Building Esteem and Trust in Marriage 101020

[Music] Churches and fellowships cannot be more spiritual than the individuals and families that constitute them. God greatly desires a godly home for you. These are words of restoration and instruction in righteousness from Family Tent Ministry. May you be blessed as you listen. [Speaker 1] Welcome to Family Tent Ministry marriage forum. We thank God since January till now, and we bless His name for how He has been helping us, bringing His word our way, His words our way, words of blessing, word of life. And today again, we are here for another edition of our marriage forum. And we trust the Lord that as you are connecting with us, as you are linking up with us from wherever you are, today again will be a time of blessing, a time God will be doing a new thing in your relationship with your spouse or with our spouses in the name of Jesus Christ. Today we will be having a very quick one. We want to consider two vital principles for building esteem and trust in your marriage. Two vital principles of doing that. Of course, there are several principles, there are several things to do about our relationship. But for the purpose of our discussion today, we just want to consider two vital ones among them. Two vital things you need to do in your relationship so that you can build esteem, esteem for one another, and you can build trust in your relationship. As we move on today, we trust the Lord that it will be a time of blessing in Jesus' name. Let us have a word of prayer so as to commence the meeting today. Almighty God, we thank you for your goodness. We thank you for your love. We thank you for all who you are and all that you are to us. We bless your holy name. Lord, as we come together this morning, we pray that you will grant us inspiration. You will grant unto us that your word will come to us so instructive in such a way that it will build us, it will encourage us, it will correct us in the name of Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray for everybody linking with us today and for all of us, the technical crew who are reaching out to them. Lord, make this meeting a time of refreshing and blessing. Thank you, eternal Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Yes, like I said earlier, we are considering how we can build esteem and trust in our relationship, particularly in our marital relationship, in our home. Particularly looking at the matter from a Christian point of view. How we can indeed build esteem and trust in our relationship, maybe between the fiance and the fiancee, or between the husband and the wife. Those are our two concerns today: marital relationship, how we can build esteem and trust. Esteem and trust are two important things that are so crucial to any relationship. People should be able to trust themselves and people should esteem themselves, they should value their relationship, value themselves. Place a high premium on one another. Valuing the relationship so much because the Bible says where your treasure is, there your heart will be. A relationship that you don't esteem, your heart cannot be in it. That is the truth. So the Bible says where your treasure is, there will your heart be. So once you cannot esteem your spouse, you cannot esteem one another, it means your heart cannot be in the relationship. Similarly, where there is no trust, relationship cannot exist. Once you don't trust yourself, then it becomes almost impossible to build any relationship. Because it will be suspicious around you, you can't make anything good out of yourself. Once the fiance don't trust the fiancee or the fiancee don't trust the fiance, once the husband don't trust the wife and the wife don't trust the other way, then they can't make anything meaningful out of their relationship. And so that is why we are trying to consider this morning two vital principles. Like I said earlier also, there are several things to do to build esteem and trust. But for the purpose of this meeting, we are considering just two vital principles. And we'll be taking that from a clear instruction from the word of God. Let's turn our Bible. Let's go to Proverbs 3. Let's look at the word of God there. I will read the Amplified translation and the New Living Translation. But my exposition of this scripture this morning for the purpose of our discussion will be based on the Amplified translation. I will read verse 1 to verse 4. Amplified says: "My son, forget not my law or teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days and years of life, worth living, and tranquility, inward and outward, and continuing through old age till death, these shall add to you. Let not mercy and kindness—that is, shutting out all hatred and selfishness—and truth—shutting out all deliberate hypocrisy and falsehood—forsake you; bind them about your neck, write them upon the tablet of your heart. So shall you find favor, good understanding, and high esteem in the sight or judgment of God and man." The NLT translation: "My child, never forget the things I have taught you. Store my commands in your heart. If you do this, you will live many years, and your life will be satisfying. Never let loyalty and kindness leave you. Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep down in your heart. Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation." Praise the Lord. That's the word of God this morning. And we just want to look at, from this text that we have read, we want to look at two vital things here about how you can earn a good reputation, that's integrity and trust, how you can have good esteem before God and before man. We want to look at them in this text. So our major focus this morning is on the verse 3 and verse 4. And like I said earlier, I want you to pay attention to the amplification in the Amplified Bible of this text. It says, "Let not mercy and kindness." Mercy and kindness, in the King James Bible, the King James Bible used the word "Let not mercy." The Amplified says "mercy and kindness." Of course, kindness is a dimension of mercy. So mercy and kindness are two things that go together. Once you are merciful, you will be kind. So the Amplified amplified mercy further to mean kindness. So, "Let not mercy and kindness." And to further amplify that, the Amplified version in parentheses added: "shutting out all hatred and selfishness." When we are talking about mercy and kindness, if we want to understand mercy and kindness, for mercy and kindness, what we need to do is to shut out all hatred and selfishness. The manifestation of mercy and kindness, if you want to understand mercy and kindness in your relationship, is in the ability to shut out all hatred and selfishness. The manifestation of kindness, the manifestation of mercy, this mercy, this kindness we are talking about in your relationship, is that you must do everything not to throw away... you must do everything not to throw them away. That is, in all your actions, you must do everything to shut out all hatred. Doing nothing out of hatred. Doing nothing out of hate. Deliberately, consciously in your relationship, no matter what happens between you and your spouse. No matter how it happens, no matter what is going on. The husband must be deliberate, the wife must be deliberate, the fiance must be deliberate, the fiancee must be deliberate. There must be a deliberate decision to