76. Interview with Sean Perron - Help for your marriage.

Welcome back to the 4Feed Podcast. This is James Saifert, your host, as well as John Hollifield here. And we are excited about our interview that we've got today. John, before we get with that, how is the life in the Hollifield realm in Tennessee? We've been fighting a seasonal cold or allergies, whatever it is, but it just like hits you. And I don't know, it just sort of makes you feel rough, but then also, you know, you get this junk in your throat. But yeah, other than that, been doing great. Yeah, we had the same thing going through our house. Last week, Hudson was sick. I was in the yard with him, and then my wife was sick this weekend. Brody was sick, and so I'm hoping that me and Jade don't get it, but it's just going through the house. Brody had strep, and my youngest, my baby, he had a cold, just a crud is what they called it. So it's that time of the year, but with everyone harvesting around where we're at and seasonal allergies, it's tough. So yeah, we've got a lot going on. John, a couple of things. We are just about a month away from our big RFP meetup camp meeting in Danville, Virginia. They're at Hope Church with Brian Edwards, and we hope that you can be there. John, what are those dates? That is November 4th and 5th in Danville, Virginia, for the sake of the Gospel Conference, and looking forward to that. We're going to have Nathan Cravat, JC Groves, Brian Edwards, Justin Wilson. No, Jared Wilson. Sorry. Jared Wilson, and Mark Melione and Craig Edwards will all be speaking. And we're going to have some wonderful worship music and just an awesome time. Looking forward to seeing everybody out there and hope everybody has a chance to be able to come. Registration is $50, so make your raise out there. The other thing that's going on within the RFP community is the Israel trip. Coming up, the Israel trip is in January. I think there's maybe a spot or two left. I don't know. One of those spots has been taken. Come on. Because Big James is going to Israel. Yours truly is jumping on a plane with the boys, and we are heading to Israel. Man, I'm excited. There's a group chat, John, that I didn't know about that is probably just for the ones on Israel. And so everyone that's on there. And so it's been fun to see those things and to be able to talk with them. But a great group of guys that are going. Some guys I didn't know that was going to be going is going to be there. And so that's going to be great. I'm excited about a friend of ours, Jake Carl. I'll shout out to Jake. He's going to be going with us. And so me and him hopefully are going to be rooming together. And it's going to be a great time. I'm so excited. I've always wanted to go to Israel. I've always said it would be a great time to go to Israel. I love the experience that everybody that has been said it just changes your life. And so I'm excited. I never thought I'd be able to go. But this is a great opportunity. And the church I met, they said they're paying 100% of it. So just a blessing there. Thank them for that. But just excited about being able to be really an educational trip just to be able to learn more about where we're at. But, John, we've got an interview today. We need to get on board with this interview. We've got lined up with us Sean Perreault. John's not going to be on this interview. He had some scheduling things that happened. And so I had the opportunity of interviewing Sean myself. Sean, he's our age. And he's down in Florida. And he's going to give us some intro of who he is. But just a great interview. He works. He's a family pastor and a children's pastor. Works with counseling children a lot. And so we're looking to having him come on again for another episode on how to care for children and how to counsel children. And so just a great asset of wisdom that he's got down there in Florida. And so we hope you enjoy this episode. And I hope that we'll see you in just a couple of weeks. Sean's wrote three books. Letters to a Romantic on Dating. Letters to a Romantic on Engagement. And Letters to a Romantic on the First Years of Marriage. And all three of these books are for the early stages of a relationship between the dating period to the first few years of marriage. And just given some biblical wisdom to navigate those things. And so I'm sure you're going to be enriched by this interview that James gives with Sean Perreault. And so without further delay, here it is. I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. Those that criticize this kind of preaching, they don't like authority. If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got, hey, you don't have a King James. You don't have a Bible. And it'd be surprised. Son, don't go to sleep while I'm talking. Hey, hey, hey. Don't you lay your head back. I'm important. I'm somebody. I love you. You know I love you. Have I convinced you I love you? Yeah. You better nod your head. Yes, all right. Come on. Put it right there. All right. You stay awake and you listen to me. I still believe it'd be a cold day in hell before I get my balance to a woman. I'm a preacher. