. He never preached exegetically, expositionally. What he did was he'd take a little part of a text like I'm doing, and he'd blow it sky high. Now, I'm going to do that today, but I'm going to do it more personally than Edwards would do it. I'm going to do it more like the Apostle Paul, who would stop and talk about himself and about the people and insert a parenthetical statement.

And I will admit to you, this is a book that I'm working on, and so I have to do things in a book that I wouldn't do normally in a sermon, and normally I do preach exegetically. But I want to do something different with you this morning. So bear with me. Essentially, I'm going to give you a section heading and then a chapter from the book, okay? Have you and your wife built a house? Mary Lee and I did, as Dan knows very well, and we did it about 12 years ago. People warned us it would test our marriage. They said couples building a house fight. Decisions are relentless. Should we put in a heavy foundation that can support a fireplace of solid stone or settle for a lighter foundation that only supports a fake, really, a fake fireplace?

And so we put in the heavy concrete foundation. I mean, we blew out the concrete at that end of the house. And then we chose to put in a fireplace with a veneer of stone, not fake stone, but veneer stone. And Mike Bowles, who was our general contractor, never stops sort of rubbing my nose at the fact that we wasted so much money on that heavy foundation, you know. How many bathrooms, a deck or a patio, which windows, solid wood or fiberglass doors, concrete, blacktop, driveway. And then you have to choose your lights. And of course, since Dan was, his specialty was electrical things, he chose all our lights for us. And I love that. I only changed the exterior lights, but all the rest of our lights are exactly what Dan.

And, you know, when you build a house, honestly, if you're wise, you will get to the point where you're happy for other people to make your decisions, even if they're wrong. You know, everybody makes wrong decisions in a house. And we love our lights. We love our electrical. That whole house has love in it. And, you know, well, I'll stop. Now, when you marry... or even before you marry, you are building a house, and building is hard work. Every decision is critical. Should you ask your intended's father for permission of her hand in marriage? Is he a Christian? Would he understand your request, or would he conclude that his daughter was marrying a freak show? What if he says no? You have to decide which pastor should officiate, your own or the pastor of the bride. Are you going to get married?

if you're away church or your home church and after the honeymoon where should you live and should you use contraception so your wife can finish college or instead start your family right away now we've all learned how hard we can work and end up with nothing we all know what it is to labor in vain unless the lord builds the house they labor in vain who build it Back in seminary, I spent a night trying to help my brother David put his rebuild engine back in the VW Bug he'd recently bought. We were under his car from late afternoon until 2 a.m., trying to get the engine lined up with a tranny, and it was within less than an inch of seating properly that whole time. But that less than an inch didn't yield. Hour after hour, 10 hours of less than an inch.

Until finally, long after we had both given in to complete and utter despair, it seeded properly. Ten hours of laboring in vain. Marriage, though, is an entirely different thing. Cars come and go. You can mess a car up and you're only out some few thousands of dollars, but when you mess a marriage up, you're out of life. The other day I was visiting a mother of six whose husband just died in his sleep of heart arrhythmia. It was completely unexpected, and we are all heartbroken to lose him. But talking about how much she and her children, the rest of us, miss him, I looked at her, and the two of us commented on how awful it is for couples in their 50s and 60s to divorce. Imagine having worked for decades to build your marriage and raise your children, only to throw in the towel near the end of life. Returning...

To the singleness and loneliness, how painful for your children and grandchildren to see their parents and grandparents decide that all their labors had been in vain and they should break apart the home they had built. Can we understand what would cause a couple in their 50s or 60s to divorce after their children leave home? Well, if we're honest, yes. We can easily understand this. Marriage is hard. Marriage is hard work. for you and for your wife or husband. In fact, often marriage is hard work for your children also. Your marriage, not theirs. It's hard work for them to live in your home and to have you as parents because of how you treat each other. These kids grow up seeing and hearing and feeling the conflict, and it's terribly difficult for them because they love us. And sometimes they have to speak to us about it.

