Beyond the Triangle: Is Your Marriage Built on Principles or a Person?

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] Good morning everyone. That was about pitiful team. Good morning everyone. There we go. Glad you guys are here. My name is Scott Broom. I'm an associate pastor here at the church and we are in week two of our series Built to Last and this is specifically a series on marriage but even if you're not married I think there's a lot that you can take away from it and clearly if you are married there's a lot you can take away from it. But what we're wanting to go into over the next few weeks is
[00:00:33] including last week, is not just building a marriage where you survive. And you're like, you know what? My goal is that we make it to the end of our lives and we didn't get a divorce.
[00:00:45] Maybe we hated each other, but we didn't get a divorce. That's not the goal here.
[00:00:51] We're wanting to understand not just how to have a quote unquote good marriage or a marriage where you make it, but a godly marriage. Because as we talked about last week, what you have to
[00:01:01] understand is you and I didn't come up with marriage. Culture did not come up with marriage.
[00:01:06] Marriage is God's design. Marriage is God's design, which means, like I said last week, I pretend to be no expert on marriage. My wife and I have been together for 14 years and married for 10. And we've gone through seasons where I'm like, I'm pretty sure we loved each other,
[00:01:21] but I don't know that we liked each other. If you know what I'm, some of you know, you know what I mean, you know? But like, I know the authority on marriage is the word of God. And the answer to how
[00:01:33] to have a godly marriage is the word of God. And so what I want to go through today is the necessary foundation that you must have to truly have a godly marriage. And you see, I got our fancy whiteboard
[00:01:47] out here this morning, so we'll be drawing some. But I want us to understand, okay, how do I not just have a marriage that survives, but how do we have one that's truly, because the way God designed
[00:01:58] marriage to go is the way that brings the most joy and satisfaction in marriage, right? If God is the creator and the designer and the author of it, and he is perfect, we should assume that he knows what
[00:02:13] he's doing when he tells us how marriage should go. And if you don't think that he's the way that marriage should go, or what he says is the way marriage should go, then you should reevaluate
[00:02:23] whether you believe Jesus is really Lord of the universe. You have a bigger question to answer.
[00:02:27] But what I want to talk about this morning is the fact that sometimes, I'll use our fancy whiteboard over here, I'll try to draw big enough. I told the team in the back not really to put it up here,
[00:02:37] probably, unless we say otherwise, because I'll be jumping back and forth a lot. But I'll write big enough that hopefully you can see. If you need to, for the more seasoned people in the room,
[00:02:47] put on your glasses. All right. Season's the nice way of just saying you're old.
[00:02:57] So you got husband on one side and you got wife on the other. And sometimes it feels like this right here, the old saying, we're not on the same page. Sometimes you feel like maybe you and your
[00:03:11] wife aren't on the same page. And maybe sometimes you're like, we're not even in the same chapter or she's in a different book that I've never read. And I'm in a book that she's never read.
[00:03:21] and neither one of us know what's going on besides the fact that we can't stand each other, all right?
[00:03:27] But you have husband on here, wife on here, and it feels like there's some gap or there's disconnect in between.
[00:03:32] And I wanna say too that there will be people who get married that are naturally more or less compatible than others.
[00:03:40] So for some people, this may feel like, you know, we're a little bit off or like we struggle sometimes.
[00:03:45] And other people, this is a chasm that you don't know how to cross and it feels like you're way, way, way far apart.
[00:03:51] But what I wanna talk about this morning is how do we bridge the gap between husband and wife and truly have a godly marriage, truly be one flesh and truly get along and love and cherish and value one another.
[00:04:04] And that is, if you've been in church for a long amount of time, you've probably seen this before.
[00:04:11] But it's this triangle that's, I'm not the best artist, but hang with me, all right?
[00:04:16] So you have husband on one side, you have wife on the other.
[00:04:20] And the way that husband and wife best come together is when the husband chases after God and the wife chases after God.
[00:04:32] Because as a byproduct of me chasing after God and then my wife chasing after God, this chasm over time gradually gets smaller and smaller and smaller, okay?
[00:04:48] And what I wanna say here too, we're just diving straight into the deep end this morning, is I heard this early on in mine and my wife's relationship.
[00:04:58] And then some time went by and I was like, I don't know if this is true because I feel like we're trying to work on this and I'm not sure we've gotten any closer together.
[00:05:08] This is, does this really work?
[00:05:10] And what I found was my expectation was more like, all right, you know, let's just say there's five levels.