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the For Freedom podcast, a podcast that is part of the RFP network that seeks to bring freedom in Christ from the spiritual abuse of legalism. Now here are your hosts, John Hollifield and James Saferit. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in scripture. It is a part of scripture. But the defining principle in scripture is love. And now I'm not saying that all men who sit under that teaching will become abusive. But what I'm saying is the ones who are abusive will be drawn to that sort of teaching. I don't want to give people just a list of things they can start doing differently until they have a heart out of which they're going to be doing those things differently. But I think bitterness is different from hurt. I would say that hurt or even abuse does not have to result in bitterness. Welcome back to the For Freedom podcast. I'm your host, James. And unfortunately, John is not able to be with us here today. He's had some scheduling complications. And so we are doing a good, do an interview with Sean Perrault. And he, I think I'm saying your last name right, Sean, right, Perrault? Perron, yeah. Perron, okay. I didn't know if the English was silent or not. And so his biographical info here is he is a graduate of Southeast Southern Baptist Seminary. He serves as the associate pastor at First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida. He's an ACBC certified counselor with a specialization in marriage counseling. He's an author of three books, which we'll be talking about today, specifically Letters to the Romantic on Dating, Letters to the Romantic on Marriage, and Letters to the Romantic on the First Years. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in applied theology with an emphasis of biblical counseling from Midwestern Theological Seminary. Sean has been married to Jenny for 10 years, and they have two children. He is the most, he is most passionate about his work of pastoral ministry, his family, and hot tea. He is blessed by the sincere Christians, First Baptist Church, and their passion for the Bible. Sean, welcome to the show. I'm a huge fan of yours. I've enjoyed your work with ACBC and following you over these last couple of years. I've been to several conferences, been able to hear you. And the last time I heard you, you spoke on counseling children, hurting children. And I've used that stuff that I learned there, helped other pastors in our county, just being able to help a lot of people. And so it's been a great, tremendous blessing for me. And so welcome to the show. Glad to have you here today. Thanks, James. And praise the Lord. I'm very, very thankful to be on the show with you together. And I'm glad to talk about the important issues at hand. Yeah. Well, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners. And if some of our listeners may know, we are talking about First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida. This is where Heath Lambert's at. And I think he's going to give us a quick update on how he's doing. Some of you may know he had a brain surgery just a couple of days ago, weeks ago. And so introduce who you are to our listeners. And if you don't mind giving us a little update there. Yeah, I would love to. So my name is Sean Perron, and I'm the associate pastor at First Baptist. And Heath Lambert is the senior pastor here. And there have been a series of brain surgeries that Heath has gone through. It's now actually he's had four now, and two of them were in the past month. So it's been pretty intense, very intense, actually, for him and his family. And basically, the last procedure really seems to have been very helpful. So he was having hemifacial spasms on one side of his face and on one side of his body. And there was a nerve that they needed to go in and put padding in between the nerve and an artery. And that seems to have been successful after the fourth surgery thus far. And in God's kindness, he's no longer having pain with his spasms. And he lost his hearing after the third surgery. And after the fourth surgery, his hearing has returned. It's quite miraculous, actually. They said that that was not going to happen. They said there was no medical expectation that his hearing would return. But our church was praying, and we were praying. And God in his kindness has done that. And so after being – it had been two months since he had been in the pulpit and one month just strictly under watch care from the doctor. And he preached this last Sunday. And so it was very, very exciting to have him back. And he's still taking it easy. He's still easing things back in. He still has some busyness. But it's good to have him back. And we're very, very thankful for the Lord's kindness in that regard. Well, that's great. And how long have you been serving under Pastor Heath there? Yeah. So I've been at First Baptist now since 2017. So just about five years. And I worked with Heath previously at ACBC. And I was director of operations while he was executive director at ACBC. And so we've been doing ministry together for around a decade now. And I'm very, very thankful to be a part of it. That's great. And you've got two children. What are their ages? Yeah. So