shut out hatred. Some things may stir up hatred feelings. Some things can happen that will stir up hateful feeling. Sometimes provocation from your spouse, sometimes omission, sometimes commission, sometimes error, sometimes forgetfulness. A lot of things can bring hatred. A lot of things can make you want to act out of hatred. But the Bible says that in your relationship, if your desire is to build... if you look at the word in verse 4, it says, "So shall you find favor, good understanding, and high esteem in the sight of God and man." If you want to build esteem, if you want to build integrity, if you want to build trust, if you want to build such in your home, before God and before man... I'll be expanding that shortly too... you must understand that you must deliberately shut out hatred. You must do nothing out of hatred and selfishness. I mean nothing. And you see, the point here why the Bible is saying shut out all hatred and selfishness is because you need to realize that the matter of the opposite of hatred and selfishness is love. That's why it says kindness, loving-kindness. It is because if you look at the Bible, if you check the popular love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13, let's look at that love chapter very quickly. Where the Bible says, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but I have not love, I become a sounding brass and a clanging cymbal." That is, in your home, you can become exactly this in your house. You might be so powerful, you might be so that you can command things in your relationship, but to your spouse, to your fiance, to your husband or to your wife, you are just a lifeless instrument making noise. You are not anything to esteem. You are not anything to value. And please don't forget why I said you must build esteem in your marriage. Any relationship you don't esteem, your heart will not be in it. The Bible says where your treasure is, there will your heart be. We must be deliberate about all of these things to build esteem and trust in our relationship. To esteem one another, greatly value one another. And how do we get there? We are looking at two vital principles to it. And the first one is that we must deliberately shut out hatred and selfishness. Do you want your spouse to value you? Do you want your spouse to really trust you? Do you want your fiance to value you and trust you? Then deliberately in your relationship... and I'm telling you this applies to so many other things: your career, your business, and all of that, just plant them. But our focus this morning is on marital relationship. You want your husband to appreciate you, to value you? You want your wife to value you, to appreciate you? You want your fiance to value you, to appreciate you? You want all of this? Then deliberately shut out hatred and selfishness. I mean nothing out of hatred and selfishness. I'm bringing us to this place because if you don't do, you'll just be in your relationship just something making useless noise. He said you will just be a sounding brass and a clanging cymbal, even when you appear to be speaking in tongues making all kinds of prayer. "Let us pray, let us pray, my fiance let us pray, fiance let us pray." Even as you do all that kind of praying, you are just a lifeless instrument making noise to the other person. The person don't value you. The person don't see anything about you. The person don't see anything about your prayer life, even though you are speaking the tongues of men and speaking the tongues of angels. Why? Because there is no love, there is hatred and selfishness. Once there is hatred and selfishness in your relationship, you become a lifeless instrument making noise, not even sound. He says you become a clanging cymbal. Bang, bang, bang. Not making any, not giving a sound, just making noise. And if you look closely, as we go further, he said, "And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have all faith, so that I could move all mountains, but I have not love, I am nothing." So to your spouse you will become nothing. You are just nothing to the person. Even though you can have all faith, you can heal, you can do, you can... when you express faith in the church, faith in the open, in the ministry or in whatever, you have the faith that can move mountain. Oh, when it comes to revelation, you can wow, this wonderful. You have all kinds of mystery, you can teach the word of God, you can expand scripture, you can do all of that. You have all the revelations, you have all the faith. But I'm telling you, to your spouse, you will be nothing. The person will not place any value over your life. The person will not rate you to be anything. And I'm telling you, it is the same thing with God. The Bible says so you will get good esteem and trust and reputation before God and man. When you don't love, to God too, you are nothing. God says you are nothing. You won't find good esteem, you won't find... there is nothing in you, there's nothing to trust about you, there's nothing to value in you. Despite all your seemingly revelations, inspiration, you have the word, you have that, you have the faith to move the mountain, you have all of all those things. But I'm telling you, if you don't in your relationship shut out hatred, shut out selfishness... you must be deliberate about it. Your wife may err, your husband may be in error, there should be... there could be omission, there could be commission, there could be mistake, there could be offenses. But you must be deliberate in your relationship with your spouse, in your relationship with your fiance, in your marital relationship, to deliberately put away hatred. Some things may bring it up, but you must deliberately put them down. Hatred and selfishness. Don't do anything out of hatred. Don't take actions out of hatred. Don't relate to your spouse out of hatred. Don't do it. Because if you do, you are losing something valuable. Every other thing about you, you are bringing yourself to nothing before God. And that is a very serious thing. If you are nothing before God, then what are you? The Bible says so you will get good esteem and trust and reputation before God and before man. I'm showing you a vital principle to building good esteem. You want to be really valued, you want to be missed, you want to be somebody your husband want to be around, you want to be somebody your wife want to be around, you want to be somebody that wow, oh, he's around, let's be around him. You want that? Then you must understand that you must be deliberate about these things, to deliberately shut out hatred. There could be times when the person provokes, there could be times when the person annoys you. There could be those things, yes, we are humans. We cannot remove human error, we cannot remove human factors. This thing cannot... there could be misunderstanding, there could be communication gap, there could be a lot of things. There could be those human infirmity things that come, human vulnerability, human weakness that shows up. But you must be deliberate in your relationship with your spouse, your relationship with your fiance, in your marital relationship, to deliberately set aside hatred and selfishness. He says, "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but I have not love, it profit me nothing." That's why you see some men say, "I don't understand this my wife. I don't