[00:05:16] It's arbitrary, but let's just go with it.
[00:05:17] All right, this is, you know, we're one weekend.
[00:05:20] All right, me and my wife, we're seeking the Lord.
[00:05:22] We're both closer together.
[00:05:23] We're already feeling much better.
[00:05:25] you know maybe this is one month let's say one year all right two years in we never even argue anymore we're just totally together and it's great and what i've found is that timeline probably is
[00:05:41] not true that this week one for some of us it might be you know what this is year one this might be year 5 this might be 10 this might be 20 all right and this is heaven
[00:05:58] if I ever get here we'll let you know but what I want to say from the outset is that I have unequivocally found this to be true while also finding that it's a lot longer than I ever thought it would be that it's true but it takes a
[00:06:20] long time. Same thing, I spoke a message in men's one time that was titled men and women of God that they're not built in a day, but they are built one day at a time. The same is true of a
[00:06:35] godly marriage. It is not built in a day. It may not be built in a year or a couple of years, but it is built one day at a time. That it is a daily decision and it is a daily choice to seek
[00:06:49] God. And I want you to understand that this right here, the husband towards God, the wife towards God, you gradually get closer together. But what this means is that you have to be chasing after
[00:07:04] God yourself. To want a godly marriage while you fundamentally don't chase God yourself is ridiculous. And yet sometimes that's what we want to do. But if you want to have a godly marriage and you wanna have a marriage that is close
[00:07:18] and is the way God designed it.
[00:07:20] Husbands, we need to be seeking God.
[00:07:23] Wives, you need to be seeking after God.
[00:07:26] And then gradually over time, you start to grow closer together because you're seeking after the one and you're seeking after the same thing.
[00:07:35] It's God.
[00:07:36] God is not divided.
[00:07:37] So as we become more like Christ as individuals, we will grow closer together.
[00:07:43] Now it takes a long time, But that is the path.
[00:07:47] As I become more like Christ and my wife becomes more like Christ, we naturally start to grow closer together because we are chasing the same thing.
[00:07:54] And I wanna spend a minute focusing on several of the things that predict whether a marriage will actually last or not.
[00:08:08] But before I get into that, I wanna cover one other thing.
[00:08:11] And that is, we have the husband and wife chasing after God and becoming like Christ that gradually draws them closer together.
[00:08:19] there is one other thing you can do which is this right here and what this is is where the husband and wife just try to grow closer together apart from the work of God and this is basically where we compromise and placate to each
[00:08:35] other's selfish desires it's like we're not really trying to have a marriage that's great and wonderful but you're pretty selfish and I'm pretty selfish so I'm gonna let you do some selfish things and I'll do some selfish things and
[00:08:47] and we'll just try our best to get along.
[00:08:50] Like neither one of us are necessarily super happy, but I'm trying to, and just heads up, ladies, for most of us guys, we will do anything to have peace.
[00:09:01] All right, ladies, whatever you want.
[00:09:02] If it means we don't have to hear you fuss and fight and nag, you got it.
[00:09:06] We'll do about anything, okay?
[00:09:08] So the husband may say, you know what?
[00:09:12] I hate half the things you love to do, but for the sake of having some sense of artificial peace, I will just kind of move over closer to you to just kind of settle.
[00:09:24] And the wife may do the same thing for the husband.
[00:09:26] It's not necessarily out of mutual love and respect and I'm growing in the Lord and I love, value, and cherish my wife or vice versa.
[00:09:33] It's just, I'm gonna kind of compromise and you're gonna kind of compromise so that we can hopefully coexist without killing each other, right?
[00:09:41] That's not what we're talking about today.
[00:09:43] You can have some level of compromise, just you and your wife back and forth.
[00:09:47] We're talking about becoming like Christ to love, value, cherish, and have intimacy with your spouse.
[00:09:53] But I wanna talk about five top predictors of a lasting marriage.
[00:10:01] And we'll go through them.
[00:10:03] One is the quality of the conflict.
[00:10:09] And there's several things in here that if you fight in this way or you argue or you have conflict in this way, it's a high predictor that your marriage is suffering versus a predictor that it will actually have lasting success.
[00:10:20] So this is some research by John Gottman, and this is one of the signs when you and your spouse have conflict that you're handling it in a good way is low levels of contempt.
[00:10:36] And this is one of the single strongest predictors of whether you will get divorced or not is contempt.