Chandler, he's our oldest son. He's four years old. And Cosette is our youngest, and she's 18 months. And they are very happy, very fun, and squishy, too. We like to squeeze Cosette a lot. I agree. I've got one that same age. And it's a blessing to have those young kids and to be able to influence their lives, hopefully for the gospel's sake. And so that's a great thing. So as we get started today, and Sean's got several things on his calendar. So we won't be a long interview, but we want to discuss some things. But we want to talk initially of what made you decide to even go into biblical counseling. You were at Southeastern, I'm sorry, Southern, and you've got your MDiv there. And then it says you became ACBC certified. Why did, what was this, what was the draw to become a certified biblical counselor? Yeah. So I first went to Bible college. I went to Boyce College, and I went very committed to be a preacher, very committed to be a pastor. And my view of pastoring was primarily you love the Bible, you study the Bible, you preach the Bible, and then you do weddings and funerals and that kind of thing on the side. And that's what I thought when I wanted to go into ministry in high school and then in Bible college. And then I got to Bible college, and I realized that ministry was a lot broader than just getting up in a pulpit for an hour every Sunday. Or if you're at a church that does it three times a week, three hours a week, and that you had to do something other than study during the week for those times. And that involved an aspect of personal ministry of the word. And it was really a paradigm shift for me in thinking about ministry as a whole. But then to understand that the Bible isn't just sufficient for doctrine, but is sufficient for life and godliness. And so I wound up actually interning at the church I was at under Heath Lambert. And he said, hey, have you ever thought about doing counseling? And my answer was no. I never thought about it, never was interested. And he said, hey, well, I have a counseling case I'm involved in. Would you want to watch me? And I was like, yeah, I'm an intern here at the church. I'd love to do that. And it was this married couple. I was not married at the time. And I was like, okay, well, I've got a lot to learn here. And this married couple came in, and they were church members, and they started telling Heath all of their problems. And I'm telling you, it was an unbelievably complex case. I mean, it was every problem that I never even thought you could have in marriage. I was like, whoa. And they talked and shared all their problems for about 30, 45 minutes. And I remember the time in the conversation where it was Heath's turn to speak. And there was like this pause. And I thought to myself, I literally have nothing to say to this couple. And this is shameful, but I had the thought, I was like, there's no hope for them. I was like, this is over. This is toast. There's no, like, this is going nowhere fast. And Heath opened his Bible, and he read a passage, and he said, I want you to know that every single thing you said, God can help you with. And everything you said, the Bible has answers to every problem you mentioned. There is no surprise here. There is nothing too hard that the Scriptures and the Lord cannot address. And I believe that we can help you immensely and get your marriage right on track. And it was a smack in my face. I was like, you know what? That is the total opposite of what I want to say. And so shortly thereafter, I was like, you know what? I really want to invest in this and learn and grow. And so right now, I'm deep into the woods in biblical counseling, and I'm very thankful and don't regret it for a second. And even though I'm not full-time as a counselor, I preach periodically here at the church, and I love that, too. So I have the best of both worlds. I'm very grateful. Yeah, that's great. I love it. And I can sense the same thing in my life and talking to other guys in that same way of just being able to help, just seeing God's Word, being able to penetrate someone's heart and be able to see that change. It's amazing on that one-on-one sessions. So quick, as we continue on, you've written three books, and that's what we're here to talk about today is your three books, Letters to the Romantic on Dating, on Marriage, and Through the Years. Why? As I was even thinking through this, a thought came to my mind. There's probably a million books out there on marriage, okay, on dating and how to destroy your dating life. And, man, I was even looking through my books in my office. I'm thinking, man, there's hundreds of books that I have on dating and marriage, and why write another book? Why write another three books on marriage? I mean, what was the reason behind this? Yes. Yeah, great question. So, and a question that my publisher really wanted to know, too. So, a few things. So, one of my best friends, Spencer Harmon, he's actually another pastor here on staff at First Baptist now. And we were looking at the evangelical landscape. This was back in 2010. And we were looking at, okay, what does the evangelical church have to say about dating in particular? And