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Living Hope SDA Church

Christian Martin

Heidi Martin

May I Brush Your Hair: Making Your Marriage a Priority

Despite the uncertainty and the chaos that this world is going through, we must remember that this is our father's world.

And He still sits on His throne, no matter what happens, no matter what comes our way.

God is still King of kings and Lord of lords.

And as we trust him, as we come and worship him, we can be sure that we are welcomed with open arms.

We're welcomed with the arms of a loving father who says, come unto me, come unto me all ye who are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

And so that's why we here at Living Hope are so glad to be able to have a place where we can meet together as a people in the presence of God.

We have a Pathfinder ministry that's so active and a children's ministry that serves our children.

And because we love family, We believe that the family unit is a sacred, sacred piece, that component of the bigger picture, the church.

That's why my wife and I came to agree that sharing with you a message, a message of hope, a message of encouragement, a message that pertains to the very heart of the family unit, to husbands and wives.

We we felt impressed to be able to share a message with you here today.

Heidi's getting all hooked up with her audio.

You know, on a regular basis, you know, it's very rare.

In fact, it basically never happens that I stand behind a podium ready to preach and to have someone up here with me, much less my beloved wife.

You know, and it's on most occasions that she's sitting right about on the third pew to my right and I'm over here.

But today, today I'm blessed to be able to stand with her and her with me as we share with you a special message from our hearts to yours.

And as we begin, let's go ahead and have a word of prayer and ask for God's blessing as we get started here today.

Father in heaven, here we stand together and we're so thankful that you have brought us here from different areas but for 1 common purpose.

And that's because our hearts want to be loved and want to be drawn close to you, our God and our creator.

As we worship you here today, Lord, we pray that the Spirit of God would come and minister to our hearts.

You know, we came across a true story that perfectly illustrates the marital and biblical principles that we wanna share with you here today.

So, Sonny, why don't you share with us this story that we found so, so powerful.

She was sitting in the Knoxville, Tennessee airport, and she was waiting to board a plane.

She tried to keep from staring, but he was such a sight.

Humped over in a wheelchair, skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously would have fit much better when he weighed 20 pounds more.

His knees were protruding out of his trousers and his shoulders looked like a coat hanger was still in his shirt.

His hands looked like tangled masses of skin and veins and bones.

The strangest part of him was his hair and his nails.

His hair was stringy gray hair and it hung well over his shoulders, down his back, and his fingernails were long but clean, but strangely out of place on an old man.

So there she was sitting there about just 4 seats from this man, when all of a sudden she sensed that God was telling her something, Something very uncomfortable.

She began to think to herself, oh no, oh no, this could potentially be very embarrassing.

She said, Oh no God, please no, not right now.

Please don't make me witness to this man.

Please put me on the same plane with this man.

But don't make me witness to him right now in front of a gazing audience." And so she heard it.

She heard that voice very distinct, very clearly.

The words were so clear and her heart just leapt into her throat and her thoughts began to spin like a top.

Then she looked up to God and she said, but God, I don't have a hairbrush.

My hairbrush is in my suitcase that's already in the plane.

How am I supposed to brush his hair without a hairbrush?

And the next thing you know, she found herself kneeling in front of this man, right in front of everyone.

Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?

He looked back at her and said, what did you say?

May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?" To which he responded in volume 10, little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you're going to have to speak up a little bit louder.

At this point, she took a very deep breath, and she blurted out, Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?

At which point every eye in the place darted right at her.

Every eye is captivated by an act of selfless kindness.

Maybe it's because it's so rare in human relationships.

And today we want to invite every eye that's here today to take a close look, to examine your own heart in light of the biblical principles that we want to share with you here today.

Some of you may be applying these principles to your own personal life.

Some others of you might be applying a lot of these principles to a relationship you are in.

Yet most of you here today may be applying this in your own marriage.

As we consider what it takes to brush your spouse's hair and to make it a priority in your life.

You know, Making someone a priority begins long before the I do's, long before marriage, oh yes it does.

You know, I had met Heidi a few times in my life as a youth pastor in Michigan.

But let me tell you this, and this is raw footage here, raw footage.

For me to have actually gone to her graduation, not really knowing each other, we were just getting to know each other, but for me to show up at her graduation.

He called me up and said, can I come to your graduation?

Mom, there's a guy that wants to come to my graduation.

It's a guy that wants to come to my graduation.

So, pretty bold because not only, not only was her entire family there, but her closest friends.

And I was not anywhere near that league, that group, that inner circle, you know?

I'll never forget the evening that we actually spent together the night before.

You see, we had decided to actually meet up the evening before and drive together to the shores of Lake Michigan, which was not very far from Andrews University, just a couple of miles.

And we pulled into the parking lot and we walked over to the lifeguard post that was there in the shore, and we climbed up to the very top, and we spent an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, And we lost track of time.

We were just, we were so engaged in conversation that we didn't realize that time was just passing, flying by.

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May I Brush Your Hair: Making Your Marriage a Priority

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