[00:10:41] And contempt, I wrote down the definition just so I had it and we're all on the same page.
[00:10:47] It's thinking of somebody else as beneath consideration.
[00:10:54] They are worthless or not deserving of respect and in strong dislike for someone.
[00:11:03] And one of the main ways this shows up is in rolling your eyes at your spouse.
[00:11:10] So if you find, they found in the research that if you roll your eyes at your spouse a lot, that's a strong predictor that things aren't good.
[00:11:16] Now, if you're like joking or something, But if you really like, like your wife says something or your husband says something, you're like, oh my God.
[00:11:22] You can just tell like, hey, I just can't stand them, right?
[00:11:26] You're not in a good place.
[00:11:27] Doesn't mean God can't repair where you're at.
[00:11:28] That's just a sign that you're not in a good place.
[00:11:32] All right, one of the things that predicts, talking about the quality of the conflict is absence of chronic defensiveness, criticism and stonewalling.
[00:11:40] So when you get in a disagreement or you and your wife see something differently, do you go into defensive mode?
[00:11:45] Do you go into criticizing them?
[00:11:47] Do you go into Stonewall and are freezing them out?
[00:11:50] Or do you have discussion and you talk it through?
[00:11:53] The ability to repair actually during the conflict itself, like, hey, I'm getting a little heated.
[00:11:58] Let's reset or let's take a break for a second.
[00:12:01] And then soft startups instead of harsh accusations.
[00:12:04] So some of you, you know what I'm talking, you come out the gate hot.
[00:12:07] You're like, you're horrible.
[00:12:09] Same thing as your mom and she was terrible.
[00:12:10] You all suck, right?
[00:12:14] She's like, oh yeah?
[00:12:16] I'm gonna throw a jar of mayonnaise at you.
[00:12:17] You know, you never know.
[00:12:21] Okay.
[00:12:21] but that's number one. I want to go through these five first, then we'll go back through them again for a different reason. So the quality of the conflict, emotional responsiveness. So this is in everyday life, a partner, your husband or your wife will make small bids for connection. So like,
[00:12:42] hey, look at this. This was a tough day. What do you think about this? It says the successful couples turn toward these bids rather than ignoring or dismissing them. They turn toward these bids and they start to pay attention rather than ignoring or dismissing them.
[00:13:01] So the underlying mechanism is that it builds secure attachment and formation inside the marriage. That's number two. Shared meaning and values. This is pretty much the point of this whole message right here, which is marriages last longer when couples share their core values. So
[00:13:17] but it's faith, family, priorities, finances, lifestyles.
[00:13:21] So basically when they agree on the big picture of what they're building or who they're chasing, which is Christ.
[00:13:29] So that's number three, shared meaning and values.
[00:13:34] Number four is the commitment level.
[00:13:36] And this is basically all of last week's message.
[00:13:40] Commitment is not just I love you.
[00:13:41] Research distinguishes between three things, personal commitment, which is I want this marriage, moral commitment, which is more what we talked about last week. I believe marriage is sacred and serious. And then the structural commitment with finances, kids, social ties, etc. But it says
[00:13:59] couples who see marriage as a permanent covenant rather than a conditional contract are significantly more likely to persevere through low seasons, invest in repair rather than exit. The mindset of we do not threaten divorce in conflict is a major stabilizer. That's number four is commitment
[00:14:22] level. And that was basically all of last week's message with the fact that marriage is a covenant by which we are meant to give our lives for our spouse. It is not a contract where I protect my
[00:14:32] interests. And then number five, emotional and physiological regulation. So research shows that during conflict, couples who become physiologically flooded, so you got the elevated heart rate, your cortisol spikes, your blood pressures are going, you go into fight mode. It's not this is
[00:14:50] the person I love and cherish and I'm supposed to protect, but I'm taking them down, right?
[00:14:55] So those who count self-soothe and regulate will basically go into destructive mode. So long-term stable couples can take a break before escalation. They can regulate their nervous system and they can return to an issue calmly. So emotional regulation skills are actually more predictive
[00:15:13] than personality traits.
[00:15:15] And there's a reason I share all of those because that's not necessarily Christianity or anything else.
[00:15:21] That's just scientific research of some of the main predictors of what builds a lasting marriage.
[00:15:27] Or if you don't have those things, what will make marriage very difficult or make it end in divorce.