everyone, no matter where you turn, talks about I kiss dating goodbye to Josh Harris. I mean, that was, you can't have a conversation in the Christian world without referencing Josh Harris' work. And what we wanted to do was we wanted to write a book that was practical, relevant, and did not fall into the ditch of legalism, but also did not fall into the ditch of license to where, hey, anything goes. So, we truly tried to strike a balance, or what we think is a biblical take, of not saying, hey, if you call it dating, it's a sin. Or, on the other end, hey, dating's fine. The Bible doesn't have anything to say about dating. Do whatever you want. And we wanted to say, okay, what does the Bible actually say about this thing that we call dating? And because we're committed to the sufficiency of Scripture, and because we're committed to biblical counseling, we saw a need to say, okay, how does the sufficiency of Scripture impact this strange phenomenon in Western culture that we call dating? How do we think about it? So, that was the first book. It wound up being two books, one part on dating, one part focused on engagement. And there's, I don't know of hardly any books written on the specific topic of engagement. And so, that's also a unique season that we wanted to bring the sufficiency of Scripture to bear on. And then, after those, our publisher came back and said, hey, would you be interested in a third book? And the third book, because there's so many great books on marriage, to your point. You've got Momentary Marriage by Piper. You've got, I mean, you have countless books. When Sinners Say I Do. You've got Wayne Mack's books. I mean, you name it. Why would you have the audacity as someone who's been barely been married 10 years to do this? And the thought was, okay, we're going to focus on the first five years. The first five years. And we're going to focus on it not as people who are reflecting on 60 years of marriage, but as people who have just gone through the first five years. And have done so in a community of older saints and in a community of people who are richly immersed in the Scriptures. And the reason why is there is a lot of material that's out there that is wonderful and good, but it feels a little disconnected from the problems that you first encounter. Just because there's so many years removed from the people that are writing. And also, quite frankly, there's a lot of chapters that we included that we had to go and search everywhere for resources on. So there's several chapters on sexual intimacy. And we thought that there was a few things that we could contribute in particular that needed to be said to the church that we had not been able to find easily accessible. And so we wanted to have a fresh take from people who had just gone on the other side of it and then strike a few crucial topics that we thought were in need. Yeah, that's great. Speaking of that first five years, how y'all had just gone through it, how did that really, as you guys were writing it, how did that impact, because you wrote it with a friend, right? It was a co-authorship. How did that really impact putting some things down that y'all had just recently went through? Maybe some conflicts that maybe you and your wife had went through, or maybe him and his wife went through, how did that help as writing that down and help out just authoring it? Yeah. So personally, when you're writing about things that are fresh, writing makes your thoughts clear. So it helps be able to give concrete sentences to the things that you've experienced. And in particular, what was so crucial in a few of the chapters is we had received help from people in our church that was so valuable and so meaningful to us that we want to take those same things that we were helped by and then disseminate them to people that the people that we spoke to wouldn't be able to reach or wouldn't read any other book in particular, but they would, for whatever reason, pick up ours. So in reality, it was we've received help. And so now how can we articulate the help we received to make it then available to other counselors or pastors or newly engaged or early years to marriage couples so that they can also be helped as well. So there's very little that we would ever claim to be original in the book. In fact, I don't know if there's anything original in the book, to be honest, because if it was, it would probably be scary. So we're very, very thankful for the investment that people have made in our lives. Yeah. You mentioned one thing as you began talking through on the first point of trying to help out couples who had come through legalism, you didn't want it to be legalistic in that mindset. And a lot of our audience is coming out of a legalistic mindset. How would you help a couple out in marriage who's coming out of this legalistic mindset? I gave an example of maybe they both came from a very strict home and they were just, you know, both had oppressive parents just, you know, in that legalistic mindset. One has sort of swung away and said, you know, I'm going to do everything opposite my parents did. The other one has sort of like, you know, I see value in that. I see value in the