Sometimes our children have to rebuke us for our sins against each other, and by extension our sins against them and their brothers and sisters. Children miss nothing. After the devastating death of their eldest son, the third of their children that God called back to himself during childhood. My father and mother moved across the country and began a new life in a new house and community where they were friendless. Dad had to travel a lot, and Mud was left at home raising three younger children, and often she had to do it alone. My older sister, Deborah, had just started at University of Illinois, and she was only home for semester breaks. But on those breaks, she saw the conflict between Dad and Mud, and had to talk to them about it. She told them they had to stop fighting, and they had to get their marriage right. If not for themselves, at least for us younger children. I had not known Deb did this hard work until she told me just a couple years ago.

But I remember how hard it was living with Dad and Mud in their terrible grief. Things got better, and I'm so grateful for the help Deborah gave Dad and Mud. Then, my in-law parents. In their late 70s, Dad and Mom Taylor began getting snippy with each other. It was quite noticeable, and after visits, Mary Lee and I commented on it and decided to pray for them. A year or so later, we visited, and the snippiness was gone. You know how you're always surprised when God answers prayers, you know. I commented to Dad that Mary Lee and I had noticed their impatience with each other and been praying for them and that we were happy to see how much better they were with each other. Now, you have to understand, when I broached any subject having to do with anything personal with any tailor, I was breaking every rule of the tailor household.

let alone talking about him being snippy with his wife. And so the next time we were with them, we were happy, and I told Dad how happy Mary Lee and I were and that we had been praying for them. And I said to him, did he think things were better? Again, this is verboten. You never, ever, ever, ever talk about things like this. But Dad said yes. Why bring up the difficulties my own and my wife's parents had in their marriages? Well, both couples were deeply respected in their church. Both of our fathers were known across the country for their wisdom and leadership. Both were elders of their church. Both couples would be thought by most of their friends and acquaintances to have healthy biblical marriages, and they did. Both were healthy biblical marriages, and both marriages were hard.

filled with disappointments and sin and losses, hard to sustain across the winters of their unions. Marriage is hard. Bearing and raising children is hard. Providing for the household is hard. Cooking and cleaning and writing books is hard. One of Dad's books defined our family prayer time for a couple years. He got started on the job and then lost interest, but he was under contract to produce the book for a publisher, so it had to be finished. Night after night, we prayed that Dad would be able to finish that book, and eventually he did. Now, listen to me carefully here. It seems today Christians feel compelled to lie about their marriages, especially on social media.

I hate it. I try not to look, but Mary Lee has to keep up with people's lives so she can help me know what is needed pastorally. Remember, you go tell that man to go back to Chicago. Regularly, Mary Lee says to me, what lies people tell about their marriage and family life online. One wife, it's very interesting who's left our church. One wife would brag about her husband on Facebook telling everyone what a godly leader her husband was in their home and what a great father he was to their children. But my wife was close to this woman. They shared prayer requests, one of which was this same woman asking Mary Lee to pray for her because her husband regularly got drunk and used profanity in front of their children.

She told Mary Lee her husband was a man, and these were her words, who never denied himself any of his desires. But online, she would brag to all the women of our church how godly and wise and strong and tender and wonderful and awesome her godly, wise, strong, tender, wonderful husband was. Sure, it's sinful to lie about our marriages, but it's also sinful to complain about our marriages. And so maybe wanting to avoid the latter sin, some spouses move too far in the other direction as a sort of perverse form of protection against sin. Anyhow, we understand why this woman's marriage was very hard. It's pretty difficult to be married to a selfish, foul-mouthed, and he was also an immoral man. But for every marriage with such a husband, there are 50 marriages where the husband isn't foul-mouthed and immoral, but is selfish and quick-tempered.

A husband who is greedy and arrogant. A marriage where the wife is lazy and vain. Where the wife is manipulative and controlling. In other words, every marriage is to a difficult man or a difficult woman. The difference between faithful and faithless Christian marriages is not whether or not the marriage is hard, but whether the husband and wife are truthful about it being hard. After all, every marriage is between two sinners, and Scripture is filled with accounts of the sins committed by husbands, wives, sons, and daughters in the homes of God's chosen people. Stop and think about the patriarchs, about King David, about King Solomon, the author of this verse, unless the Lord builds the house, the mother of James and John. I don't know if any of you know what I'm referring to. Do you think you do? Tell me.