[00:15:34] Now I wanna go through it through the lens of how does the husband becoming like Christ, because remember, the whole goal is that you and I be conformed, as Romans 8, I believe, would say,
[00:15:47] that we're conformed into the very image or the character and nature of Christ.
[00:15:52] That's true for the husband and the wife.
[00:15:54] It's true for believers that God means for his spirit within us, if you put your faith in Christ, you've been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, God's spirit lives in you.
[00:16:03] The spirit wants to make you like Christ.
[00:16:07] He wants to make you like Christ.
[00:16:08] And so as the husband becomes more like Christ and the wife becomes more like Christ, I want to show how becoming more like Christ actually plays into every single aspect of building a marriage that lasts. Okay. So we're going to go through them again.
[00:16:24] So the quality of the conflict we talked about, remember low levels of contempt, absence of chronic defensiveness, the ability to repair during a conflict versus seeing your partner as the enemy that you need to take down. And I want to say something here too,
[00:16:42] that fighting is not necessarily healthy.
[00:16:50] Some people, maybe you've heard that before, like fighting in a marriage is good.
[00:16:53] Well, not really.
[00:16:55] I wanna show James 4.1.
[00:16:57] This is just talking to believers.
[00:16:58] This is not even marriage.
[00:16:59] This is just believers in general.
[00:17:01] And I believe it'll be on the screen if I gave the media team the scriptures.
[00:17:05] James says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
[00:17:12] is it not this that your passions are at war within you and that passion means like a strong lust or desire not necessarily sexual lust it could be but just a strong passion for something
[00:17:26] meaning I want my way and I'm not getting my way and now we're fighting because I'm not getting my way how many arguments in our marriage are that they're fighting because I have one way I want to
[00:17:39] go. My wife has another way she wants to go. And now it's my way. How dare you say that it should be your way? And then we go into fighting. Now, you and your wife may be different. The fact that
[00:17:52] you have a difference of opinion is not quarreling. That's not quarreling. How you handle the difference in opinion can either be Christ-like or it can be what James 4.1 is talking about where you quarrel and fight because you had a disagreement, but then the passion inside of you
[00:18:12] rose up and now you're at war with one another. So the disagreement, the fact that I have one way I see things and my wife has another way that she sees things is not inherently wrong. God made us
[00:18:22] differently. Where it goes wrong is when that passion rises up in me. And now, listen to me, I no longer care about what is right. I care about being right. And there is a difference.
[00:18:37] there is a difference in caring about what is right versus being right and caring about getting your way versus caring about what is true and best because if you have a husband and a wife
[00:18:52] who both want what is true and both want what is best they may see something differently but if they both want the same objective you can have a healthy conversation but when I disagree with my
[00:19:04] wife or she disagrees with me and then now the passion rises up and what I care about most is proving that I'm right, now we have sinful conflict.
[00:19:14] Now, and so I wanna go to scripture again, because remember part of this and how to have healthy conflict and work through it is low levels of contempt.
[00:19:23] This one should be obvious, all right?
[00:19:27] God made your spouse.
[00:19:29] She or he is made in the image of God.
[00:19:31] Christ hung on a cross naked and bled and died for their soul.
[00:19:37] They matter just as much as you do.
[00:19:41] And so if you have contempt for your spouse, that's a big problem.
[00:19:45] It's a big problem.
[00:19:47] You should take it to the Lord and pray about it and ask him to help you.
[00:19:50] But if you're looking down on another human being who Jesus Christ died for, much less your spouse that you're in covenant with, that's a problem.
[00:19:59] It's a problem if you view them as less valuable than you are.
[00:20:04] Not only that, but what does Jesus say?
[00:20:07] He says, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.
[00:20:11] Now, your marriage may be so bad that you view your spouse as an enemy.
[00:20:15] God still says love them, and he still says pray for them, even if it's that bad.
[00:20:20] But I wanna go to Philippians 2, starting in verse three.
[00:20:27] This is Paul writing.
[00:20:28] He says, do nothing, because we're thinking about in the terms of conflict and how to have conflict resolution and how to be one with one another.
[00:20:37] And remember, as I'm growing into being more like Christ, that's the objective, and we're looking at how does that objective fulfill these things?
[00:20:43] that build a healthy marriage.
[00:20:46] He says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.
[00:20:51] Paul says to believers, in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.
[00:20:59] And then verse four, he says, let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others, which would mean when we go into a disagreement or a conflict.
[00:21:13] And now this is just to believers in general, which means this is especially true in marriage, that I should view my spouse as more significant than myself.