know what else again to give her. The latest car, I bought it for her. The latest phone is in her hand. In fact, that wristwatch she is wearing, I imported that thing with several, several thousands of dollars just because I want to please her. I don't know what else again to do. I have bought, I have given, given, given, and yet she does not value me." It is because something is lacking. You can do all kinds of giving, and yet you are taking actions out of hatred and selfishness. You do some things out of hatred and selfishness. You do things out of hatred. So your giving will not make you to be anything before that person. Your giving will not make you to be anything. You must understand this principle. It is more important than the money, the wealth, whatever you spend on her. It is not acting out of hatred in your actions, particularly when circumstance calls, seems to be eliciting hatred. And if you look at something quickly in that place again, it says, "Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy." I want you to note all of these things that the Bible noted here. Love suffers long. Another version says love is patient and kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself—that is, love does not boast. It is not proud, it is not arrogant. Love does not behave itself rudely. Love does not seek its own. Love is not easily provoked. Love does not think evil. Love does not rejoice in iniquity, it only rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes in all situations and endures. Now I'm trying to show you something. Look at all the things that is mentioned here. You will realize that love is not primarily a feeling. Love is not a feeling. Love is a decision you took. You take a decision to be patient. You take a decision not to envy. You take a decision not to boast. You take a decision not to be proud. You take a decision not to be arrogant. You take a decision not to think evil. You take a decision to rejoice only in the truth. What I want you to see is that you don't need to feel good to act love. Love is not about feeling good. Love is not one emotion that is packed up in you. "Oh, it feels nice, it feels good." No, that's not about love. Love is a decision. You deliberately decide to shut out hatred. When he says love suffereth long, what does that mean? It mean there will be times when your spouse will do certain things, will repeat it again, will repeat it again. Even though those things are annoying, those things are provoking, those things are things that you don't immediately like, but you can suffer long. You are deliberately shutting out hatred. Love can suffer long, but you, you don't want to suffer at all. Any time she just does something wrong, you give her back. Any time you don't want to suffer anything for your relationship to work. You don't want to suffer anything at all. You don't want to bear up, you don't want to be tenderhearted, you don't want to forgive, you don't want to endure, you don't want to tolerate, you don't want to accommodate. Then you cannot have esteem. You cannot have value to your spouse. You cannot be valuable to that person. You want to boast, you want to boast of your gifts, you want to boast of your talent. You want to show that you are better off in argument, you want to show that you are better off, everything just... you pile record of wrong. Last year you did this. All your diary, the things you have there, all the days the person wronged you. You remember 15th of February 2014 you did this. You remember on the 2nd of January after New Year of 2004 you did this. Everything there, well documented. Is that the kind of life to live? What I'm trying to make you understand is that one vital principle, if you must be esteemed in your relationship, if you must be valuable to your spouse, if you must be valuable to your fiance or fiancee, is that you must learn to suffer long. You must learn to be patient. You must learn not to be proud. You must learn not to be rude. You must learn not to be easily provoked. You must learn how not to rejoice in iniquity but in the truth. You must learn how to bear all things. You must learn how to hope always. You must learn how to endure all things about this person. Don't say to your spouse, "Look, I can't bear this with you." You can bear all things. That's a decision of love. Deliberately shutting out hatred. Deliberately shutting it out. The Bible says, "Don't let mercy, don't let loving-kindness forsake you." If you are not careful, loving-kindness will forsake you—that is, you will not be somebody who live by that. And once they forsake you, then you cannot have good esteem before your spouse. Not only before your spouse and also before God. So one vital principle is I must deliberately shut out hatred and selfishness. I must in my relationship deliberately do it. I must shut it out. Because love is not a feeling. Love is not this Valentine thing, it feels cool, it feels this, it feels that, people run along. Love is a decision, it's a will, it's a commitment. Love is not just that I feel cool. In fact, you can be feeling... and that is why you can suffer long. You can be feeling so bad and yet you are not acting out of hatred. You are not acting out of it. You can suffer long. You are not easily provoked. The person did something that you don't like, but you can hold down your anger. That is love. It's not just that, "Wow, he bought me ice cream! Whoo! I love this man!" All these kinds of things that excite us today. I'm not saying that's very wrong, but I'm only saying that's not what love is. Love is something higher and greater than that, as far as God is concerned. And that's why you can love your enemy. You can do good to them that hate you. Love can relate to hatred and do good. That is love. That's why you can pray for those who despitefully use you. That is love. So it's a commitment, it's a decision, it's an act of will. It's not an emotion, it's not infatuation. You must get that clear. And that's why if you look at the Bible very well, if you go and check the book of Peter, he says, "Add brotherly affection." How you add knowledge to faith, you kept on adding. Then you get to a point, the Bible says you add brotherly kindness to your faith, and then it says to brotherly kindness you add love. It tells you that love and affection, they are not the same thing. You can have brotherly affection and you don't have love. Love is higher than it. If you don't add love to brotherly affection, brotherly affection can become inordinate affection, it will still become the brotherly affection. You can be calling lust brotherly affection. You are lusting after a sister and say brotherly affection. But when you have love, love does not rejoice in iniquity. Love can separate lust from brotherly affection. You must get these things clear. Because in the name of what you call, people call brotherly affection today, a lot of all kinds of immorality goes on. So I want to appeal to you, in your relationship, there is something you must willingly do. It's a will. Deliberately shut out hatred. Deliberately shut out selfishness. Hold down your anger. The Bible says be slow to be, be slow to be... be slow to anger, be slow to... be slow, slow, slow, slow to wrath, slow. That is love. And when you do that consistently and continually, what will happen to you is that you will have good esteem