Dress Your Garden

Turn your Bibles to Genesis chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2. We're going to continue our series on marriages made in heaven but lived on earth. And we've spent the last month going through some uh fairy tales and talking about how they relate to some Bible principles. But this week, we're going to start into some of the Bible marriages and what we can learn from them. And we're going to begin with the very first marriage, and that was Adam and Eve here in Genesis chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2. and beginning with verse number 7 down through verse number 10. Genesis chapter 2 beginning with verse number 7 down through verse number 10.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden. There he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life, and in the midst of the garden the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden. From thence it was part became into four heads. Now I want you to skip down to verse number 15. And in verse 15, the Bible says, "And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden that thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat, for in that day thou shalt thereof thou shalt surely die." And then uh verse 18, the Lord God said, "It's not good that man should be alone. I will make him a help meat for him." And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought it for them into unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof.

And Adam gave names to all the cattle, to all the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a help meat for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh, and said, "Thereof." And that uh the rib which the Lord had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his into unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh."

And they were both naked, the man, the wife and his wife, and were not ashamed. What I what I want to focus on this morning is if you look back in verse number 15 there of chapter 2 and it says the Lord God took man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Now what does it mean to dress the garden? Uh does it mean something like this where you're supposed to put little uh dresses and little outfits on all your pots and everything? Is that that what it means? What what is it what did he expect Adam and Eve to do when he said to dress the garden? Turn over to Luke 13. Luke chapter 13 and look at verses 6-9.

I want to compare uh our marriage to a garden. And God wants us to dress our garden. He wants us to take care of our marriage like you would a garden. And there's many principles that can apply into our marriage. And in Luke chapter 13 and beginning with verse number six down through verse number nine, the Bible says, "And when he cometh home, he called together his friends and neighbors." That's chapter 15. I got the wrong chapter. Let me try again. Chapter 16 uh chapter 13:es 6-9. He spake also this parable and said a a a man a certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came and sought fruit from thereon and found none.

Then said he unto the dresser of the his vineyard. Behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down. Why cumberereth the ground? And he answered and said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dung it. And if it bear fruit, well, and if not, then after that, thou shalt cut it down. You know, when when your marriage is not bearing fruit, you're not bearing the the enjoying the blessings of your marriage, then you need to tend to the garden of your marriage. Uh in Song of Solomon chapter 6 and:es 2 and three, the Bible says, "My beloved has gone down into his garden to the bed of spices to feed in the gardens and to gather liies.

I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine. He feedth among the liies." God gave Adam and Eve the garden of Eden. But God also says that he has given us a garden that we need to tend. And that garden is our marriage. Uh fellas, you are the husbandmen of the garden. In 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse number six, it says the husbandman lay that labth must be first partakers of the fruit. In the King James Bible, that term husbandman was another name for a farmer. And so you as the husband are the farmer of your marriage. And it is your responsibility to to bring forth that fruit, to be the one, if you're going to partake of the fruit, then you've got to be the cultivator of the fruit as well.

You know, if your plant is dying, I've got a number of plants over here, and you can see this one over here is not doing too well. Uh it's having some bad bad days here. And if I look at the plant and say, "Stupid plant, what's wrong with you?" Uh is that going to help the plant bear more fruit? Is that help the plant grow better? A as the as the farmer, the problem is not the plants. The problem is I am not doing for the plant what it needs. I'm not giving it the right amount of water. I'm not putting the right amount of sunlight or shade. I I I'm not giving it the right fertilizer. There's something that I need to do in order to help that plant to grow and to bear fruit.

And I can't get mad at the plant. I got to get mad at myself because I'm the husbandman. I'm the one that has that ultimate responsibility. And so, we are the farmers of our family. We are the ones who are supposed to take care of these things. We have that responsibility. These other two plants over here, I went bought these from Home Depot yesterday. And when I bought them, they both look the same, but they don't quite look the same now, do they? What I did is this one, I put some water in it this morning, and it just perked. It kind of looked like this. And I put that water and it perked right up.