discipline. I see value in the rules and the structure. But I'm just trying to, you know, maybe a couple who's just struggling butting heads. One that's wanting to just have this carefree life and raise their kids to do whatever they want. The new term, I think, is gentle parenting where you just let your kids do whatever and you have to ask permission to even, you know, do something to them. Where the other side of it is, you know, you're going to listen to me and I'm the, you know, just this hard-nosed set of it. How would you help a parent, help a couple out to say, you know what, we're struggling in our marriage. We're struggling in our intimacy because we're clashing on this area. We're trying to raise our kids. And as we're raising our kids and something happens, all of a sudden we butt heads on the way we're even trying to do something. And that's hurting our physical life. It's hurting our emotional life. And we're just having problems. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a super important issue. So a few things. First off, it's super important that it's crucial, actually, that the husband and wife be on the same page on this issue. And if they're not on the same page, that's okay as long as everyone recognizes it and wants to move to get on the same page. So, you know, they don't need to freak out and say, oh, my goodness, my marriage is terrible and awful because we're coming at this from a different perspective. Well, there's all kinds of things that you come at from different perspectives. And as long as you're moving and as long as you're talking about these things and moving towards a biblical framework, that's where we want to land. So a few things. If there's disagreement or questions or wondering, I would really encourage the couple to read together on their own the book of 1 John. So slowly, maybe it's one verse a night, even if you're strapped for time. But you need to read through the book of 1 John together as a couple. And what you'll see in 1 John is you'll see this beautiful balance of what the gospel does and how it impacts the Christian life. And Jesus defies all the human categories that we'd like to fall into. So Jesus comes in and he targets the heart. He transforms the heart. He gives new birth, new life. So John 3 is born again. John 4 talks about the woman at the well. And you move on throughout the whole gospel of John and you see how Jesus hits at the heart. But then that heart always manifests itself in fruitfulness. That heart always manifests itself in a changed life. So John 15 talks about bearing fruit. Abide in me and my words will abide in you and you bear much fruit. Jesus tells the lame man that healed in John 5, go and sin no more. He tells the adulterous woman the same thing. So you have this pattern of Jesus impacting the heart and then the heart manifesting itself in actual real tangible change. And so that balance that Jesus brings as the wonderful counselor is manifested in the short book of 1 John where you see there's a heart transformation. There's a change of affections. There's a change of desires. And yet there's also a change in physical behavior, like external behavior. So I would frame the conversation in terms of there's internal and external. So there's the heart and that internal change leads to external change. So how can this manifest itself in marriage and in a lot of different ways? You mentioned coming from a background of strict discipline. So if a couple is trying to parent their kids, you need to do both. You need to emphasize the heart and faith and repentance. And you also need to emphasize external obedience. So Ephesians 4, children, honor your father and mother for this is the first commandment with a promise. Well, honoring comes from an attitude of the heart. It comes from the heart. You have to honor them. You have to respect them. So this is where Ted Tripp's book, Shepherding the Child's Heart, is very helpful because you get at the heart of it. But at the same time, it says obey your parents for this is right. So it's not a very deep argument. It's, hey, this is right. This is God's world. That's how he ordered it. It's the right way. And if you do this, you'll receive blessing. And if you don't, you'll receive cursing. And so obey from the heart. And that involves not just what's going on in your heart, but also you actually need to physically obey. You don't need to yell at your sister. You don't need to throw toys. You don't need to fuss. You don't need to drop your cup wherever we tell you not to drop your cup. And if you get it in that order, addressing the heart first and then the externals, the right order is crucial in having a culture in your home that deals with the most important thing first, which is not the outward behavior, but which is the inward behavior. So that's one example. It can impact a couple in a thousand ways. It can impact your movie choices. Your heart is important in what you are watching or not watching. And at the same time, your heart is going to manifest itself in physical choices that you choose on what shows you're going to watch. So both are connected. It's not an either or. It's two wings of a