before God and before man. You will have value, you will add value to your relationship, value to your marriage, value to your home. But if at every slight, every slight provocation, you are slapping somebody, every slight provocation, somebody must receive the venom of your anger at the slightest this. If you are like that, just watch it. Over time in your relationship, you have no value to those that surround you. Whether you are there or they are alive, they don't even care. Whether you are there or not, they don't care. In fact, once you say you are leaving the... you have cause to travel for years, they are glad that you are leaving. They don't want you around. Their heart is never in you because you are not a treasure. The heart of man is always where their treasure is. You are not a treasure to them. That's why you see in some home, once the husband says I'll be away, you see the wife rejoicing quietly. "Ah, let this thing leave, let this thing leave the house, let him travel for years so that I can have my peace." And sometimes you see situations too where you see the wife want to, "Ah, go, let this woman go and even be with her parents for some time, let me have my rest in this marriage." Let me have my rest in my relationship. It is because your life have lost esteem. Nobody value you. Check your relationship with your spouse, check your relationship... and I said it affects every other thing in relationship. You must learn to deliberately set aside hatred, to deliberately set aside selfishness. Look at all the things about love. Don't just be... "I want him today." You must look at that scripture. So many things we place value upon today, love is higher than them. Love is higher than faith, love is higher than hope. Because once you don't add love to these things, those other things they become, they become nothing. That is the first vital principle in your relationship. You must deliberately shut out, deliberately shut out hatred and selfishness. So we move on to look at the second vital principle for our discussion today. And as we discuss this principle, I want you to look into your life, to check, to check properly areas where things may not be correct with you and then, you know, put things right. I mentioned Peter the other time, it's 2 Peter. Let's... before we go to the second one, please it is 2 Peter chapter 1. You will see that in verse 7. It says to godliness, add brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness you add love. That's 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 7. So you discover that brotherly kindness is different from love. They are two different things. I'm just trying to establish the fact that we said love is more than a feeling, it's not just an affection. Love is stronger than that, it's higher than that. It's not primarily that, even though that is part of it, but it's not primarily that, it's higher than it. Love results from a decision. So the scripture there is 2 Peter 1:7. So let's go to the second one, second vital principle for building esteem and trust in your marriage. Building esteem and trust in your relationship. Your relationship... the second one there, let's go back to our text, which is Proverbs 3. Proverbs 3. King James calls the second one "truth." The King James Bible says, "Let not mercy... we have looked at mercy, the second one now is truth... let not mercy and truth forsake thee." But we are using the Amplified for our discussion today, like I said earlier. Let not mercy and kindness, that is for mercy, then truth. Now let's look at the truth. Again in parentheses, the Amplified brought out what is meant by truth. In the parentheses there, in the Amplified version, you will have: "shutting out all deliberate hypocrisy and falsehood." Shutting out all deliberate hypocrisy and falsehood. You must shut out... if you want to build good esteem, good reputation, you want to be trusted, you want to be esteemed by your spouse, you want to be esteemed by your fiance or fiancee, you want to be esteemed... you want your husband to esteem you, you want your wife to esteem you, you want to be somebody of great worth. But more than that, you want God to esteem you. Because if you look at the verse 4, you remember? So you will find good esteem, good reputation before God and man. It's for both God and man. And that is why I said we are looking at this from the Christian perspective of it, a Christian principle. It's transcending just relationship between you and your spouse, even your relationship between you and God. If you want God to esteem you in dealing with one another, you must shut out deliberate hypocrisy and falsehood. Deliberate hypocrisy and falsehood. You must shut it out. Do you want to build good esteem in your relationship? Then this is another vital principle you must look at. Are you somebody who is hypocritical? Do you try to create impression in dealing in relating to your spouse, relating to in your relationship? Are you somebody who create impressions even though they are not there? You create impression to be something when the thing is not there. You flatter, you exaggerate. You are not genuine in the things you say and do. Deliberate hypocrisy. You just do certain things just to create impression. The Bible warned us seriously about it. Also, we should do nothing out of vain glory. If you also look at Psalm 34, the Bible warns us that do you love life and you want to see good days? Do you love life and you want to see good days? Then you must take your tongue away from lie. If you look at the same thing in 1 Peter chapter 3, you'll find the same thing there. 1 Peter chapter 3, you find the same thing, exactly the same thing, the same warning coming to us in 1 Peter 3. If you look at 1 Peter chapter 3, let me quickly get there from here. That is the verse... yeah, verse 10. Or let me take it from verse 8 so I can be clearer. It says, "Finally, all of you, be of one mind, having compassion one for another, love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous. Not returning evil for evil or reveling for reveling, but on the contrary, blessing, knowing that you are called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. For he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit." Are you seeing that? He who love life and want to see good must refrain himself from speaking deceit. If you look at the next thing there, it says for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. That is, the righteous are not deceitful people. The righteous are not deceitful people. They don't practice falsehood, hypocrisy. The godly don't do so. The godly don't do so. So if you want to win good esteem, you want to be esteemed, you want to be valued, you want to be trusted in your relationship, then you must deliberately put out, shut out hypocrisy and falsehood. Shut it out. Be deliberate about it. It's a vital principle in relationship. It's a vital principle for your home, a vital principle for your marriage. If you want your home front to be solid, nobody want to be around a liar. Nobody want to be around people who practice deceit, people who, when they say good morning, you have to check your time because it is afternoon. When they tell you, "Look, oh, no, no, no, oh what you have there is seven." You have to go back to cross-check because the number there is actually 17, they have