But I didn't put any water in this one yet, and it hasn't perked up. You see, I've got the responsibility to give that plant what it needs. And if I don't provide what it needs, it's not the plant's fault. It's my fault for not providing. If your marriage is struggling and you're not enjoying the fruits of one another, then you need to begin cultivating that relationship and providing what that relationship needs. You see, some of you, you're kind of like this plant right down here. uh got this plant back at Easter time and uh it's not doing very well. Uh it's pretty well all but dead right now.

Now, there is a little bit of green left, so there's still a chance to salvage it, but it's going to take a lot of work. And maybe this is where your marriage is at. Maybe it's all but dead, but you know, you can still bring it back. Uh I've seen people bring something like this back to life again, and maybe you could do that as well. And you got to but you got to cultivate it. You got to provide what that needs in order for that relationship to grow. And if you're not providing what it needs, then it's going to die. And you got to do that on a regular basis. If I hadn't given that plant water's morning, it would be in much worse shape.

I I've got to provide what it needs. In Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 29, it says, "For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourished and cherished it even as the Lord the church." We are in marriage one flesh. And if you're not nourishing and cherishing your wife, if you're not nourishing, cherishing your husband, the one you are hurting is you. Because then you don't get to enjoy the fruits of that relationship. God put Adam and Eve in the garden said, "You need to attend it. You need to dress it and take care of it." And God puts you in your marriage and he says, "You need to tend to that marriage.

You need to cultivate that marriage and and grow it by nourishing and cherishing one another." And you need to do that with patience. Turn over to James chapter 5. The book of James chapter 5. One of the things I find for a lot of couples is they're not patient. Well, nothing's changed. Well, it's only been one day. You put water on it this morning, you expect it all to be fixed one day. Now, when it's not too bad, you might be able to do that. But when it looks like that plant on the floor, it's going to take a lot more than one day to cultivate it. It's going to take a lot more than one day to grow it and to change it.

And we've got to have the patience of a farmer. In James 5 and 7 and 8, it says, "Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman, the farmer, waitth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it until receive the early and the latter rain. Be ye also patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord drawth nigh." And you got to learn the patience that you need to provide in your relationship. It's got to be a daily cultivation. And sometimes you're going to water it and nothing's going to happen. Sometimes you're going to put fertilizer and nothing's going to happen right away.

But you got to continue to be patient every day providing what that plant needs in order to flourish and to grow and to provide fruit. And the same thing is true in your marriage relationship. You've got to cultivate that relationship if you want to enjoy the fruit. In song of Solomon chapter 4 and verse number 16, it says, "Awake, O north wind, and come thou south. blow upon my garden that the spices there may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits. You see, we want to enjoy the fruit of our garden. We want as a husband and wife to enjoy the blessings of our relationship.

And and by the way, that applies not only to your marriage relationship, applies to your relationship with your children and your family. It applies to your relationship with others around you. But we've got to cultivate that relationship if we want to enjoy the fruit of that relationship. Now in Galatians chapter 5 and verses 22-2 the Bible says but the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace longsuffering gentleness faith goodness meekness temperance against such there is no law and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lust. You see one of the problems is one of the reasons we struggle in our marriage is because the last place we practice the fruit of the spirit is in our marriage.

You know, we can be uh yelling and screaming at one another and the telephone rings and we're all of a sudden going from hello and we're more fruitful with that person we don't even know on the who's on the phone right now than we are with the person we live with on a daily basis. A and so if we want to enjoy the fruits of our relationship, we need the fruit of the spirit. that love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, and meekness, and temperance. We need to practice within our relationship. Now, in order to practice that, you've got to have the fruit of the spirit. In order to have the fruit of the spirit, you've got to have the spirit of God.

The Bible says in 1 John 5:es 12 and 13, "He that hath the son hath life. He that hath not the son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the son of God that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may believe on the name of the son of God. You see, you need to have the spirit of God in order to produce this fruit of the spirit of God. And if you don't have Jesus Christ, you don't have his spirit. And so, you need to have that spirit of God in your life. You see, I can take this apple right here and I can hang this apple on a tree here.

