B Certain Texas

I was asked to give a message to the men's basketball ministry tonight at FUMC Mansfield. Here is a copy of what I shared


This is a scene from one of my favorite movies “Facing the Giants. However today, I want you to think about this scene in a much different perspective.

Today I want you to think about that scene not just as a football scene but in relationship to your marriages. How many of you are married?
How many of you are marriage warriors?

How many of you believe that you are the most influential member of your marriage?

1 John 4:7
Let us love one another, for love is from God;
and everyone who loves is from God and knows God

I now see this scene is not about just football … it’s about me and God. See the coach is God, and that me with the weight on my back. The weight is my marriage
God is saying …
It’s all heart!
It’s not too hard !
You don’t quit on me!
You are the most influential member of this team!
If you walk around defeated … so will she.
Don’t tell me you can’t give more that I what I have been seeing!
Brian .. I need you.
Can I count on you?

I believe that you cannot give unconditional love to another out of your own heart. It’s impossible! It’s beyond your capacity. It’s beyond all of our capacities.

Unconditional love is only something that comes from God. Because he loves you... God chooses to express that love through you.

Now being guys we like to think that we can do it all on our own. We believe that with enough hard work and commitment, we can muster up unconditional, long term, sacrificial love from our own hearts. But I will ask you... How many times has your love failed to keep you from lying, lusting, from overreacting, from thinking evil of the person that you stood before God and promised to love for the rest of your life?

John 15:5 apart from me, you can do nothing

The people who made “Facing the Giants” came out with a new movie last Friday called “Fireproof” it was made for $500k and finished 4th at the box office last week grossing 6.5 Million dollars. Now I believe in a Big God and I believe that HE is making a Big Statement with this movie

The movie is about a couple who are facing the end of their marriage. They have both given up. But the male lead, played by Growing Pains Kirk Cameron, gets challenged by his Dad to give it 40 more days. His dad then gives him a journal of a sort called “The Love Dare”. The way I describe it, its 40 days of dares to change your heart. I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I know that there is only one person who I can change, and that me.

How many of you have ever trained for an event? Did you hire a trainer? Did you ask advice from someone who had done it before? Did you read a book? I don't know what means you used but you would agree that you could not be very good at what ever it was on your own with no training. I see marriage the same way. There are no training manuals, our wives did not come with an instruction book. We have had to learn by trial and error. And boy have I made errors.

I have gotten a little smarter over the years and have looked for ways to make my marriage better. “The Love Dare” is one of the ways that I have found to start conditioning my heart for my wife.

The dares start off relatively easy with the first day being

The first part of this dare is fairly simple. Although love is communicated in many ways, our words are often a reflection of the condition of our heart. For the next day, resolve to demonstrate patience and say nothing negative to your wife at all. If the temptation arises choose to say nothing at all. It’s better to hold your tongue than say something you will regret


I don’t know about you but I hear that and I say …I can do anything for a day.
But then you get to day 2 when it says

In addition to saying nothing negative to your wife again today, do at least one unexpected gesture as an act of kindness.

WHAT!!! Another day.
And then it goes on from there, some days are easier than others but what I have learned is, if you’re not right with God, you can’t truly love your spouse because He is the source of Love. You can’t give what you don’t have.

The truth is you can’t live without Him and you can’t love without him. But there is no telling what He could do in your marriage if you put your trust in Him

John 15:7
if you abide in Me and My words abide in you,
ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

No matter what the state of your marriage, I would challenge each of you to pick it up this book and dare to change your relationship … to start getting in shape for the rest of your marriage. If you are in a good marriage, it will help make it better. If you are in a bad marriage, I won’t promise that it will make it better, but it won’t make it worse.

In either case maybe, just maybe, God will start conditioning your heart and through that conditioning, it will shed a light unto your wife's heart and then maybe, just maybe, you too will find that we worship a BIG God.

Amen