dropped one digit. Nobody want to be around such people. Nobody. Nobody want to build any lasting relationship with such. Nobody value such people. Nobody. Sometimes you have relationship, you have the wife... "I am not too sure. I don't know what... I don't know what my husband is earning as salary." And the husband says, "No, no, she knows." The wife said, "No, I don't know." "No, no, you know." Then the wife says, "No, I don't know." "But the last time they did increment and promotion, you didn't tell me." "Yes, yes, actually, actually I meant that she knows the last time, but now, actually there was an increase." And all kinds of falsehood and hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, falsehood. They make you to be nothing. They reduce your worth. You become worthless to your spouse. You don't have worth. If you want to gain good reputation, you want to gain esteem, you want to be esteemed, you want to be trusted, you want to be somebody that people can build their heart with. If you want to be a treasure where the heart of people will be, then you must understand that you must do away with deceitfulness, you must do away with falsehood, with hypocrisy and lies. The Bible says don't let truth forsake you. Don't let truth forsake you. Truth. And one glorious thing about truth is that truth sets free. One glorious thing about truth is that truth is Jesus Christ. The man of truth is the man of Jesus. And the man of lie is the man of the devil. Because the Bible says their father is the devil, he's a liar and the father of all lies. Father of all liars. He's the source and the origin of lie. So when you see a man of lie, he's a man of the devil. Let him be demonstrating all kinds of spiritual gift, all kinds of talent, all kinds of things, whatever you see him demonstrate. Be careful, you can't relate, you don't value such a person. In fact, you don't put any value in such a man because he's a man of the devil. Truth and Jesus, they are synonymous. So a man of truth is a man of Christ. Do you want to build esteem in your relationship? You want to build good esteem with your spouse? You want to build such a thing? Then the Bible says don't let truth forsake you. Don't begin to create impression in your relationship. Don't begin to do things that you are not sincere, you are not transparent, you are not open. You cover up one thing, you cover up another one, you cover, you cover, you cover that. At the end of the day, you will lose good esteem. You are losing it gradually before God, and also you will lose it before man. So if you look at that scripture, two vital principles. And if you look at these two principles, look at what the Bible says. It says, "Bind them around your neck." That's a very figurative thing. These two things, bind them around your neck. Shutting out hatred and selfishness, shutting out hypocrisy and falsehood. Shutting them out. Bind them about your neck. It's a very figurative thing, and I want to explain it to you. If you put a rope in a man's neck and you begin to pull the rope, and you are pulling the rope, what will happen to the man? You will notice that the man will start feeling pain. For the man not to feel pain, what will the man do? The man will have to follow the rope. That's why you put a rope on the dog's neck, you put a rope on the goat's neck. Anything you want to control, the rope is in the neck. Because if the thing don't follow the rope, the thing will feel pain. But beyond that, if the thing prove stubborn, if you put the rope in the man's neck and he's not following the rope, apart from feeling pain, if you keep pulling the rope, what will happen to the man? He will get suffocated. And the next thing, what will happen? If he still persists not following the rope, the person will die. So in order not to die, in order not to feel pain, in order not to be suffocated, once a rope enters a man's neck and you are pulling the rope, for the man not to feel any pain, he must follow the rope. That's why you notice that when they yoke oxen in Palestine, the yoked oxen, once you yoke the two ox, they must follow themselves. The two cow, they must follow themselves, going together. Once one go, the other one must go that direction. Once they go a contrary direction, the thing is going to die because what will happen to the neck is that the neck will be broken. So the Bible says, "Bind them around your neck." You know what that means? The Bible is saying that let the shutting out of hatred and selfishness, the shutting out of hypocrisy and lie, let them be what controls you. Let them be what pulls you around. Everywhere they go, that is where you take your neck, you follow them because they are on your neck. Bind them around your neck. Let them be that which controls you, that which pulls you around. Anytime you want to go to the negative, you start getting suffocated. That is, you set them as serious reminder that anytime you want to... you are reminded, "No, no, this is not the way." Then you come back to deliberately shutting out hypocrisy, shutting out falsehood, shutting out hatred, shutting out selfishness. Bind them around your neck. Let them be that which controls you, that which pulls you around. Everywhere they go, that is where you take your neck, you follow them because they are on your neck. Bind them around your neck. I want to ask you, what is controlling you today in your home? Your actions, your inclinations, your decisions, what is controlling it? What is the remote thing about your motive, your actions, your thoughts? What is controlling it today? Is it hatred? Is it selfishness? Is it falsehood? What is controlling it today? Is it loving-kindness and truth? The Bible says, "Bind them around your neck." Don't put them around your leg, don't put them around your hand. Because if you put around your hand, when the person pull, you too will pull back. When truth want to go, you will pull truth back, "I'm not going your way." Put them on your neck, where you will feel pain if you don't go that way. Where you will quickly repent and say you are sorry and go back to the path of truth, the path of not acting out of hatred and selfishness. Put them around where you cannot easily go away from them. Make them your priority in life, make them your first thing, make them your first choice. Prioritize them and pursue after them. Bind them around your neck. Don't put them where you can pull them back. Don't put them on your hand because when you pull you pull back. Don't use your leg when you pull you can pull back. Put them on your neck where you will feel pain if you don't go that way. The next thing is that write them upon the tablet of your heart. Have you seen something there again? On the tablet of your heart. A thing that constantly comes to mind. A thing that constantly comes to mind. And I want to tell you something again, tell you something about heart. When we say the tablet of your heart, what is it about heart? I hope you know that it is heart that pumps blood. When we talk about the heartbeat, the pumping of blood is the heart. And remember what blood is? The life of an animal is in the blood. When we say "take his life," you mean you will take his blood. Once you shed blood, you have taken life. Life and blood, they are synonymous. So the heart is the source of life, the source of blood, that thing that pumps blood. The Bible says