I'll do this one over here. And I can hang the apple on the tree. And does that make it an apple tree by hanging this apple on this tree? Is that an apple tree now? No, it's not. You can hang a dozen apples on that tree and it's still not an apple tree. Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter 2:es 8 and 9, for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works lest a man should boast. You see, you can hang all kinds of uh Christian works in your life, religion and rituals and your own righteousness, but none of those things make you a Christian. You see, fruit is produced from the inside out.

Fruit is produced by having that seed that that apple seed will produce apple fruit. And you've got to have the seed of God, the spirit of God, in order to produce the fruit of the spirit of God. And so, you've got to have the Holy Spirit. And the way to have the Holy Spirit is to have the Son. He that hath the Son hath life. And it's having Jesus Christ as your savior. Real fruit comes from a real seed. In 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 23, it says, "Being born again, not a corruptible, but incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." We got to realize that it's it's the the seed of the word of God that's planted in our heart that brings forth fruit.

You see, folks, you can have dirt without a seed and nothing will grow. I I got up here a bag of garden soil here. It's a bag of dirt, but nothing's going to grow in there until I plant a seed in it. And you can have dirt and nothing will grow in it. You know what? You and I, we're just a bunch of dirt bags is what we are. You know, the word humus, human comes from the same word as humus. It It's a word which means dirt. We're we're just a bunch of dirt bags. In Job chapter 34:15 says, "All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust." And you and I, we think we're so great, but we're just a bunch of dirt bags.

We need to plant the seed of God's word. And and and when we plant that seed of God's word, when we plant the seed of the gospel in our hearts, that's when it grows. If I take this dirt and plant a seed in it, then I'm going to get fruit. Then I'm going to produce a plant. And I've got to take the word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and plant it into my life. Then Job chapter 10 and verse 9, he says, "Remember I beseech thee, thou hast made made me of as of clay, and wilt thou bring me to dust again." You and I are just a bunch of clay, a bunch of dirt. We're just a bunch of dirt bags without Jesus Christ.

But when you put Christ, plant the seed of the gospel. The Bible says in Romans 10:es 9 and 10 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. In Romans 10:13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And you see, if you'll take that gospel seed, the fact that Jesus died and was buried and rose again, the fact that he died to save you from your s sins, if you take that seed of the gospel and receive it into your heart, then you plant it like planting a seed in a bag of dirt.

You plant it, it will grow, and then it will produce the fruit of the spirit. But you got to plant the seed of the gospel. You've got to receive Jesus Christ as your savior. And if you're here today and you've never done that, that's where it's got to start. You can put that dirt into a nice beautiful vase and a nice beautiful bucket there outside and someplace, but you'll never grow anything until you plant the seed in it. And so, you got to plant the seed of the gospel. Go over to Matthew chapter 21. Matthew chapter 21. The Bible talks about another tree here in Matthew chap 21 and look at verse number 18.

Matthew chap 21 and beginning with verse number 18. Now as in the morning as he Jesus returned to the city hungered and when he saw a fig tree in the way he came to it and found nothing thereon and leaves only and said unto it let no fruit grow off thee henceforth forever and presently the fig tree withered away and when disciples saw it they marvel saying how soon is this fig tree withered away. You know a lot of Christians are leave alone Christians. uh you know a fig tree when you see a fig tree with leaves the leaves are indication that it has already grown. The fruit comes first before the leaves.

And so if there's leaves there's supposed to be fruit. And a lot of Christians they're they're more about looking good on the outside than they are about producing real spirit from the inside. And and we need to not be leave alone Christians. We need to be Christians that have have produced. You see, you might look good on the outside, but maybe your marriage is fruitless on the inside. See, some of you in this room, you've got a marriage. When people come to church, you look like this great loving couple, but when you're at home, things aren't so good. You see, you you got the leaves and everybody thinks everything looks good, but there's no real fruit going on in your relationship.

And we need to have the fruit in our relationship. In Luke 11:42, "But woe unto you Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs and Passover judgment and the love of God. These ought you have done and not to leave the other done." They would literally count the leaves on their tree and every tenth one they pluck it and give it to the Lord. But they left out the more important things in the relationship, the real fruit of love and and and concern for one another. And these are the things that matter. And we need to make sure that we are not being fruitless in our relationships.