James and John's mother went to Jesus and asked for her sons to be given the position of preeminence. Oh my goodness, that's priceless. And then how about Ananias and Sapphira? And how about the couple in Corinth? Vows bind us to do something that... typically is very right and very hard. The thing we all vowed when we married was to love and to cherish until death separates us. How easy has that been for you? How easy has that been for your wife? A few days ago, I was on the phone with Taylor's older brother, Joseph, and I told him that I had read 1 Corinthians 13 that morning and concluded that I had no love in me.

Have you read it and thought about yourself critically recently? Let me help. Here it is. Love is patient. I'm not patient. Love is kind and is not jealous. I'm not jealous. It does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth. bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. My love fails. It fails with my co-workers, with the elders. It fails with the flockweed shepherd. It fails with my children and grandchildren, my mechanics, my neighbors. It fails with the other drivers waiting in line at the light in front of me.

But my love fails the worst with the one who, before God and in the presence of many witnesses, I promised, I vowed to love and to cherish until death. Please pray for me. Now, maybe at this point, the reader, so there's going to be a book and you're not the reader. Maybe at this point, the reader is wondering whether to continue reading a book on marriage written by a man who confesses his failure to love and cherish his wife. I respond by asking if there has ever been any other sort of man. Remember, Jesus wasn't married. In fact, I do love and cherish Mary Lee, truly. In fact, the book wasn't supposed to be written next. This one on marriage at the front of the line was a book for pastors. But as I prepared to begin that book, I thought about how much I love my wife. And it hit me, I had faith to write a book on marriage.

And so here we are. The Lord has built our house, and I want to help you plead for him to build yours too. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. You cannot do it on your own. One of my many sins is anger. This Mary Lee has had to live with watching me sin, then shortly after responding to my asking for her forgiveness. After a few years of marriage, I despaired of my refusal to put this sin away. I'd sin and ask forgiveness and sin and ask forgiveness and sin again. Dear Mary Lee was always quick to forgive me.

But it did not rest easily on my conscience that the sin was so firmly gripping me. And one day, after asking her to please forgive me for my anger, I then said, lover, I know I have asked you to forgive me for my anger many, many times now, and I'm so very sorry. But I know I will soon ask you to forgive me again. And it does seem that I'm never repentant, and therefore my requests for you to forgive my sin are insincere. If you think I'm never repentant and therefore my requests for you to forgive me are insincere, I don't blame you but lover. What can I say by faith but that God will finish the work he has begun in me? And that includes putting away my sinful anger and so let's pray for it. Brothers and sisters, I still sin in anger.

but slowly and steadily through the years this sin has loosened its grip on me and things have gotten better in our marriage day by day, month by month, year by year, and decade by decade. In other words, we have pled with God to build our house and he has been faithful to sanctify me. Also to sanctify Mary Lee. Sanctification is a long and painful process, but God has chosen and saved us to holiness. which is always most visible in its absence or presence in the full intimacy of marriage. Now then, let me turn to one area about marriage that I want to emphasize with those of you who are here this morning. This is on the text from Hebrews, not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together. And I want you to listen to this very carefully.

It might help new husbands to leave their mama if they remember, now the previous chapter was, can you guess? The previous chapter was that the husband will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. So there's a whole chapter on that. So I hope you'll read the book when it comes out or listen to it. I hope it's recorded. It might help new husbands to leave their mama. if they remember that the church is every Christian's mama, mother. We all want mothers on the battlefield. Grown men cry out for their mothers. Mothers are precious, and God gives us one, but not the Blessed Virgin Mary, the church.