put them there. You know what that means? It means put it at the origin, origin of your life, the source of your life. Make them the source of your life, the originating factor. I'm showing you where the Bible want you to put loving-kindness and truth. Look at where the Bible want you to place them. Make them the source of your existence, the source of your life. The source, what pumps, where the thing is pumping. What is pumping out of you? Your heartbeat. Some of you, your heart beat so fast because of anger. Bang, bang, bang. Sometimes you give yourself hypertension because your heartbeat is not love. You get so angry sometimes that you almost have renal failure because of anger. Look, I'm trying to address some very, very important thing with you. The Bible says make it, put it in your heart. The origin, the way things originate, where life originates. The your life, your existence, your being alive at all, that you are alive at all, is that hatred is shut out. How do we know that you are in a place, is that there is no hatred. How do we know, how do we sign your presence that "Oh, this person lives here"? How do we know is that in that place there is no hatred. There is no hatred, there is no selfishness. There is no falsehood. Anywhere you exist, falsehood is not there. Anywhere you have anything that stamp your person, they cannot find falsehood in it. Once your... they say "Dam, who did this?" is you. Once they check through the whole of that thing, they will not find hatred. They will not find falsehood. They will not find selfishness. That is what it means. Be deliberate about your choices in life, be deliberate about what you do with your life. You need to grow out of so many things today. Grow to overcome self. Grow. Jesus said if any man want to be my disciple, the first thing about it is to deny himself. That's the first cost of discipleship. Let him deny himself. Put yourself at the background. Put truth and love at the forefront. Set yourself behind. Kindness at the forefront. Put yourself somewhere. Deny yourself. If you check that scripture... because I want to read it to you deliberately... and I'll be reading it to you in the Amplified translation. It's Luke 9:23. I want to read that scripture to you again in the Amplified translation. Be deliberate about your choices in life. Be deliberate. I plead with you, be deliberate. Know what you are choosing in life, know how you want to live. I'm telling you there is nobody that follow Christ, Christ is the truth. He's also love, because God so loved that He gave him. Somebody that pursue truth and love, following Jesus, go and mark their end. Their end will be peace. Go and mark their end. Joseph went through so many things, but go and check his end. Jesus went through so many things, but go and check his end. People that follow this path, this principle, loving-kindness and truth. Loving-kindness and truth. Look at what the Bible says in Luke 9:23. I want to read that verse to you again in the Amplified translation. Luke 9:23 and he said to all, not some of them but to all of them. All of them. And when I mean all, even the all then will mean the whole multitude, the disciples that gathered around him. I'm using that word deliberately. He's saying to all, to leaders and followers, to presidents, to pastors, to general overseers, for whoever. He's saying to all without exception. He's saying to the big and to the small, to the rich and to the poor, to the male and to the female, to the literate and the illiterate. He's saying to all of us, whatever our category. To the husband and to the wife and the fiance, the children, the parents. He's saying to all. And what is he saying to all? "If any man, if any person, wills to come after me." If wills to come after me, if you want to follow him. What does he says? He says, "Let him deny himself." Then in parentheses, look at the explanation for that deny himself. The Amplified says, "Let him disown himself." Disown yourself. One of your greatest problem is yourself. Your greatest challenge in life is yourself. You are the problem to your marriage. "My husband is not esteeming me." Go and check whether you are following after, whether you are following after loving-kindness and truth. "My wife is not esteeming me." Go and check. You are the troubler of yourself. And what is troubling you is the self in you. It is not your spouse. You are the one troubling yourself. Because God assures us that if we do not allow loving-kindness and truth to forsake us, if we are deliberate, if we deliberately shut out hatred and selfishness, if we deliberately shut out falsehood and hypocrisy, if we do so, the Bible says you will find. It's a consequence. You will find it. Good esteem, trust, you will find it. Not only before man. The Lord assures us, even before God. It says, "Before God and man." Not only man, even before God. They are two things, they are two principles in your life that does not only win men over, they also win God. They also win God over. You win God over to your side, or you take yourself to God's side, because God don't change side. He stays to the side of God. God is always where God is. You are the one that change side. We change to this then we do. If you want also to stay on the side of God, where God will esteem you, it is these two vital principles. So you see the matter here. It says let him deny himself, and deny himself mean to disown himself, number one. Number two, it says forget himself. Can you forget yourself? Why do you tell lies? Why do you hate? Why are you self-centered? Is it not all about self? Say forget yourself. Look at another word for that. It says let him lose sight of himself. Lose sight of yourself in your relationship. Set aside hatred. It is because you are holding so much to yourself, that's why hate is so, you are full of hate, you are full of selfishness. That's why you tell lies. You are trying to project a particular thing. And look at the next thing there. It says lose sight of himself and his own interest. If there is no selfish interest, will you be telling lie? If there is no selfish interest, will you practice falsehood? Because if your interest is not selfish, you will tell the truth. So the Bible says let him lose sight of himself and his own interest. And lastly, says let him refuse himself and give up himself. That's the first thing about becoming a follower of Jesus. So you find out that the problem today is that many of us in our marriages, in our homes, in our relationship, we are not disciples. We are just crowd inside church. We just constitute a crowd inside the church. We are not true disciples. Because the first cost of discipleship is to forget yourself. It is a deliberate thing to renounce yourself, to lose sight, to give up yourself. Self want to come, you say "No, that's not my life. I must live a life of shutting out hatred. No, I must throw away hate. No, I must not tell this lie, I must speak the truth." It's a matter of refusing yourself. And that is what it means to be a disciple. Are you truly a disciple? Or you are just a crowd inside our church? Just faithless multitude inside our fellowship. You are among us, but you are not of us. Somebody like brother Judas. He was among them, but he was not of them. Are you really a disciple? Check your life today. What I'm trying to make you see is that you can build esteem