Let's go over to Philippians chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1 and ver look at verses 9- 11. Philippians chapter 1 and beginning with verse number nine. Philippians 1:9, it says, ' In this, I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that you may approve things are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ under the glory and the praise of God. A and God doesn't want us to be fruitless. He wants us to be abounding with fruit in our relationship. But in order to do that, we've got to cultivate our relationship.

We've got to cherish it and nourish it. Uh we've got to provide what it needs. And by the way, everybody that's going to be different. Some plants need a lot of water. Some plants need very little water. Some plants need a lot of direct sunlight. Some some wither in the sunlight and they need the shade. Some need a partial shade. Uh each plant is different in what it needs. And and your wife and your husband are different. And you've got to find out what do they need in order to flourish. What do they need to be to cultivate to nourish them so that they will produce fruit that I can enjoy? And and so we need to not we don't want to be fruitless.

We want to be producing fruit. In Luke 13 and verse number 7 it says, "Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down. Why cumber the ground?" Here was a tree that wasn't producing fruit and God said, "What good is it?" you know, you just come and sit and go home. You never produce the fruit of the spirit. What good are you? We need to be producing in our lives. And so, if we want to produce, we've got to cultivate that relationship to enjoy the the the fruit of our relationship. And sometimes what we've got to do is we've got, like he said here, is we got to dig it and dung it.

Luke 13:8. And he answering the the dresser of the vineyard answered and said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dung it. So he said, "Let me give it a try. Let me," you know, I talk to couples, they say, "You, pastor, there's no hope for our relationship. Uh, we we we're just getting nowhere. Nothing's changing." Well, maybe you need to get drastic and maybe you need to dig it and dung it. And and sometimes the digging it means you need to dig up some ground. And in Hebrews chap 10 12 and 13 it says sow to yourselves in righteousness reap in mercy. Break up your follow ground for it's time to seek the Lord till he come and reign righteousness upon you.

You have plowed wickedness wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies because thou distrust in thy way in the multi mighty men. And maybe your follow ground is there's some sin in your life that needs to be broken up and taken out of there like like rocks in the soil. May maybe your follow ground is you just kind of gotten hardened towards one another and you need to soften your hearts again and open your heart to the Lord and open your heart to one another and and and sometimes what we've got to do is we got to break up that follow ground because we've hardened ourselves and I talked to couples where one or the other and you just tell they're they're just so hard and and not willing to break it up and not willing to really try and open up their heart and open up their life again.

And I understand maybe you've been hurt. And I understand maybe things have gone this way a long time. And and maybe there's been a lot of problems, but it's time to break that up and say, you know what? If we're going to survive, if we're going to make this grow, if we're going to bear the fruit, we got to break up that ground. You got to break up the hard ground. In Hebrews 3:7 and8, it says, "Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost sayeth today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness." You see, you got to you got to be willing to let God uh keep that heart from be hardened.

I I I I see couples that will come I I've done four weeks of Sears now and and and and and they walk out of church like I that wasn't talking to me. I I don't know how you can be a married couple and not come to these last four messages and be and be touched in your heart. And sometimes we harden our heart and we're just not willing to listen and we're not willing to let God speak to me. It's all about, well, he better listen or she better listen. But we need for God to speak to our hearts and we need to for God to show me what I need to work on in my relationship and what I need to change. We've got to dig up the root of the problem.

In Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 15, it says, "Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled." And many times what it is, we got these roots of bitterness, the these hurts that we've held on to from early on in our marriage, from year, sometimes years ago, and and we we they keep coming back and they keep coming back. And you've got a choice. You can either keep mowing the weeds or you can pull them up by the roots. You know, a lot of us, we just keep mowing the same weeds every weeds every week. And we're back up there mowing them again and again.