[00:21:23] And I should take into account what she wants or desires or maybe needs and not just look to myself.
[00:21:31] And so when we talk about how the quality of the conflict and how when I'm over here and my wife's over here, how does becoming like Christ solve that in a healthy manner?
[00:21:42] Because we know that quarrels and fights in general will come from the passion and the war within me and my desire to be right.
[00:21:48] We know that the path that Christ has for us is that it would be a path of humility where I count others more significant than myself, which is the path that Jesus took, and he is our ultimate example.
[00:22:01] And then let's just go to love.
[00:22:03] 1 Corinthians 13, if you've ever been to a wedding, you've heard this.
[00:22:06] If you've been in church your whole life, you've definitely heard this too.
[00:22:08] But I want you to think about, you're supposed to love your spouse and talking about in terms of conflict.
[00:22:15] And when you disagree, I just want you to think about this.
[00:22:17] Love is patient, all right?
[00:22:20] If we just mastered that one, it'd go a long way.
[00:22:25] And if you're like me, sometimes the person that you find it hard to be the most patient with is your spouse, because you're like, I just expect you to have together better than this, you know?
[00:22:33] I'm sorry, babe.
[00:22:35] But love is patient and kind.
[00:22:39] Love does not envy or boast.
[00:22:42] It is not arrogant or rude.
[00:22:45] Here's a big one.
[00:22:47] it does not insist on its own way love does not insist on its own way it is not irritable or resentful it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth now think of that in
[00:23:07] terms of arguing or conflict it does not rejoice at being right it rejoices with the truth the truth and then love bears all things believes all things hopes all things and endures all things so if we know the fact that we're coming at each other is fundamentally because i have passions
[00:23:29] at war within myself i really want to protect what i want she wants to protect what she wants and now we're butting heads because i'm trying to hold on a desire and so is she
[00:23:38] so one i know that that root is sinful the disagreement isn't but how we handle it it certainly can be very quickly.
[00:23:45] That in humility, I should consider her more important than myself, or him more important than myself.
[00:23:51] And that if you just adopted a few of the principles that Paul talks about for what love really entails in 1 Corinthians 13, we would all be doing a lot better.
[00:24:01] So this is how becoming like Christ, truly becoming, searching after and becoming like Christ, allowing the spirit of God to conform you to the image of God, how that when a husband and wife begin to do that,
[00:24:14] how that automatically starts to solve all these big issues in your marriage.
[00:24:20] Number two, emotional responsiveness, which is like turning towards.
[00:24:24] So this is, you know, in everyday life, your partner makes small bids, your husband or your wife makes small bids for connection.
[00:24:30] So like, look at this, or I had a tough day, or what do you think about this?
[00:24:35] And research shows that healthier couples typically lean in and listen and pay attention rather than being dismissive or ignoring or avoiding.
[00:24:48] And I found that one of the things that really applies to this in Luke 6, which is the golden rule, which is even if you really didn't grow up in church, odds are you know this.
[00:24:57] And this comes after Jesus talks about loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you, or those who hate you.
[00:25:04] And he finishes it all off.
[00:25:05] He's talking about giving to people who beg from you and everything else.
[00:25:07] He said, and as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
[00:25:14] As you wish others would do so to you, do so to them.
[00:25:20] And I don't know about you, but if I've gone through something difficult and I want to share it with my spouse and they ignore me, I don't want to be treated that way.
[00:25:32] That hurts when there's something that you care about and then somebody's dismissive about it.
[00:25:36] So how would I want to be treated?
[00:25:39] I would want somebody to listen.
[00:25:42] And the same is true, and this is one that I'm trying to work on that I'm maybe not the best at all the time.
[00:25:50] Because sometimes, and husbands, you know this, get home, you had a long day or something and you're like, I just want to sit, stare at nothing and listen to nothing and do nothing. But my wife's been with four little kids all day, you know, and
[00:26:05] they're putting her through the wringer. You're great boys, but you're also a lot. But like sometimes at night, after we've, you know, spent an hour and a half going through bedtime, because it takes that
[00:26:19] long, there's so many hugs and so, so many things you got to go through. But I also know I'll miss it one day and it's honestly kind of nice. But after that, sometimes we'll sit down and we've
[00:26:33] laughed about this before. The moment I start a TV show, opening credits, you won't believe what happened today. Pause the TV show. Because I really, I know it's something important to her and I really do want to listen. I'm like, now's the time. We'll pause the TV show. And then I'll
[00:26:52] listen and I'm hanging on for dear life. And I'm like, and sometimes she gets to the end of the story and I'm like babe you need to recap it again because I got lost halfway through I spent the
[00:27:06] last half the story trying to figure out where we were and now I'm really lost but she'll finish that I'll be okay unpause the show and can you believe acts I'll be all right pause it again
[00:27:17] because I really I'm trying I'm trying to pay attention she's saying something and I want to listen so here's a helpful tip because this is kind of like hard and funny but also true is that husbands, when your wife is speaking to you
[00:27:33] about something, stop what you're doing and listen.
