I TEACH WHAT I BUT I WHO I AM. Someone has to lead the way… Jesus called the church to lead the way. 1 Samuel 15:22-23 “What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols. Hebrews 10:4-5 For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to offer.” Romans 12:1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. John 15:12-13 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 1. A IS FIRST GIVEN TO Ephesians 5:21-22 And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 1 Peter 3:1-2 In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives. - Jesus is my 1. My spouse is my 2. 2. A THEN PEOPLE IN A GOD-HONORING WAY. Ephesians 5:25-26 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. MY HAPPINESS IS NOT THE GOAL. HOLINESS IS. If God’s strategy to heal the relationship that WE broke involved HIM sacrificing everything, then our approach to the broken relationships our lives definitely involve US sacrificing. 3. A HAS NO ATTACHED. Ephesians 5:31-33 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. What sacrifice is not… - It’s not reciprocal. There are no strings attached. - It’s not top down. It’s from the bottom up. What sacrifice is… 1 Corinthians 13:3-7 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. John 15:12-13 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.