I I've got a hill behind our house that uh forever since we've been there, it just grows all these weeds. And I got tired of looking at all those weeds back there. And every once in a while, I'd go back there and I'd mow them down or I'd weeding them down, but they'd grow right back up again. I said, "You know what? Enough of this." And I went I started to go up there now and what I'm doing is I'm pulling those weeds out and a lot of them keep coming back but I keep pulling them out and they keep coming back and I keep pulling them out and there's getting to be fewer and fewer weeds and then I'm planting new things in there that can grow and take over that area.

And that's exactly what you got to do in your relationship. You got to start digging out those roots of bitterness and the the anger and the hurt. And you got to get those out and you got to start planting some new things. They're going to grow fruit in your relationship. and and we've got to change it. We got to we got to stop hardening our hearts. Let God speak to me. Every time you come during the series as a married couple, you ought to be saying, "Lord, speak to me. Let me leave here with something that I can grab hold of that you would break up that ground and that hardness in my heart." And and we ought to come every week and say, "Show me some roots that I need to pull out and and to deal with those problems and those issues and and let them go."

And we've got to ask the Lord to help us to do that. And by the way, this again doesn't apply just in marriage. Some of you are bitter with parents. Some of you are bitter with with other friends and neighbors and co-workers or even church members. And you need to deal with that problem as well. But not only do you need to uh dig it out, but you need to prune it. In John chapter 15, turn over there if you would. John chapter 15 and look at verses 1 and two. John chapter 15 and verses 1 and two. John 15:1 says, "I am the true vine. My father is the husbandman, the farmer. Every branch in me is that is beareth not fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purges it that may bring forth more fruit."

You know, there's times where you need to prune the plant in order to make it grow better. you you got to cut out the bad stuff and even cut back on some of the good stuff in order to uh to work it. Sometimes you do that to shape it. There's sometimes in your life that you need to reshape your marriage. You don't do it just big big hacks. You you do it deliberately and carefully as you prune the the bad things out and say, "You know what? This is bad. We need to cut it out." Or maybe there's some things that aren't bad, but you know what? this is taking so much time that we don't have time for our marriage and we need to cut that back because it's taking time away from what's more important and and we've got to be willing to shape our marriage or we've got to be willing to go in there and direct it.

Sometimes you you prune a plant so it'll grow in a certain way and and sometimes we've got to shape our marriage and help it to grow in a different direction realizing that the way we were grow growing was a bad direction. We need to change the direction of our growth in our marriage. Uh you know, and especially by the way, in times when you replant, those of you when you move, that's a good time to do some pruning in your relationship or when you're having a child or when you're having something new happening in your life. That's a time when you need to prune the plant because you're you something brand new is happening and there's a lot going on and and we sometimes we need to prune our relationship.

In Ephesians chapter 3:1 17 the Bible says that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that you being rooted and grounded in love. In Colossians 2:7 it says rooted and built up in him established in the faith as we have been taught abiding therein with thanksgiving. Those new plants I'm putting up on the hill. What I need to do is get them to root and to build their own root system so that they'll survive and grow. And if you don't then you're not going to survive and grow. In John chapter 15 and verse number 7, the Bible says, "If you had known me, you should have known my father also." That's chapter 14:7.

Chapter 15:7, the Bible says, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you." And then down to verse number 10 and 11, "If you keep my commandments, you and you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. You see, if we want to grow in our relationship as a couple, if I want to grow in my relationship with others around me, I've got to be planted and rooted in Jesus Christ because that's where the growth comes.

If I'm not planted and root in him, I'm not going to grow. And so, I've got to make sure I've got that plant established. And be careful not to get root rootbound. You know, sometimes you got in too small of a pot. Sometimes what we need is we need to expand our our lives and say, you know what, we got to we got to grow into a bigger pot here if we're going to grow our relationship. So, you got to dig it, but you've also got to dung it. In Luke chapter 16 and verse number Luke chapter 13, verse number eight, it says, "The answer said to them, Lord, let it alone this year till I shall dig about it and dung it."