[00:27:38] Now, if you're like, sometimes I'm in the middle of sending a message or something, I'll say, hold on a second, let me get this done and then I'll listen, right?
[00:27:45] But husbands, when she's giving you those bids for attention, that is one of her ways of wanting to make a connection.
[00:27:52] So do your best to stop and listen.
[00:27:55] Wives, we have a finite amount of time that we can hang on, all right?
[00:28:01] So think about what's most important.
[00:28:03] and get those out really fast, okay?
[00:28:07] Because what you have to understand, we could care less about the details.
[00:28:12] And I just know, ladies, you're different.
[00:28:14] You can say something, you got 10 follow-up questions.
[00:28:16] We have zero follow-up questions.
[00:28:19] Like the other day, I was talking to my wife and somebody had sent me a text and I started with, I have this information.
[00:28:27] This text message is the only information I have about this situation.
[00:28:31] So I'm gonna read this text to you.
[00:28:34] There can be no further questions.
[00:28:36] because I don't know anything else.
[00:28:39] So I'm going to read it, and then that's it.
[00:28:41] You can wonder together, but I have no other answers because guys, you know what I'm talking about.
[00:28:46] Ladies, you know what I'm talking about.
[00:28:47] You share something, and she's like, well, how'd that happen?
[00:28:50] Who did that?
[00:28:51] What color were they wearing?
[00:28:52] You're like, I have no idea.
[00:28:53] I don't know any of the details.
[00:28:55] I didn't care about the details.
[00:28:57] I'm just trying to share my life with you a little bit.
[00:29:00] But in a real way, when your partner makes that bid for attention, think about how you would want to be treated and then begin to treat your husband or your wife that way I would want them to listen and just because something isn't necessarily of super
[00:29:15] importance to you or you may not think it's a big deal if it is a big deal to your spouse you should listen but wives also love us enough to be cognizant that we just can't hang on like you can
[00:29:26] and share the details with us or get to the point or whatever else because we need that all right so you help us and we will listen better. But that emotional responsiveness and truly paying
[00:29:39] attention and not rolling your eyes and not just dismissing, but listening for a minute.
[00:29:43] And sometimes I'll even say like, babe, I'm really tired. We got to get to the end of this because I can't hang on much longer. All right. I love you, but I'm struggling. Okay. And you
[00:29:52] should build it. You should work at, even if you can't right now, you should work on getting the point to where you can be honest with your spouse and be like, this is brutal. And I have no idea
[00:30:00] where we're going. All right. But I love you and I want to care, but I'm tired. Okay. But that, and then shared meaning and values is number three, which is the whole point of this, right?
[00:30:15] Because I think sometimes where you're like, well, I've been in church and me and my spouse have been in church for a long time, but it doesn't feel like this is happening. Well, I would say probably
[00:30:25] what's not happening is that you're not really chasing after God. You are participating in religious activity, but chasing after God really is no part of your daily life. In which case, you're not really becoming like Christ. Because if you and your wife are becoming like Christ,
[00:30:44] these qualities of love, these qualities of humility, these qualities of Christ will begin to show up more and more in your life. If they're not showing up more and more in your life, gradually over time, there's a problem, which probably means you're not going this direction.
[00:31:02] You may be participating in religion, you may listen to sermons, but you are not getting to know Christ and becoming like Christ yourself.
[00:31:12] And so that's where this foundation, not just in word, not just saying, yeah, God is the center of our relationship, not just saying it, but that actually beginning to be true is the thing that changes it,
[00:31:23] is that when you really chase after him and you're really seeking after him yourself, yourself, not sitting here and necessarily just praying, please make my wife better because she's horrible.
[00:31:35] Or husbands praying, you know, wives praying for your husbands to be better.
[00:31:39] But chasing after God yourself, chasing after God yourself.
[00:31:44] That's number three, shared meaning and values.
