Transcript
Speaker: Hey, welcome back to Grove Hill and to our podcast. We are incredibly excited, as always, to have you joining us here. Thankful for your participation in what we think is really good conversation every week.
Speaker: We enjoy it. Yeah. Top shelf. I think we just like hanging out with each other. Excellent stuff. That's right. You know, one day you're going to turn on and going to be eating pizza. But... Hey, we are glad you joined us. And we're going to turn our attention to a really big, really big subject. So I'm going to go tell you ahead of time. This may not be our normal 20, 25 minutes. might go a little bit longer because we want to hit some things.
Speaker: It's not something you can cover in one whole podcast, but we want to try to touch as much as possible because you're listening to John, Kyle, and Ridley who are experts in this subject matter.
Speaker: What's the subject? The subject is marriage. Oh, boy. Marriage. We need to call some other people The mystery of marriage. Yeah. Yeah, we have the the scars and bruises to show for it, but also wisdom and experience. We've been through marriage now many years between the three of us. yeah yeah um learned some good lessons from mistakes we've made and also some good choices way. I think those are probably best lessons is the ones that are mistakes because you remember it so well. They stick in your head a little bit better, don't they? Yeah, yeah. So the way we're going to approach this is I know some podcasts do this and do it well. They, you know, give you 10 steps to a better marriage or, know, five steps to grow closer in your marriage. I thought I would approach it from this. We're just going to throw some broad statements about marriage out there.
Speaker: We're going to talk about them in as much detail as we can and try to cover them. But these are just some statements to help us engage with the word of God has to say about marriage as opposed to what the culture is trying to show us and teach us about marriage. yeah and just a little spoiler alert, the world is wrong. Right. Okay, so let's go ahead that out there. First thing, let's start with the very basic. Marriage was from the very beginning God's idea, right? Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Genesis 2 puts it out there, says from the very beginning that God created man, and he said, man, everything in this world is good except for the fact that man is alone. And so his idea was woman.
Speaker: And man, did he get that right? Of course, he's God. He always gets it right. yeah But um marriage was so important. It was one of the first things that God put into this world. Before there were governments, before there were authorities, before there were Ten Commandments and Bible stories, it was all about a man and a woman who were put here to um
Speaker: We carry out God's plan. Yeah. you know, the purposes. So let me ask this question. You two guys banter a little bit about this. Sure. Who should be able to define what marriage is then?
Speaker: Not I. Yeah, not us. God's already defined it. And I love how... it's almost like the the world, and it's not just America, but let's look at it from a worldly concept. ah You have places like Europe, you have places that we could probably point to where they wanted to find what marriage is, even in some crazy concepts like polygamy and, you know, in certain religious ah ideologies, they will put a definition of, okay, this is what marriage should be.
Speaker: But you can even look from the concept of historical proof and there's a burden of proof Where from the beginning of time, God set out man and woman. And it was Adam and Eve that started that. And so, as you pointed to Genesis 2, we don't see any other thing really before that. It's one of the first relationships. The the first relationship in all of humanity was Adam and Eve joining together. Yeah.
Speaker: And if you look at anything in this life, an artist, a designer, an engineer, um that person is is creating something and they're creating that thing for the purpose, right? And so if we were to ask the created object, what's your purpose, right? It would have to automatically refer to its designer. It'd have to automatically refer to whoever created it. And in Genesis 1 verse 27, it says so God... created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him.
Speaker: Male and female, he created them. And so with all the discrepancies in the world and identity crises in the world, we could solve it with one verse right here in Scripture that says, God was the designer.
Speaker: He created man, and he created man men and women. Right. and so it really like eliminates a lot of things. And so if you want my opinion, it's not an opinion. We go back to the designer, the creator of everything.
Speaker: Yeah. And that's a great point because what's happening in our culture today, and it's happened all around the world, it's happened for centuries, is that, call it whatever you want to, Satan, the world, the culture, whatever,
Speaker: It's going after marriage. yeah And specifically, one of the things they target is this question of, well, Jesus didn't really have much to say about marriage. Jesus didn't say a whole lot about marriage. But I want to read verse to you. I know you hear it a lot of times if you pay any attention to to the scriptures, but Matthew 19, 4 through 6, when he was asked about divorce, Jesus replied and said, haven't you read that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female, which we just read in Genesis 1, 27. And he also said, for this reason, a man...
Speaker: will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two will become flesh so they are no longer two but one flesh therefore what god has joined together let no one separate This is probably the only specific teaching that Jesus does about marriage, but he is intentional to go back to the Father's plan. connects it all the way back to the very beginning and says,
Speaker: this is all i'm going to say about it because it's all been said yes And really it's it's that he's agreeing with the Father. Yep. And ah the the verses you read alone tie into like 10 other, like scripture were popping into my head as you were reading it, 10 different places in scripture tying those together yeah into one statement, which is pretty cool.
Speaker: So if you believe marriage was designed by God and that he was the creator and that he gave male and female with a purpose then that serves as the foundation for everything else we're about to talk about. So starting there. Second thing I want to talk about, marriage is a covenant. It's not a contract.
Speaker: <unk>s Covenant, man, that that changes radically your perspective how you approach your marriage, right? Well, we boom mic we did sign the marriage certificate, right? but yeah yes Yes. No, the covenant sounds so business-oriented, but it's so true.