Now, do you know what dung is? Dung is manure. That's what they would use to fertilize their plants is they would use manure. How many of you ever here have ever had to shovel manure? Raise your hand. How many have ever had to do that? If you've not done it, you should at least one time in your life get that experience. Uh it's not exactly the funnest experience to do. And uh my wife grew up on a farm with four brothers and uh they would have to go out and dig the manure sometimes. And sometimes if you can imagine brothers out there, one of them get this idea to take some manure and throw it at his other brother.

You ever seen something like that happen? And pretty soon there'd be a manure fight going on. Everybody's throwing manure at each other. And you know what, folks? This is one thing I've learned when I've lived in the country. Nobody wins a manure fight. Nobody wins. Well, he's got more manure on than I do. Nobody wins a manure fight. When you start throwing manure, everybody loses. And when you start throwing accusations and hurtful things at each other in a couple, you both lose. You both lose. There's nobody that wins that kind of manure fight. Ephesians 4 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth by that which is good to the use of edifying that it may may minister grace unto the hearers.

Folks, what comes out of your mouth, don't let it be manure. Don't let it be hurtful things and destructive things and things that'll tear down and things that stink because they're not going to help you. So, what is it you do? You got to use the dung right. If you're going to use it, you got to use it right. In Ephesians chapter 4 and verse1 15, it says, "But speaking the truth in love may grow up unto him in all things which is the head, even Christ." You see, for dung, what they do with dung is they take it out and they they put it out on the on the plants to help it to grow. And that's what you and I need to do is we need to help the plant to grow.

and and we help it to grow through the the the things that we provide for it and working in that direction. And that's what we want to do. You see, when I was in Minnesota, I worked out in a farm and they had this thing called a honey wagon. In a honey wagon, you shovel all the manure into the wagon and you put it behind the tractor and you go out in the field and you pull it along and this little spinner would spin it out and shoot it all out into the field because that's what made it grow. Now, it wasn't a pleasant job, but it was necessary. And here's the point that I want to make is this is you don't throw the problems at each other.

You use the problems of life like a compost pile. A compost pile, you take all the bad stuff, all the leftover stuff, and put it in that pile. And then later on, you put it on the plants to help them to grow. In Philippians chapter 3 and verse number 8, the Bible says, "Yeah, doubtless and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For whom I've suffered the loss of all things and to count them but dung that I may win Christ." You know how you grow your marriage? Take the problems of marriage instead of throwing them back and forth at each other in a hurtful way.

Build yourself a marriage compost pile and use those things to help you to grow. Use the things that happen in life as a way to help us to grow. And you do that by not throwing them at each other. You do that by putting it down at the base of the relationship to help it to grow. Some of the worst things that have happened in our life have been some of the greatest fertilizers of our marriage. But they've also been some of the messiest things in our marriage depending how we use them. And so we need to choose how we're going to do that. God put Adam and Eve into the garden. And he said, 'I want you to dress it.

I want you to tend it and help it to grow. And you need to tend the garden of your marriage. Fellas, you are the husbandman, the farmer. If you're not enjoying the fruit of your relationship, then you need to change how you treat your plant, your wife. You need to cherish her and nourish her and help her to grow. And that's going to take some practice and study to figure out what does she need from me? Because like I said, every plant is different and every wife is different. So, how do I tend that relationship? Both of you practicing the fruit of the spirit in your home with each other. But you can't do that without the spirit of God.

If you're here today without God's spirit, we challenge you to put your faith and trust in him because that's where every relationship truly starts. Maybe some of you have got to dig up some issues, dig up some ground. you've hardened yourself and you're not open to to dealing with this issue anymore. You just kind of closed your spouse out. It's like hitting a rock and you need to ask God to break up that follow ground and make your heart tender again. And some of you have got some roots. They're going to take a long time to get to the root of the problem. You got to start pulling those roots out.

And by the way, when I pull the roots out, sometimes I don't get them all and they grow back again and again and again. But you got to keep going back and keep pulling them. Keep dealing with them. And some of you got that today to take care of. And you need to take the problems because every one of you's got problems. You got issues. You got things that that are messes in your life. And you can choose to either have a manure fight and keep casting those things at each other in your arguments, or you can choose to start building a compost pile and use it to help you grow.