and trust in your marriage. It's not about your spouse. Leave your spouse. You start this principle and see what will happen to you. Many times we want to change the other person. Change yourself and see whether God will not change the other person. Because he that builds everything is God. Bible says when the Lord builds, the laborers will not labor in vain. If you win God to your side and God esteem you, let us see the husband or the wife that will not esteem you. You know what the Bible says? It says if the ways of a man pleases the Lord, He will make even his enemy to be at peace with him. Even if your wife or your husband, your fiance or fiancee is your enemy, if you can win the esteem of God and you can win it with God, you will see what God will do to that your enemy that you are calling your husband or your wife. God will cause them to be at peace with you. That is why I'm telling that you are the troubler of yourself. "I don't even understand this person don't value me, this person don't esteem me, this person this, this person that," and you keep them. It is because the person... it is not about the person, it's about you. Go and check your life and make your life straight. Examine your ways and repent. It's about you. It's not about your spouse. It's not about your fiance or fiancee. It's about you. You are the troubler of yourself. Go and lose sight of yourself. Go and lose sight of yourself and your own interest. Go and live a life of loving-kindness and truth and see what will happen to you. And see what will happen to you. If you will not at the end of the day gain, you know, esteem and trust from your spouse or from your fiance or from your fiancee. And as we close today, let's go back to that our text. Our text of today. I want to, let me try to round up gradually for this morning. Go back again to that our text. There's still one or two things there I want to speak to. Now, it says "bind them, write them upon your heart." He said the Bible says "So you shall find favor." Favor. I'm using the Amplified translation. Favor. King James use the word there for the KJB... he said King James says "So you shall find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and men." The Amplified says yes you will find favor and good understanding. Then it says "and high esteem in the sight or the judgment of God and man." So what I'm trying to show you here is that many times we pray for favor. "Oh Lord, favor me! Lord, cause me to be favored." I'm not saying it is wrong to pray for favor. But I'm trying to make you understand that if you are praying for favor, also go in the paths that brings favor. A liar don't find favor. Once you realize that somebody is telling you lie, what normally happens is that the person lose your favor. Once you realize somebody is deceiving you, go and check it yourself. You want to find favor before your husband? You want to find favor before your wife? And your wife realize that heh, she got to know that you are deceiving her. And you want her to say, "Oh, you are highly favored." Can you favor who you realize he's deceiving you? "I don't understand, this person don't even seems to favor me." So I'm what I'm trying to say that it is not wrong to pray for favor. But what I'm trying to show you too that favor is something we also work for. You work to be favored. You work for favor. And the way to work for favor is those two principles. You must shut out hatred. Don't act out of hatred. Don't do anything out of hatred. Do everything to bring, to remove hatred from your actions, from your words, from your speech, from the things you do. Remove hatred. Shut out selfishness. Let loving-kindness overwhelm you. The Bible says... oh I have, that is where I will conclude with when I want to, I will check something in Ephesians chapter 4. What the Bible tell us as what we should do as saints. Shut those things out from your life. Shut out falsehood. Be true and sincere with people. Be plain, be transparent. Be deliberate about these two principles and see if you will not find favor. You will find favor. Favor is something to work for. Yes, it is good we pray that God will favor us and men will favor us. But it's so important also to know that you have to work for favor. And the same thing goes for good esteem and trust. "My wife is not trusting me, my husband is not trusting me. I don't understand why my fiance or my fiancee don't trust me. In fact, I hate her, she does not trust me, he does not trust me." You need to check your life. The kind of life you are living, is it a life that can earn it? What I'm trying to show you here is that trust, good esteem, are things to be earned. You earn them. You are deliberate about a choice of life. It's just like honor. Jesus Christ was honored. He was honored because he obeyed. Bible says for this reason God highly exalted him. You want to be honored but you don't want to work for it. You live carelessly, you live foolishly, you live stupidly, and you want to be honored. Don't be careless and casual in your relationship. Particularly in your marital relationship. But in all your relationship, although this same thing holds in several ways: in your office, in your career, in your business, and all of that. You are deceiving people and you are praying for God to put favor on your business. How will you find favor on your business? You will meet with rebuke and with cursing. Woe to you if you are not somebody who practice truth with people. No matter the kind of prayer that you are praying, you cannot find favor. What you will find would later in life with rebuke and cursing. I'm saying that favor, trust, good esteem, they are things to be earned by deliberate act of deliberately living in a particular way. You must be deliberate about this way of living. When you do so, then you find favor. You find good esteem. You find that you are trusted. I want to ask you, don't you see what the Apostle James was trying to say about Abraham? The faith of Abraham, the confidence, the faith of Abraham or the relying on Abraham, the manifestation of Abraham, the confirmation of the covenant to Abraham was something that come when Abraham added work to faith. Bible says he believed God, it was counted to him for righteousness. But he added action, he did something for the covenant to be confirmed to him. You tell me how. Go later, to after the birth of Isaac, when God said go and sacrifice Isaac. The Bible said that when God saw that Abraham was to kill the child, then there was a voice from heaven. And then it said, "Abraham, Abraham, don't touch the boy." What did God say? He said, "Now," go and check the scriptures yourself, say, "Now I know that you fear me. In blessing I will bless you." How was the covenant confirmed? How did he find good esteem and trust and favor before God there? He did something. He believed God, it was counted for righteousness. But he obeyed God, he took action. He threw away selfishness. If God want the boy, after all God gave him to me, it's about God. If I don't have a future, because if Isaac die, Abraham know that he does not have a future, because he has been told that it is in Isaac that his seed will be become. God was telling him go and sacrifice his future. And he forgot about himself, he threw away his own interest. He went there selflessly, following the cause of God. He put God first. He renounced