Happy Holy Home - Week 1 - The CORE - Pastor Mike Novotny
Happy Holy Home
Week 1 - The CORE
Pastor Mike Novotny
Well, good morning everyone. Welcome to week number one of our four week sermon series called Happy Holy Home. One of my older friends told me about his epic anniversary party. I knew I needed to hear the details of exactly what happened. My buddy and his wife were celebrating 50 years together, as husband and wife. So they decided to throw this multi-day, multi-generation marriage celebration, I saw the pictures and it was insane for seven days. They rented this huge place, I think in Arizona, and they got together as a couple, they invited all of their children, all the grandchildren, and they drank and they went swimming. And they went hiking, they were talking and they were sharing the gift of love and commitments in their home. They are celebrating 50 years. One of the kids was celebrating 25 years with another 23, another 20, and another 10, I think, combined it was 128 years of love and respect under their respective roofs and it was beautiful. He said, it cost him a load of money. I think he went into debt for the occasion and he told me it was absolutely worth every single penny. But in my opinion, what was even cooler than like the connection with the relationships? Was that connection with God?
Apparently had the start of every day of the celebration. One of the sons would lead the entire family, three generations in worshipping Jesus. Craft a specific worship service with a specific message, about love and respect. That's hardly started every day with lifting up the holy, wonderful, powerful name of Jesus. And then at the end of every day, One of the grandkids. would get up and lead, his parents, and his aunts, and uncles, and his grandma, and his grandpa in worship and praise to Jesus. And I heard that story like, oh my goodness, families, like this families. Like this. Am I too old to use hashtags? Because if I wasn't, I would say #goals, right? But like, oh my goodness, isn't that what every single person wants?
Like what this your own romantic relationship or your best friends or your roommates or your parents or your kids that got all of us at the other day? Want homes, that are like this and like this, they're happy with the people they were with and holy in the sight of God. My friend's story was so inspiring to me as a married man as a pastor because, as I think of some of the best moments in life and some of the hardest ones, it's often comes back to what happens in our homes. But I probably don't have to tell you that. The reason my friend's story is so unique and inspiring is because it's not normal.
Or maybe you've experienced this yourself in many homes. I'd say too many homes and too many of our homes are sometimes less happy and holy than sometimes sad or sinful.
I'm not sure about your parents’ relationship but would you characterize it as like gushing love, respect, commitment, sacrifice?
Maybe if you're abnormal. But lots of us saw Mom and Dad fighting, we heard them arguing from the other side of the bedroom wall. Sometimes they barely knew each other. Sometimes they separated or divorced, like being raised in a happy and a holy home seems like the exception and not the norm. And maybe you've experienced that yourself. Maybe been through a breakup, a separation or divorce where things started out with so much hope and potential but then something, all kinds of things happened and it grew kind of cold and distant until you just couldn't do it anymore. Or maybe you've just seen that so many times among family and friends that you're in a relationship right now and you're feeling good about it, but you're also halfway scared about it. Things change, people drift, people cheat and are unfaithful and like you're ready to take that step and get engaged and get married, but you're also kind of terrified.
Maybe that's the reason you moved in together. You just want to be sure that you're compatible before you make this sacred commitment called marriage.
Or maybe you're like the one, the many couples at our church who are dealing with the wounds of infidelity. I don't think they're ever going to do it and yet, it happens a lot and it happens a lot here in our church family. And people try to move on and they want to rebuild trust and want to go back to the way things were maybe even better than the way things were, but it's difficult and challenging. Or maybe you're one of those people who has a friend or family member in any one of those situations. And you want to be a good friend and you want to give good advice, you want to encourage and want to pray. You want to walk with them, but relationships and marriages are super complicated and you want to take sides and you want to do what God wants you to do.
So what does God want you to do?
All right, so this is tension whenever we talk about relationships. They're so important to our life. Some of the most important things we’ll ever experience that can be so happy, so holy, so beautiful, so inspiring. Or it can be really complicated and hurtful and traumatic.
And that's why I'm super glad that you're here today. Today, we're kicking off this series called Happy Holy Home and we're going to grab that sacred book, God's word, the Bible. We're going to open its pages and try to see how can our Heavenly Father get us closer. To hear happy and holy and help us to avoid all of this the sad and the sinful.