In Galatians 4, we read, but the Jerusalem above is free. She is our mother. For it is written, rejoice, barren woman who does not bear. Bring forth and shout, you who are not in labor. For more numerous are the children of the desolate than of the one who has a husband. And you, brethren, like Isaac, are children of a promise. Who is the Jerusalem from above? Who is our mother? she is the household of faith she is the church of the living god she is the bride of christ So as God is our true father, from whom all fatherhood gets its name, So the church is our true mother. Now here are John Calvin's words calling us to love and cling to this mother. Quote, but because it is now our intention to discuss the visible church, let us learn even from the simple title mother, how useful, indeed how necessary it is that we should know her. For there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive her.

conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourishes us at her breast, and lastly, unless she keep us under her care and guidance until putting off moral flesh, we become like the angels. Our weakness, continues Calvin, does not allow us to be dismissed from her school. until we have been pupils all our lives. Furthermore, away from her bosom, one cannot hope for any forgiveness of sins or any salvation. God's fatherly favor and special witness of spiritual life are limited to his flock, so that it is always disastrous to leave the church. Now, this is Calvin in the Institutes. This is not a Roman Catholic doctrine. This is a biblical doctrine. So let me read to you Luther, Martin Luther. He says, quote, therefore, he who would find Christ must first find the church. How should we know where Christ and his faith are if we don't know where his believers are?

And he who would know anything of Christ must not trust himself, nor build a bridge to heaven by his own reason, but he must go to the church, attend, and ask her. Now, the church is not wooden stone, but the company of believing people. One must hold to them and see how they believe, live, and teach. They surely have Christ in their midst. And then again, just like Calvin, he says, for outside of the Christian church, there is no truth, no Christ, no salvation. Go to the Westminster Standards. They say the same thing. You go the whole way back to the third century church father Cyprian, and he says it very succinctly. He says, quote, you cannot have God for your father unless you have the church for your mother, unquote. If the Lord is to be the builder of your house, you must love and obey him, giving yourself and your family to his things and to his people.

You must not trust yourself to build a godly marriage and home by your own reason. Rather, you must go to the church, ask her help, and listen to her as she cares for you through her teaching, preaching, and pastoral care. Now, an extended personal testimony because, you know, you can sit there and have all these thoughts about what's my motive, right? That's what everybody wants to know today. What's his motive, you know? Okay, so here's my motive. This is me. Our marriage, Mary Lee's and mine, began with a search for a church. After our honeymoon, we'd moved to Madison, Wisconsin, began to visit Sunday morning worship services at Bible-believing churches. We were repenting of our sin, trust me.

and we didn't want to start married life cut off from the people of God and the preaching of his word, and so we searched and searched, but we didn't find any home that we thought was suitable for us. One church had an altar call at the end of each sermon, and that wasn't what we wanted. Another church had this or that we didn't like, and so it went until one Sunday morning, as I was reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's little book, Life Together, I was astounded that he was talking to and rebuking me. Calling out for Mary Lee, she came and laid down on the carpet in our hallway where I had been reading, and I read to her. Now, you might wonder, why were you lying on the carpet in the hallway? Well, it was because we were dirt poor. We didn't have any chairs. Well, we had chairs at a table, but no chairs comfortable. We didn't have a sofa. And so the carpet was comfortable. It had padding under it, right? So that's where I was reading. So I called to Mary Lee. She came over and laid down next to me, and I read this to her, quote,

Innumerable times, a whole Christian community is broken down because it sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian sat down for the first time in a Christian community is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be, and then to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world.

Every human wish dream injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. And then the sentence that just hit us like a blunderbuss. Bonhoeffer says God hates visionary dreaming. It makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God himself accordingly. He stands adamant.

a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of Christian community, as if his dreams are the things that bind men together. And when things don't go his way, he calls the effort a failure. And when his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. And so he becomes first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself. As I write, the church is divided over COVID, and people are switching churches over it. This will change, and not too long from now, it'll be something else. I've lived through a lot of these changes, the things people use to judge and switch churches over. This isn't a family-centered church. People here don't homeschool. No one here has any of their kids in public school.

This church uses wine for the Lord's Supper. This church uses grape juice for the Lord's Supper. They have women serving communion. They don't have any women serving communion. Last time my sister visited us and came to church, we go home, and I've said good things about my sister, right? But she comes home. We're sitting in the study talking, my wife, Mary Lee, and me and my sister. And my sister is, well... Anyhow, she looks at me, and she announces in the full conceit of every liberal that she is not coming back to our church again until we have women serving communion. And of course, she was absolutely confident this was a mistake on my part, and I'd simply overlooked it. I said, Deborah, it's not something that we've overlooked. It's actually a principle.