[00:31:47] And if Christ really is the foundation and his word is really how we should build our lives, as you chase after him, the alignment of the other things in your life should come under Christ's authority,
[00:32:01] which means there should be more and more things that gradually over time you agree upon because neither one of you is the author of your own life.
[00:32:10] God is the author.
[00:32:13] And then commitment level.
[00:32:14] This is everything from last week so I won't spend really much time on it but the fact that marriage is a covenant.
[00:32:21] That it is a covenant and that is incredibly serious unto the Lord.
[00:32:25] That it is not a contract by which you try to protect your interests and get out of marriage what you want.
[00:32:31] it is a covenant by which you lay down your life for your spouse that's what it is maybe not what culture told you maybe not what you've known but that's what it is and then emotional and
[00:32:47] physiological regulation in galatians 5 it talks about both the acts or the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit and the fruit of the spirit would be the fruit that begins to be
[00:33:05] produced in your life and flow out of you as the Spirit of God is working in you. It's the Spirit's fruit coming to life in and through you. And the work of the Lord, the work of the Spirit,
[00:33:17] the fruit of that coming to life in you and I should start to have love, joy, should start to have peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and then the final one, self-control. Self-control. If you cannot help but be emotionally dysregulated and get out of
[00:33:49] control when you and your spouse disagree and you get angry and you get mad and you say all these things you wish you hadn't said and that you think maybe you didn't mean, out of the
[00:34:00] abundance of the heart of the mouth speaks, so maybe you did mean them, you just didn't want to say them. But if you cannot control or bridle your own tongue and you cannot regulate your emotions,
[00:34:13] you lack spiritual maturity. It is evident no matter how much you know scripture, if you lack emotional regulation, there's a problem because one of the fruits of God's spirit at work in you is self-control. And I want to read this, what it means.
[00:34:28] self-control is like dominion or mastery proceeding out from within oneself but not by oneself which is why it's a fruit of the spirit meaning you cannot adopt ultimate self-control apart from the work of the spirit in your life self-control denotes the spirit enabled mastery
[00:34:51] of desires, impulses, and habits so that they serve rather than rule the believer. It is not mere human, just like strictness or control, but a grace-driven capacity to bring every faculty under the Lordship of Jesus Christ for holy living and effective service. Holy living and
[00:35:13] effective service. The band can join me. And so what I want you to know is that if you rage out, one of the acts of the flesh. I want to read those two right above it. It says enmity. There's a lot,
[00:35:29] but I just want to read several. Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and divisions. If that describes the majority of your marriage, you are probably spiritually immature and so is your spouse because the acts of the flesh are the thing that rule both of you.
[00:35:50] remember this is gradual if you're full of anger and rage and dissension and division tomorrow you will probably not be full of love peace joy patience kindness goodness and self-control it is a process but my point in sharing all
[00:36:07] these things with you is to understand that how as you grow into being like Christ it handles all these things and you actually will have a healthy marriage because you're you're solving all these problems that would otherwise cause a
[00:36:19] a marriage to fail. Because when you have self-control and you have that ability to regulate your emotions, which is a fruit of the spirit over time, and then you have the quality of conflict, which we talked about first, the fact that you love, care for, you consider them
[00:36:34] as more important or significant than yourself, then it changes the dynamic of everything.
[00:36:43] It changes the dynamic completely. And so spiritual maturity is going to be marked by emotional maturity or regulation. It just will. It just will. No matter how much scripture you know, if you have no control over your emotional state, that's a sign of spiritual immaturity.
[00:37:04] Because what does Jesus even say? How will people know that you're learning from me?
[00:37:07] How will people know that you're my disciples? That you have a love for one another.
[00:37:13] What is love? It's patient. What is love? It's kind. What is love? It's gentle.
[00:37:18] What is love? It's not arrogant or rude. What is love? Doesn't envy or boast. What is love?
[00:37:23] does not insist on its own way. What is love? It does not rejoice at wrongdoing.
[00:37:29] It rejoices with the truth. And so what I want you to understand today is that if you want to have a godly marriage, you cannot do it without God being the center of your life, not your
[00:37:46] spouse's life, your life, your life, your life. You don't look at your spouse and say, I wish God would fix them. You look at God and say, please fix me. Please fix me. Is your spouse broken and
[00:38:04] jacked up? Yes, probably. And so are you. And so am I. And so is Rachel, like we are. And so the trajectory has to be, I want to be more like Christ. I want to be more like Christ, which
[00:38:22] means even if my spouse, I feel like is an enemy, what does Christ say? It says, pray and love your enemies. Pray for them. Not pray, Lord, please fix my wife. But Lord, help me to love like you do.