plane. You need both wings and both are crucial. Yeah. And I think that, you know, and me and John, we've talked about this with several other people and even personally just a couple of days ago. And we had just a talk of just the thought of when you are going through this process of parenting and being in a marriage relationship, rules are not bad. Rules are not wrong. It's just what is the heart mindset behind it? How are we internalizing this? And is it am I just doing this because I have always done this and someone's told me to do it? Or is it affecting, like you said, the heart and the issue of the heart? And that's really what we've got to get to is the heart of the matter. And we interviewed Brad Bigme many episodes ago. Just a phenomenal, phenomenal time. The Gospel Treason book, just a great time of talking through where is our heart at? And our heart is an idol factory. It's something that is going to destroy us if we don't control it, if our body, if we don't allow the gospel to penetrate that in our lives. And so great, great thoughts there on our heart. Last thing we want to give our listeners, and you can spend as much or as little time on this as you want, just some practical tips for healthy marriage. You've written three books now, dating, marriage, and the first years. What are some things that you would give someone? Just some three practical tips to say, you know, not saying that you're going to, if you do these three things, you're going to have a successful marriage and everything's going to be great. But in the years that you've helped people, in the years that you've been involved in ministry, what are some three main things that are foundational truths that are going to allow your marriage to be healthy? Yeah, so that's a fun question. So three tips. Okay, so top three, I should say. First would be... And if you're a good Baptist and you have sub points, that's fine as well. I'll see if I can make them all alliterated. There you go. So, no, so first one, it would be read the Bible together. So this is Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree that's planted by streams of water. And he will bear fruit in due season. The wicked are not so. The wicked aren't so. They're like chaff that is driven away. And they will not stand in the day of the righteous. They will not stand in the day of judgment. So I say that to say it's not just the blessed man. It's the blessed couple, right? So if you are a married couple, you need to be reading the Bible together. That is a wonderful thing you can do. And you need to be delighting. And that's the heart. It's not just reading the Bible like a checklist. It's not you delight in the law of the Lord and you meditate on it day and night. It's the heart that's bursting with affection, bursting with faith, bursting with treasuring, bursting with joy as you read the word. And in order to have that heart, you have to repent and you have to ask Jesus for forgiveness for not delighting in his word. So meditating on the word together. So if you're just married, you don't have kids. Deuteronomy 6 talks about how you're supposed to walk with your kids and talk with them about the Bible. Do that with your spouse. Start now. Maybe you don't have kids and maybe you need to be talking with your spouse. Hey, what did you read in the Bible today? Hey, I saw that you were reading the Bible early in the morning. So like my wife and I, we read the Bible at night. That's the best time that we do it. And we read it separately. And then we come together and we talk about it. And then we read just a little bit before bed, not much. And what I would say would be don't try to bite off more than you can chew. So I guess this is a sub point. We're not going for giant chunks of reading. If you have the time to do that, that's wonderful. But we're thinking one small step for man, one giant leap for your home. So we're just one plod, one thing at a time. And that will transform everything in your marriage to the glory of God and for your good. So that'll be the first tip. The second thing I would say would be this one is harder. Okay. So this one's kind of brutal, but you've got to do it. All right. So if you're married, you need to go to your spouse and you should say honey or baby or snickerdoodle or whatever you call it. So what is one thing, just one, what's one area that I need to grow in in our marriage? And when you tell me I'm going to receive it with joy and I'm not going to argue about it and I just want to hear it and I will receive it humbly. If you do that, if you do that and you can go to your spouse and you say, I want you to tell me, you have to tell me one area. You can't say there's nothing. You can't say everything I'm doing is great because that's not true. You need to give me one area. Tell me that one area and I will really hear you. That can be a transformative moment in your marriage and is a very good habit to cultivate. And so I think you should, as a tip, go to your spouse and say, Hey, look, I want to know. I want to grow. Tell me what's one area. I want you to be honest with me and I will receive it. So that'd be tip number two. Third one. I will combine two. So