Liberals think that they invented principles and that everybody else is just stupid. Stupid me. We didn't have women serving communion. Come on, laugh. I mean, this is my family, right? You know, she had the same mom and dad, and I appreciate my sister, but I mean, honestly, this is the kind of thing that we judge churches over. As Bonhoeffer put it, the man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. Now, is this you? Well, Mary Lee and I realized Bonhoeffer had our number, and so we repented. We realized we should be grateful for the church and her care, we shouldn't judge her, and thus we chose a church and stuck with her until several years later, we moved from Madison to Boulder, where we joined First Presbyterian Church, and then to Boston for seminary, where we were at First Pres in South Hamilton. Two of those three churches had women elders.

The churches in Madison, Boulder, and Boston had weaknesses, but all three of them were blessings for us our first years of marriage as we built our household. How? Well, they loved us. They cared for us spiritually. They taught us. They prayed for us. They preached to us. They fed us. One happy memory is Professor Charles Schoffel of First Presbyterian in South Hamilton getting up early each Tuesday morning and driving to the church house where he prepared breakfast for the men who came to the early morning Bible study and prayer group. Then there were all the meals we ate in the homes of church members at each of the three churches. Reformed Church in Madison hired us to clean the church and allowed us to care for their high school children leading their youth group. First President Boulder hired us and put me to work teaching an adult.

Sunday school class and their lay counseling program and helping with their junior high youth group and starting a small group, serving in many other ways on their pastoral staff for the year we lived among them. And then they affirmed my pastoral gifts, taking us under care and supporting us financially through seminary. First President South Hamilton allowed me to serve a pastoral internship among them, meeting each week with the pastor leading worship, and they gave me my first opportunity to preach. But prayer. What would Mary Lee and I have done without confession of sin and brothers in Christ praying for us? All weddings are followed with difficulties due to the sins of both husband and wife, and Mary Lee and I were no different. All marriages are between two sinners, and as I pointed out repeatedly, Mary Lee and I were both that. Both of us were stubborn. Both of us were feminists. Both of us were very selfish.

I had a temper, as you know, and Mary Lee wasn't submissive. Both of us had long been flirts, and that was very dangerous at the start of marriage. You don't just turn off patterns of sin once you're married. And although flirting is always sin, flirting in the first years of marriage can be fatal to your marriage and your soul. Mary Lee and I were countercultural punks. which is what we call hipsters today. Mary Lee and I had pierced ourselves before anybody else was doing it. Living in San Diego, I'd seen an old sailor standing outside his store downtown every day when I was taking the work mail to the post office. He looked the real man, and I decided to get my ear pierced so I could look the real man too. Mary Lee worked for a jewelry store in San Francisco's Cannery.

piercing customers' ears. And one day, she pierced her nose and started wearing a diamond stud. Now, mind you, this is back in 73. No man had an earring except old paratroopers from World War II. And no woman had a pierced nose. And so the next time Mary Lee saw her father, he took his forefinger and he said, you have something on your nose. He tried to scratch the stud off her nose with his fingernail. I drove an old Volkswagen bug that I had spent years pushing, hopping in, and letting out the clutch in second gear to get it started. And I had a ton of parking tickets in the car because you always had to find a spot to park where you could simply start. And I worked downtown San Diego. You know, I had tons of parking tickets. Mary Lee had a perm. My hair was down at my shoulders, and so there we were, pieces of work.