We're going to talk about things. Like what's God's blueprints and foundation for a great relationship. Next week, we're gonna tackle, in a whole message living together. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Why staying a sinful thing? What does our Heavenly Father say to his sons and daughters about that and then we're going to spend two whole weeks on a topic that we've never addressed directly here in our church, infidelity. How do you stay far away from it? What do you do? If you're in the middle of it? How do you help family and friends who are going through it? When people are picking sides, when there's wounds that are very deep, we're going to cover all of those things in just four weeks, with that big goal that we want to make you, your friends and your family, according to the Scriptures happier and holier as you live under your home.
Hard drive in this, three things I need to say, I'll try to keep them quick, but all of them are important and all of them deserve a sermon. So forgive me for rushing it. Number one, I know that not all of you are dating or married or will be and that's okay. The Christian church has a sad history. Lots of people have a sad history of thinking if someone is single you got to set them up, all right? So there's no like Christian Mingle dating waiting for you in the lobby afterwards. We worship a Jesus who was single for his whole life and he was pretty great. So if you're single, that's pretty great and it's fine. I will say though this is also series for you because the guy who wrote the most about marriage in the whole Bible was, he was single. The Apostle Paul never married, and yet he cares so much about people's happiness and holiness in their homes that he devoted much of the Scriptures to it. So even if you're not dating or married or never will be, and that's okay, I hope that you can lead into this series because we really need your help as a church to do this right. Number two, I find that the Bible's general marriage advice can be weaponized by abusive people.
The stuff you're about to hear today about love and respect, saying you first and marriage is actually used by monstrous manipulative people to continue abuse. You're supposed to forgive me. You're supposed to love me. You're supposed to put me first. I wish I had time to explore all that. So if you think that maybe you're in a verbally or emotionally or physically abusive relationship, kind of listen with half of an ear to today and after church, find a sermon that we preach on God's Word to the abused because that's what I'd say to you if it was your situation. All right, we'll quickly number three. I also know the difficult thing about talking about relationships is that we can move forward. But we can't move back.
Right? And so if you're divorced or you've been through a hard break up, you might learn some beautiful things today from God's Word but the fact is you can't, you can't go back to your last marriage. You can't redo things and you can't force the person you're with to do these things either. So I know that talking about relationships is difficult because some things are out of our control. So here's a promise, I want to make to you, no matter what we talk about in this series before I say, Amen, every single time I'm going to come back to the most important thing of all Jesus. I'm not going to give you a list of husbands do this and wives do that and say, Amen. I'm always going to come back to the Forgiveness, Grace, Hope and salvation we can have in our relationship with God deal. Okay, so let's launch into Happy Holy Home. I'll tell you when to talk about God's blueprints is foundation for husbands and wives. And I'm going to start today by talking to the guys, So gentlemen, where’s my married men?
So what young faces out there that might be married one day to actually have a chance to look through a Bible search engine every single time. The Scriptures use words like marriage. Married, spouse, spouses every direct passage that talks about marriage. And what I found was so golden. At the very highest level. I love this passage from 1st Corinthians chapter 7. It says this. I married a man is concerned about the Affairs of this world. Specifically, how he can please his wife?
That's really foundational passage, if you're single. Like the Apostle Paul, you don't have to worry about stuff like that at home, but if you're married and you're a Christian, you don't just care about Christ in heaven, you care, very passionately about this woman that God gave you here on Earth. And I love Paul's words. What am I so concerned about as a husband, how I can, please, my wife note the singular words. They're not women in general. Not I read a book about wives and what they want.
I can please his wife. This singular unique woman that God has given to me what is pleasing to her. What puts a smile on her face. At the end of the day, what makes her happy? Guys, got a lot to do. Lots of us have work. We've hobbies, we have friends, we might be brothers or roommates or neighbors or church members. But what Paul is saying here, actually uses the word devotion, a husband is devoted to his wife, God is calling us like Jesus should be our number one love and if we're married, it should be so obvious. And so evident that the number two love in our life is our wife.
There might be work, it might be friendships, it might be fantasy football, there might be the yard. There might be the boat. All that's great. But it can never ever, ever, ever, ever take the spot of devotion that a husband has to his wife. A Christian husband is creating a happy and holy home when he could walk into a courtroom and there would be stacks of evidence that he loves Jesus and then her. No questions asked.
And then God, get specific.