I'm going to squeeze, I'm going to cheat and I'm going to squeeze. I think if you want to have a wonderful marriage, you have to prioritize communication. Communication and physical intimacy. So communication and sexual intimacy. I'm sneaking that in because those two are related. If you're not good at communicating, you're not going to have a good sexual intimacy. If you're communicating, but you're never having sexual intimacy, something's misfiring. It's not working as it should. So I say prioritize. This has to be a priority in your marriage. It just has to be. When couples get busy, we were told this by the Lamberts. The Lamberts did our pre-marriage counseling. They told us the first two things to go, communication and sex. And that's generally true for most couples. And you have to fight. You have to be intentional to communicate, to talk to one another. How are you doing? What's going on? What are your fears? What are your loves? Where are your pressures? What's your tension going on in your life? Let's talk. I want to know what's going on during your day. And then also prioritize sex. Sex is not going to make a great marriage, but a great marriage will have wonderful, exciting, joyful sex. And the Song of Solomon is a rich, wonderful book that highlights a couple's delight in God's good gift. And if you're too busy, you need to plan it. You plan vacations, you need to plan sex. If you're too swamped, you've got to make this priority. If you're eating food, you've got to make this a priority. So it would be better if you had peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and you were able to come together and enjoy one another in bed than to have a gourmet meal every night. So you've got to make this a priority, and that's crucial. So those would be my 3.5 tips that I would give. That's great. And, you know, on that second point, I thought all of them were great. But that second point, really, if a marriage is struggling like we talked about previously with legalism and struggle and strife, and their heart isn't right and their heart isn't in the right mindset, when you ask that question, one growth point, if you're asking it from a sense of, you know, resentment or whatever it may be, and you're not in the right heart moment, you're going to take it wrong. And you're going to now, now you're going to have a fight moment. You're going to, you're going to blow up each other. So it really, it begins to build back and say, okay, where are we at? Where's my heart at? And if you can't, if you can't ask that in a good spirit, don't ask that question. And that's right. Yeah. You got to humble yourself first. Yeah. Yeah. Because you may hear something you don't want to hear. I've been there as a husband, as a dad. And my wife has told me many times, hey, you don't need to do that. And she told me that when I wasn't in the right moment, in the right heart set, and it was an argument time. And so it's really making sure, and we're not perfect. We're humans as well. And so it's making sure we're in the right mindset. We're in the right heart set when these questions and things arise in our life. So I think it's perfect. That's awesome. And any closing things from you today, Sean? Anything that you want to add to our listeners or anything you think would be helpful? I'll link your books in the show notes where they can purchase them at. But any closing thoughts from you? Yeah. One final thing. I would just say, especially we're talking about legalism here. Oh, my goodness. A legalistic heart is an unjoyful heart. It's lacking happiness. It's lacking joy. And the God of the Bible is a happy, happy God. And marriage is meant to be happy. It's meant to be filled with joy from the heart. It's a good gift to God. And so I would just say the fruit of the Spirit is joy. And if you don't have joy, that's because something's misfiring in your heart. And if you're focused on legalism and rules, again, rules aren't bad. Rules are not bad. But if your joy comes from your obedience to a specific framework or specific task or whatever it is, and your joy is not fundamentally rooted in God and His Word, you're missing out. You're missing out on the greatest gift of life, which is knowing our very happy God. And so I would say I'm super thankful for the conversation. I'm super thankful for the opportunity to be able to talk about it. And I'm really grateful that you had me on your show, James. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for being here today. And thank you for our listeners for tuning in to this short interview. An interview that I think was so impactful. It helped me out. And like I said, I've enjoyed listening and reading after Sean. And so I hope you will as well. And until next time, to God, not the pastor, be the glory. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast. To find more content like this, please visit RFPNetwork.org. To find more podcasts like this one, resources and meetups to encourage you on your journey. We will see you next time. We will see you next time. We will see you next time. We will see you next time. Thank you. Thank you.

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