And these churches loved and accepted us and prayed and prayed for us. Dear reader, unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. So pray. Without ceasing, never stop confessing your sins to other believers and asking them to pray for you. You want God to build your marriage and household, and so plead for his help and get others to plead with him in your behalf. This is very simple and very hard. Mary Lee and I found a prayer group that we met each week at Covenant Presbyterian in Madison. It was led by a godly older couple named Elmer and Mitzi McMurray. Eight to ten of us attended faithfully each week, and although all of us believed in prayer, it was hard.

to be the dirty ones who had real prayer requests for real sins each week, when all the other requests were for things like the healing of the gammy leg of somebody's aunt or neighbor, or that work would get better. We knew we were the project for the rest of the group. Young and edgy with lots of sins, apparent and otherwise, confessing our personal sins and asking for prayer each week. I distinctly remember being tempted to resent the absence of any confessions or requests for prayer for sins ever coming from anyone else. But God directed us to keep going, keep confessing our sins, and keep asking for prayer, humbling as it was, and we obeyed.

God's people there loved us, and we saw God answer their prayer for us as we began to grow and to put some sins behind us, always moving on to others, maybe as bad or worse. You know, you transfer the sins you're repenting of, and often the sins that you put away aren't as bad as the ones God then opens his eyes up to you about. A little secret for us older people. Sanctification. is humiliating and painful and lifelong but it is glorious and never forget that god says in his words sanctification can never be separated from salvation you must have it because scripture warns us quote pursue sanctification without which no one will see the lord unquote No, sanctification does not save us. That's infusion. That's the Roman Catholic doctrine. And yet without sanctification, quote, no man will see the Lord, unquote. So from the very beginning of marriage, fight your sin. And for this fighting, there's no substitute for the church of Jesus Christ.

Her feeding, her admonishments, her worship, her preaching, her cleansing through the water of baptism and the milk of the word. Her fellowship around the Lord's table where you hear that helpful warning God's servant, your pastor, gives prior to each administration of this sacrament. Quote, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of our Lord. But a man must examine himself and so on. Listen, life is serious business because it's appointed unto man once to die and after that to judgment. You and your wife live in the light of God's fatherly care for you and your children, and he is appointed. Now listen, I'm going to start over again. Listen very carefully. You and your wife live in the light of God's fatherly care for you and your children, and he has appointed that care to come directly from him through your spiritual mother.

He is appointed to be your mother. Life is short, eternity follows, so prepare yourself, not failing to help your precious wife to prepare herself also. No man with a biblical understanding of the glory of Christ's bride and his and his wife and family's desperate need for her help and cleansing will ever forsake the assembling of ourselves together as some are in the habit of doing. The Christian would rather miss the Super Bowl than Lord's Day worship. Even if he's dying of cancer, think Charlie, the believing man will go to church, joining God's people in worship in anticipation of that day almost upon him when he will be gathered with all the saints, praising God together with his holy angels. Cannot tell you the strength I get from worshiping behind.

Charlie dug Dale every Sunday. Brother and sister, you may have been raised to think that some people need the church and others don't. Whoever taught you that was a fool. Every believer and his wife and children desperately need the church Sundays and Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays when they prepare again for worship and fellowship the next day, Sunday. And this is what we see in the book of Acts. It's possible some of you think I have written this because I'm a pastor, and if people don't come to church, I don't get to collect the offering and keep some for myself, right? Any of you have any mercantile thoughts about what I'm saying? That's good, because let me say this. Without the church, we die, and I'm not a pastor because I don't know how or want to work with my hands.

I'm a pastor because Mary Lee and I have been loved and cared for and taught by the church, and we want to pay it forward to heaven. Jesus loves his bride, and we love her too. Several times I've had souls furious at my preaching come to an elders meeting or into my office and tell me if I don't stop preaching the way I'm preaching, they won't pay me. That's exactly what they say. They think stopping the money will stop my mouth. But I assure them it matters not one whit whether they pay me or not. I'll still keep preaching and pastoring and marrying and bearing because I don't do it for money but for love. Now, one last thing before we end. Years back, and this is a very important last thing, years back I heard a pastor say that the best predictor of perseverance in Christian faith was a lifelong commitment to one church.