Be devoted to your wife is kind of the big idea as I researched those passages. However I found seven specific commandments that God gives the husband's. So guys, let me hear your pain real quick, right? All these old ladies, if you're going to carry us what God wants the dudes to do, you can write these down to seven things here. They are number one, be considerate of your wife. Consider her wiring, our needs, or emotions or schedule. Number two. Don't be harsh. There's differences. You can react in anger and frustration, don't do that. Don't be harsh. Number 3, treat her with respect. She's an equal partner in the kingdom of God. She's not your inferior or your servant. Treat her accordingly, treat her with respect for the Bible, says husband's love. Fifth love. Sixth love and seventh for the bonus points also love. Yes. Okay. Apparently, dudes. Depend on repetition love her, love her. Did you forget then, love her? Love her. You might know this verse, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
So we can do these specific things. We're considering her, we're not harsh with her. We respect her as an equal. In God's kingdom. We love, love, love, love, love her. That makes a Happy Holy Home. Are gents pens down, and your full attention? Because I want to make this even more specific. And I want to tell you today, what women want.
I mentioned, that's one of my friends and she said, don't do that. Pastor Mike, don't zones are mansplain it as all right, so I could be wrong. This is a total gender stereotype, but I've been a pastor for 15 years. I've gotten to help tons of couples, what causes frustration and distance. And I think, I think for most married women, this, this is gold. I'm gonna try to summarize in two minutes, someone put me on the clock. Here's what I think most women want.
They want a husband who acts without being asked.
Am I right about that? Ladies. What means the world to a wife is when her husband acts, he does something beautiful without needing to be asked, or told, or reminded, or nag. But, when a husband can do that, he steps up to serve her. Love her, meet her needs, without being forced to do. So she knows without a doubt in the world, that he is devoted to her. Right now, the average husband says, but I can't read her mind. That's true. You know what you could do though, you could treat your marriage, like, you treat your fantasy football team.
Do you know what to do a fantasy football do? Every single week every week they fine-tune their team so it's the best it can possibly be. Right. They know like this quarterback is playing against this defense or this running back just got hurt. I can't do this. I got like they pay so much attention to the actual data. They make decisions that make the team the strongest as possible. Here's a crazy idea. What is a game based on, a game that people made up?
This however, is the Important relationship of your life. God instituted it, what would happen if you would just pay attention to the data?
Write her schedule. When she comes home, and she's frustrated about, what's going on in her world? Like if you're just as the Bible says quick to listen, you considered her needs you respected, what she was going through and you acted upon that information. What do you think would happen in your home? I'll tell you. If you happier, would be Holier. You be closer? And she would thank the good Lord that he gave her a man like you
Said, under two minutes. Guys, listen. For most of us, we only get one shot.
When you die one day, your boss and your coworkers are likely not to come.
The people you play softball or church basketball with probably won't even know when you die.
But there's one person who will.
Fight for her. Prioritize her. Like Jesus with his church. He was on a singular mission to love her and make her know that she was a priority in his life, do the same. You will not regret it.
A couple months ago, I heard about this archaeological discovery in northern China.
They were digging this ancient grave. I think it came from the 500 AD and they discovered inside of it 2 skeletons, a husband and a wife. Except instead of lying, you know, like side-by-side, like you normally see skeletons, Let me show you a picture of how the archaeologists found them.
And everyone said, I showed someone this picture before and she joked they're going to find me with my like bony hands around my husband's neck. I thought that was a good joke. All right. The archaeologist who found this picture, they decided it was probably for the headline, but they decided to say this couple had found eternal love and I don't know if that's what really happened, maybe they had a bad marriage and their kids just wrap their arms around each other but I love that idea. I don't think any dude just wants another fling. Or to be a beautiful wedding day with a great videographer and then it fizzles out. Its I don't think anyone wants to separate or sleep in separate bedrooms. I think, I think this is what you want. And so your heavenly father tells you, here's how to get it. Love her. Love her. Love her.
Love for be devoted to your spouse, follow Jesus first. And make sure that she knows she's next. And you will lead the way to a happier and a Holier home.
All right, ladies your turn. So for the wives that today, let's be here today but she will be married someday what does God say to you? Well, at the highest level he kind of says the same thing back to 1st Corinthians. Chapter 7, the Apostle Paul added A married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, namely how she can please her husband.
If you're single, you won't have to worry about this, but you're not so you're very concerned. Once again, Paul uses the word devoted to the simple question. How can I please my husband? I've learned so much about him, over all the years, what makes him happy, which makes him frustrated. How can I, on a regular basis, prove my devotion that I deeply, deeply, deeply prioritize our relationship now. This is actually, I think, very hard for a lot of women because often women are like the primary leaders when it comes to kids in the home. And kids are kids. A baby needs to be changed and fed. You got to drop the kid off here and your husband's a grown man. He can take care of his own stuff, right?
Why? It's a lie, just white Sal. I am not because your husband can't feed himself or dress himself or drive himself to work. The LIE is if I push pause on my marriage and invest little energy into it, it's going to be fine.