his own interest. He shut himself behind. And he was going. And he went there not even knowing what God will do. But when we go to Hebrews, the Bible tell us that he was trusting God that God is able to raise him again from the dead anyway. He just, maybe this boy will come back from... if God kill him, God knows what he will do. But I'm showing you the action of selflessness of Abraham. He went there selflessly. He shut away selfishness. And he went there and he did that. And what happened to him? He got favor before God. He got good esteem before God. God said, "Now I know that you fear me. Abraham, see, in blessing I'm going to bless you. In multiplying I'm going to multiply you." You are living foolishly, carelessly and stupidly, and you want to earn favor, you want to earn good esteem, you want to earn trust. Check your life. Be deliberate at your own front. Be deliberate in your relationship. Be deliberate. I'm not saying that these things we should not pray, but I'm showing you to your prayer what you must combine, what you must add to your prayer. Correct living, upright living, living correctly, obeying scriptures. And then you are able to get it. As I close this morning, I want you to see what the Bible exhort us to do in Ephesians chapter 4 as believers in living with one another. Ephesians 4, living with one another. Look at what the Bible says. Ephesians chapter 4, we are reading the last two verses, 31 and 32. And deliberately I will read the three translations before me here: the KJV, the Amplified, and the NLT. Just for you to get the beauty of the scripture. King James says, "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." You see how the Bible, you see how the believers are expected to live. You see the word the Bible is instructing us about how we should live. Because the whole of Ephesians chapter 4 is about... Ephesians chapter 4 and 5, 4 and 5, up to chapter 6 verse 9, is about the Christian life, how we ought to live as Christians. How we ought to live. The early part of Ephesians is who we are, our privileges in Christ, chapter 1 and 2. By the time you enter into 3, 4, and 5 up to verse 9, talking about the Christian life, how we ought to live as Christians because of these privileges. And then if you live like this, the concluding chapter, chapter 6 from verse 10 to the end, talks about our warfare. We must put on the whole armor of God to stand before the devil. There is a Christian life. There is a life. We are not given privileges to live carelessly, foolishly and stupidly. We are given privileges in Christ to live correctly. Loving-kindness and truth. I want you to take that again in the Amplified translation, 31, 32. "Let all bitterness and indignation and wrath, passion, rage, bad temper, resentment, anger, animosity, and quarreling, brawling, clamor, contention, and slander, evil speaking, abusive or blasphemous language, be banished from you." Are you seeing that? Deliberately shutting it out. Shut these things out. "Be banished from you with all malice, spite, ill will, basement of any kind, baseness of any kind. He says you should banish it from among you." These things they make you to lose goodwill, they make you to lose trust and esteem. You think you are gaining. You are really losing. And that is why at the end of the day you cannot stand against the wiles of the devil. Because until you live the normal Christian life, if your obedience is not fulfilled you cannot punish disobedience. And the last thing there in that verse 32, what did the Bible say? "And become useful and helpful and kind to one another, tenderhearted, compassionate, understanding, lovinghearted, forgiving one another, readily and freely, as God in Christ forgave you." Loving-kindness and truth. I'm showing you in this place again. The NLT translation says, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you." As we conclude this morning, I want you to look into your relationship, to your marital relationship, your fiance, your fiancee. Look into your home, the home front, how is it? And of course, several others of your relationship. Maybe you are not getting good esteem before your boss in the office, your subordinate, your boss, among your friends, among fellow Christians. You are not getting these things and you are wondering. All networks of your relationship, you can look into them and make amendment about your life. Eniyan n se'ra e, ohun l'aye n se'un, opolo n se'ra e t'on puromo aiye. Several people they are the ones, they are the troublers of themselves. They are the ones troubling themselves and they keep blaming people. They keep looking... instead of taking responsibility for what is happening to them, they start fixing it in people. Take responsibility for your life. You are the cause of your own predicament. Check your life. Many times you are the cause of your predicament. Go and lose sight of yourself. Go and lose sight of yourself and your own interest. Go and live a life of loving-kindness and truth and see what will happen to you. And see what will happen to you if you will not at the end of the day gain esteem and trust from your spouse or from your fiance or from your fiancee. As we close this morning, I want us to... a word of prayer. Our Father, we thank you again for this morning. We bless your holy name. We lift you high. We appreciate you. Lord, we pray that you will help us in our marital relationship especially, then other relationships that we share. Lord, help us that we will be deliberate in all we think, in all we say, in all we do, in the name of Jesus. Help us not to be careless, help us not to be foolish, help us not to be stupid. Help us not to be an ignoramus. Help us to be deliberate, to be cautious, following oh God after loving-kindness and truth. Shutting out all kinds of hatred and selfishness. Banishing all kinds of falsehood and hypocrisy in the name of Jesus Christ. Lord, in our relationship, may we earn good esteem and trust in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank you, eternal Father. May we be light everywhere we are, shining as light in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation, in the name of Jesus Christ. May our homes be a shining light. May our relationship be a shining one. May our family, our homes be a shining one, our marriage a shining light in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank you, eternal Father. In Jesus' name we pray. [Narration] This message is coming to you from Family Tent Ministry, a Christian ministry involved in enriching the lives of singles and married through preaching and teaching of God's word, discipleship, family life enrichment, social and community development, and mission aid. Our regular activities are: Discipleship class every Monday 5:00 PM, Adolescent and Singles club every first Saturday of every month at 10:00 AM, Marriage Forum second Saturday of every month at 10:00 AM, family life seminars, regular school outreaches and everyday counseling. For further counseling, you can reach us at our location: Life Camp by the first bridge, Ilere community, opposite Very Joy filling station along Idjare road, Akure, Ondo state, Nigeria. You can also reach us through our social media handles: familytent@yahoo.co.uk, familytentministry01@gmail.com, www.familytentministry.org. Our phone numbers are 08033861136, 07033613848. God bless you all.