[00:38:37] Help me to love like you do. And I pray that my spouse would know how much you love them.
[00:38:43] I pray that my spouse would know you because I know as much as I'm jacked up and I have issues, I know the answer to my issues is you, which means I know the answer to my spouse's issues
[00:38:53] is you. The answer is not me telling them that they're jacked up. I want to share this one thing and then I'll close. When I first really gave my heart to the Lord, I thought it was my responsibility
[00:39:09] to point out Rachel's sin to her, that I wasn't even sure if it was. I would just look at it and be like, I was probably prideful that you did that, or that wasn't very patient or whatever else.
[00:39:22] And let me just tell you, that was not the route to go. But I was a new believer and all of a sudden I felt like God was showing me, well, you did that because you're arrogant. You did that because
[00:39:34] you're prideful. You did that because you care about self-image. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm way worse than I thought. I need to tell her. She's way worse than she thought.
[00:39:44] Not the best idea. But one of the things she told me probably two years ago is she said, early on when you did that, one, it really hurt me. She said, but after several years,
[00:39:57] she said, instead of telling me to be patient or telling me to be kind or anything else, she said, you just started being patient and you just started being kind and you started being loving
[00:40:07] and she said that was the thing that made the difference for me it wasn't that I was over here pointing out her flaws to her is that I was allowing God to heal the flaws of me and in
[00:40:20] healing the flaws in me and then being an example of Christ to her which I still fail at many times that was the thing that made the difference it was not about changing her it was about allowing
[00:40:32] God to change me and her seeing that change that God had done in me and that made the change in her that's the difference and what I want you to understand is how do I chase after God
[00:40:43] you have to read the Bible you have you have to read it as one under its authority and obey it.
[00:40:55] You read it and you obey it.
[00:40:58] And do I know firsthand experience, sometimes you read something, you're like, Lord, I don't think I wanna do that.
[00:41:03] Wrestle with it.
[00:41:05] Have a conversation with him about it, pray.
[00:41:08] But we do not read it as people that pick and choose what we want and what feels good to us.
[00:41:13] We read it as people under its authority because it is the ultimate authority for our lives as believers.
[00:41:19] It is.
[00:41:21] And so if I want to be like Christ, I get into his word because it is the breath of God.
[00:41:26] It shows me how to live.
[00:41:27] It shows me who I am and then shows me how to be healed.
[00:41:31] And as I become more like Christ from ingesting his word as one under its authority, then I become changed and I can truly love and sacrifice for my wife because I truly start to see her as God sees her.
[00:41:45] And wives, you truly will start to see your husband as God sees him, as cherished and valuable and yes, broken, but so are you and God loves you.
[00:41:56] And so what I'm telling you is this is a long journey.
[00:41:59] So have supreme patience with both yourself and your spouse, but do not make excuses because there's a difference.
[00:42:11] Patience is I'm a new believer.
[00:42:14] I'm just learning this.
[00:42:15] So I messed up.
[00:42:17] But it is not making an excuse for why you messed up.
[00:42:20] You messed up because you're a selfish sinner.
[00:42:23] So am I.
[00:42:24] Don't make excuses for it.
[00:42:25] Don't try to downplay it.
[00:42:26] just own it, move on. So have patience with yourself, but do not make excuses for yourself.
[00:42:33] But if you want a marriage that is gradually, me and my wife are closer than we've ever been.
[00:42:38] And I hope that in five, 10, 15 years, I look back and say, man, we weren't even hardly that close at all then because of how close we are now. But this is the thing that has fundamentally
[00:42:49] changed my marriage more than anything else, more than anything else, more than practical tips or anything. It's I have become more like Christ. She has become more like Christ so that I understand when she's stressed out, sometimes she may vacuum the whole kitchen during dinner. It's crazy to me,
[00:43:06] but I'm like, she needs this right now. Sometimes I'm grumpy and it's basically the middle of dinner. She's like, you need to go work out. I'm like, okay, fair. All right, I'll go. But we've
[00:43:14] made more allowances for each other because we're more soft and tender and kind due to the work of God in our own hearts. So this is what we need. This is what we need. And out of this,
[00:43:27] we'll begin to truly love and cherish one another over time.