It will not be fine. Relationships don't work that way. They drain from intimacy and closeness without efforts.
And so the way to be devoted to your spouse is not to say, I got to do all this stuff for the kids, and if I have time, you get the scraps. Is that a dog? He's your husband. He likely loved you first before those kids came. Return the favor.
And Paul, get specific with you, ladies. Grab your pen. There's 7 Commandments directly addressed to wives in the Bible here, they are. Number one, respect your husband. Number two, you love your husband. The three is interesting, be subject to your husband.
Number 4, submit. Number 5. Submit.
Number 6. Submit. A number 7 is also submit.
And you all seem excited to be here right now. Ladies can I get an amen. For the word I got are right. This is the 2020s. Not 20 is 80. So we got to talk about this. Let's talk about submit. It's a number one thing God wants you to do. If you think be subject to as a synonym, for submit five out of the seven things that God says directly to wives, are about this. Let's talk about a few things. Number one, this is not the patriarchy Club speaking to you.
Who says these things? God. This is the word of God. So before the walls go up and before you blow this off, as some do, like Peter, who was married to not slip, 20 shekels to Paul and say, just put some it in their whole bunch of times. Yes, I know you're mad. I know this was, this was God, the Holy Spirit. Who loves marriages? The God who created marriage. What is he saying? Just as he says, Love of Love husband's. He says to wives, submit, submit, submit. This commandment number two. Here's what you should know about submitting. By its very definition, is what Jesus did when he died for you. I was singing a song earlier today. Bowing to the Father's will that Jesus didn't come to say. What I want. What I'm going to do. I don't care what you think. Heavenly father, I'm not going to the Cross because it's going to be painful. No do you remember what he prayed? Father, is there any other way to do this and forgive these people? Let's do that but not my will. But yours be done. That's what submission is. It doesn't mean you're inferior. Because Jesus wasn't in fear, doesn't mean you're not intelligent, because Jesus wasn't listening telogen, it doesn't mean you can't express what you think, what you prefer, what you want, that's what Jesus did with his heavenly father, but at the end of the day, when you two don't agree on something. There's only one thing you can do two things. I should say, you can either fight to get what you want.
You first?
And God knows who created man. Likewise if you do that. Like if there are differences among you but you're not just fighting, manipulating to get your way at the end. If you respect him enough and love him enough to put him first that will fill his sails with so much love.
Let me make this really specific. What I'm about to say is a, another gender stereotype that might not be true for everyone, might not be true for you, but I hear this all the time in struggling marriages. After 15 years of counseling, I'm gonna try to summarize it in under 2 minutes. Can someone put me on the clock? I realize if you really want to respect your husband, here's what you should know. Sex.
Was it under two minutes?
All right, so I'm kind of joking, but I'm actually kind of glad. This isn't true for every man and woman, three out of every four relationships. A man has a higher sexual desire than his wife. For many people, for many men, that is the biggest source of frustration. They're treated like they're teenage boys, like hitting on their wife is something I need to be brushed aside because I'm in the middle of something busy and you can only do that so many times to a man until it gets deep deep down in his heart.
Feeling respected and being sexually rejected, rarely coexist.
And that gap between his desire and your desire is not right or wrong, but if it is a thing, then it's not something to be brushed aside any more than your differences are. Instead it's a Time To Love. To respect to serve.
If we decided I should give you the same advice. Act. Without being asked.
A wife who responds to her husband's sexual advances makes him feel like a man. A wife who initiates those advances makes him feel like a virile man.
It's true.
Love, respect, submit, serve. Be devoted to one another in love and you will create a happy and a holy home.
I'll be real quick. They put your pants on and put your fingers up like this. Alright, let's imagine. This is a husband and his wife. Every single day in a relationship husbands and wives to their make decisions that move them closer or make decisions that move them further away. What God is trying to do in these verses is to get husbands and wives to do this. If only one person does, I'm going to serve him, serve him, serve him, but he is so selfish, we will never be close. And in a sinful world we're going to have good days and we're going to have bad days but God knows this, no one ends up this close or this far away in a day. Instead the closeness and intimacy of their relationship is based on these simple things, is she my priority and am I loving her? Well, am I putting him first and am I meeting his needs and if you can make those little decisions day by day, six months from now you would be shocked at what God could do in your home. It's not easy. Selflessness is not natural. But I have any father who wants to see his sons and daughters Happy in their homes. Gives us this beautiful guidance, husband's be devoted. Lead the way. Love, love, love. Wives, put him first, respect him, submit, submit, submit, submit.