Now, of course, there are times when we have to leave a church and find another. Sometimes we move, sometimes the church moves into heresy. But putting such occasions aside, think of all the times you have wanted to leave your church because you or your wife were bitter or angry or hurt or ashamed at your sin, known and seen by the assembly of believers, or maybe just known and seen by the elders and pastors. Think of all the times you have wanted to leave because people in your congregation don't agree with you on gluten or bread making or masks. Do not do it. Do not jeopardize your own soul and the souls of your wife and children in order to save face. Do not jeopardize your salvation.

in order to satisfy your own preferences on secondary matters like frequency of communion, psalm singing, musical instruments used to lead the praise of the people of God, or you fill in the blank. Since hearing this older pastor make this observation, the connection between church commitment and spiritual life, I've seen it proved. true over and over again. And now I add my own agreement to it. Sometimes Mary Lee and I will go through the list of those who have left the church angry, ashamed, bitter, proud, condemning, and then we will begin to name their children who are living in flagrant sin without any fruit of true faith. We don't do it often because of how sad it is. Almost invariably, one of the elders or pastors warned the father or mother or both of them of the consequences of their pride, of their bitterness, and of their judgmentalism, but to no avail. And it's shocking to see how many of these families have now gone through three, four, five, sometimes six other churches after leaving us. Listen, brothers and sisters, the only currency of church life

is forgiveness. And let's face it, almost always it is a refusal to receive forgiveness or to give it that causes us to leave the church we promise to love and to serve. And this must not be. God has forgiven you. How can you refuse to forgive your brother or sister in Christ? How can you refuse to confess your sins to man when you say you've confessed them to God? If you have left a church and you are still bitter about that church, stop and consider this warning our Lord gave us. Jesus said, for if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. Now then, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. You cannot build your marriage and home without Jesus.

He has given you his church for that help. I warn you, do not despise her. She is your mother. Now, I haven't written this. This is sort of a thingamabugger. But I was thinking about this chapter. I select these chapters in my email program, mail them, and then I listen to them as I drive back and forth to Michigan, you know, so I think. And yesterday as I was listening to this, I thought there's one thing I haven't said here, and that is. inevitably, there is an inequality of zeal to leave our church when a couple leaves. And typically what happens is either the wife or the husband gets caught in wickedness. And I mean wickedness, abuse, pornography, adultery. And at first, the spouse, whether it's a husband or wife, is so thankful for the church because they know their home is being threatened by this sin. But very quickly, what began as thankfulness turns into shame and bitterness and anger. You know, every elder's board can tell you story after story like this. And I'll use as an illustration not abuse because maybe that's too personal. Let me use pornography.

And 30% of pornography is done by women now, not by men. But let's use a man, because we all like to beat up on men, right? So let's say a man is immoral. He's committing adultery through pornography, and it goes on and on and on. And finally, the wife has had it, and she goes to the elders herself, which is not just her right, it is her duty. And she tells the elders this wickedness against her children and herself. So the elders get involved. Typically, they'll set up a meeting every week with the man, with a couple of them. Then after a good start, because of course he's been caught, so he has to make a show of a good start.

A month or two later, he stops coming to the meetings. He says he forgot he had work commitments, this, that, and the other thing, right? And you know what I'm going to tell you. You know what's going to happen. By now, the wife has sort of resigned herself that she either has to find another place to live and another source of income with her children, or she's got to bite the bullet and give in. And there are people here that I'm talking to. I know. I've warned them. And so they look at the church and her elders, and then they look at their husband, their wife, and so they think to themselves, you know, they are, who do they think they are? And guess what? They leave the church. It may take them a year, but they leave. And they leave being absolutely united in the fact that that former church was wrong.

right? And I want to say something to you who have a spouse who's been caught in their sin or who has confessed it. Do not choose your spouse over your mother. It is the most foolish thing you can do. You may think there's no choice and that you have to bite the bullet. You do, and the bullet that you need to bite is the mother of us all, which is the church. You trust God and you trust the church. And for you, what that means is you trust your sinful pastor and elders. Do not allow your spouse to alienate you from the ones who have poured themselves into him or into her. Now, aren't you glad I came up and preached to you? Isn't it just what?

Wonderful. Listen, I'm still a piece of work. Don't resent me. But I'm a shepherd. And I know what we all do. And so, you know, don't do it. Okay? Let's pray.