Yeah, I think this is why Paul started with Jesus.
I had a prediction when I got to this point in the message that you would be thinking. One of three things,
Number one. Yes, this is sweet. I can't wait to get out of church. This is what my marriage needed. I'm so happy. God gave me this number two. I thought some of you would think
I tried, served him. He didn't reciprocate. I tried to love her, but she was just so stuck. We can't like I can't fix this bad. This makes me feel worse instead of better. Remember. I thought some of you would say I want to but it is so hard to love her. It is so hard. My life is so busy, where am I gonna find time for this, right? I thought you'd either be excited or depressed or paralyzed. And then it made sense to me when I found in my research,
That passage, be devoted to each other. Was not in 1st Corinthians chapter 1. It was in 1st Corinthians 7. And husbands, love your wives, wives submit to your husband's wasn't in Colossians 1. It was in Colossians 4 and the husband should love his wife as Christ loved the church was not in Ephesians 1, it was in Ephesians. What I learned is that all of the marriage passages come either in the middle or the very end of their specific books of the Bible. And I asked myself, why would that be? The easy answer is because if you're going to get this right, what you need to start with is Jesus.
Right? If you're gonna have the fire to do this, right? You need Jesus, if you need forgiveness for something, you did wrong. That's all about Jesus. If you think you can't, then the answer is Jesus. So let me show you what I found in the book of 1st Corinthians before it gets to husbands and wives, be devoted. It says this Christ Jesus is our righteousness, our Holiness, and our Redemption. Like, what is your righteousness and what makes you right with God being a perfect spouse, an amazing person to date. Nope. It's Jesus. He makes you like this with God. No distance. No separation. No rustration. Jesus Christ died on a cross to be your righteousness and make you perfectly right with our heavenly father. Or the book of Colossians before it said, love and respect. It said this in chapter one, God has reconciled You by Christ's physical body through death. I love his line to present, you not ever hurt you present, you, holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation. Because Jesus loved, loved, loved and loved you because he submitted, submitted, submitted, submitted to the will of his father. This is the result you, if you're a Christian, are holy in the sight of God. Right, you walk through the doors of Heaven. And your heavenly father is beaming with joy and happiness. He's not accusing you, he doesn't point a finger. With Jesus Christ erased all of your sins, relationship sins included. This was the result that you are presented before God. Holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation. Or one last one. Before it said, husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church, wives submit to your husband's in everything. Ephesians 1 said this. Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the Heavenly Realms, with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Man, I love that line. Every spiritual blessing to do. You want deep in your heart to walk through the door of your home and there's someone who's always there for you.
And it always loves you. And they always care about what you're going through and they always have compassion for you and they will never leave. You never forsake, you never change their mind. Is that what you want?
If you're a Christian, You already got it. Jesus gave his life for you on the cross. He made sure that waiting for you behind that door every single day was not a guy. Not a girl, but God the God who is love, is there in that room? A God who cares about all your anxieties? Is the God who says, give me all of it. I want to hear it. I want to help with it. The perfect relationship is yours. Whether you're dating, divorced, single or married. If you're a Christian, this is the promise, everything you deeply want in your heart, you have. Maybe you can't go back and maybe you can't force him to be like this or change the way that she is. But if you have Jesus, you have God himself.
And so this is the beauty of the biblical pattern: start with Jesus, and you'll fill up your heart with what you really need.
My friend gets that.
Cover my body with this 50th Anniversary, multi-generation, marriage celebration, right I'm so curious about his family, his home, I asked them one last question. I said, tell me about what your family thinks of marriage. And he responded with an email. I counted, my wall, my computer counted, he sent back this big paragraph of 310 words. But as I was reading it, I noticed something about his words that they were so so deeply spiritual
I saw in that paragraph of 310 words, these words, blessings, blessing, God, grace, forgiveness, prayer. Lord bless God. Pray, pray, Lord, Grace Faith, bless God. God forgiving, Grace, blessings, forgiveness, prayer, prayer, savior, Lord, blessed, blessings, blessed, Jesus, Jesus, God and blessed. 32 words in 310 word paragraph were all about Grace. And God, God was at the center of it.
And God is what made it so good. He left me with these words. I want to leave you with them today. My friend said, both my wife and I had parents who were married for over 60 years. We both remember our parents telling us how foolish it is for people to think that there are no rough spots in marriage. No, we are all sinners. We all need Jesus. And we all have him.
That's a good way to put it. We're all sinners. We all need Jesus. And through faith, we have him. And Jesus is the secret and the center to the happiest holiest home.