Speaker: It's a commitment. And ah we've kind of changed that, and we've made it almost like breakable yeah from the beginning, prenups or whatever you were whateverever you want to call it. We go into marriage thinking... If this ends in divorce, here's my backup plan. Here's my backup plan. yeah um when when When things were, you know, back in the old days when daddy and mommy chose who you're going to marry, it was like, this is who you're going to love. Right. And it was a commitment under that. So the covenant side of thing isn't something that you go into intending on breaking where a contract you would look for the loophole. You would look for the small print, whatever it may be. So, yeah, I would say covenant. Right. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. The contract doesn't look at the prosperity of the marriage. sure
Speaker: The covenant looks at, man, how can we honor God and further illuminate like the God that we serve when you're talking about covenant marriage? And there are some people where it is, they look at it like, man, I'm just signing a contract. yeah ah And what that says to me is You're just out to get your satisfaction, your pleasure. yeah And if it doesn't work, then, oh, that's why you're on that number three. Let's just call it like we see i mean so you be it. very true. Because the contract, there's always contract negotiations, right? Yes. So you're saying, these are my end of the deal. This is your end of the deal.
Speaker: And if you run a marriage like that, bye-bye. If there's an if-then kind of thing going on, um then you're doing it for yourself, right not the other person. yeah So let let me explain the big difference between a covenant and a contract for those you who are less familiar with those terms. A contract, if you know anything about business deals in the world, contract says, I will do this as long as you do that. That's right. There's a mutual agreement that there's going be services or goods or something provided back and forth. A covenant says, I am committing to do this to you, period. Right. I'm giving my word. Right. you know And so the reason that's different is because when you come into a contract, as Kyle just pointed out, you can negotiate that contract. Right. You watch pro sports and you realize guys contracts don't mean anything. It's a 10-year contract until I do have a good season. I'm to renegotiate that contract. yeah know
Speaker: um So kind a contract says I need fulfillment out of this. And if I don't get that fulfillment, then I'm going to come back and renegotiate the terms. A covenant says I am promising to do these things for you, to you, on behalf of you.
Speaker: And it doesn't really necessarily require that you do anything back. That's right. I don't need those things. yeah I want to speak to one thing, and you mentioned this ah when you spoke about the Genesis context. so ah People will argue this a lot of times. Well, where do we see in Scripture that we have to get married if we've committed or covenanted together? Now, when you covenant, there is this, and it's different in every culture. America...
Speaker: You sign a marriage certificate. You get married, and that's a part of the process. Back then, when we see Adam and Eve establish this, they establish it by having a one flesh union. So yeah there was a commitment before God. And yes, we have a commitment before God, but then it follows in... acting in obedience to saying, all right, we're going to follow the government that God established and put in authority and and follow the design that way. So ah you don't get out of it ah by just saying, oh, well, we commit to each other. No, you have to follow the establishments that God's put in place. Right, yep.
Speaker: um This third one is big. this is This is a big one. I think we all deal with it in our counseling with different people. It says, your spouse cannot carry the weight of being your savior. When I hear a statement like that, it takes me back to... um the the Tom Cruise movie, um show me the money kind of guy. When he says that romantic line at the end, he says to the girl, you complete me.
Speaker: And I'm like, that's bull crap. yes That's bull crap. that's Hollywood messes up our mind and our understanding of marriage and relationships so much. that the The ability of somebody to ah to fulfill your life, to give you purpose, to help with your emotions, to to do all these different things, to give you out out of marriage what you need, that is so far beyond human possibility. My wife, as good and amazing and as incredible as she is, cannot complete me in the way that God wants to complete me. Right.
Speaker: I think we yeah confuse like high standards with that idea right there that they're going to complete you. Because there is there is a standard that you need to have for the the mate that you're looking for, the spouse that you're looking for. and They need to follow the Lord. They need to be basically on the same pathway. You shouldn't be like facing in two different directions and not have that compatibility. But to think that that person's going to fulfill...
Speaker: a desire or a depravity that you have inside of you with the relationship is not the right approach. Yes. Jesus is the one that can can fulfill that and he can point you in the right direction of someone that can help you in your relationship with with the Lord. And so, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. So advice to you if you're single out there, if if you're getting married again, because probably you tried to find somebody to fulfill you the first time, or if you've never been married, you don't marry for someone to fulfill you. You marry someone because you choose to love them while God transforms both you into the image of Christ. That's right. You're both being pushed that direction. Right.
Speaker: So important, important, important stuff. Yeah. All right. ah And Tom Cruise is an idiot. all right, number four, marriage exposes selfishness. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's good Yeah. I would say there's like this progressive, your life progressively gets ah challenged more as as you progress through the stages, right? Right. um when you When you move out, you have all freedom, and then you get into relationship, and you see your freedom change because there's there's other someone else involved that you have to entertain their needs as well. and Then you get married and you find out how selfish you actually were and they start pointing that out. And then you have children. And once you have children, you really realize how selfish you were because all your time goes to tending to the people that God has entrusted you with. And so, ah yeah, it really reveals the areas of your life where you were doing things for yourself rather than for other people.
Speaker: I think it's really cool the... the I'm a i'm big big on surveys. I know my wife gets bored to death. But I love to see the trends in America because I see, sadly, sometimes where it's like, oh, we're about to tank. we're this This is the reason why marriage in in America...
Speaker: They're horrible. Yeah. ah Because the age of marriage, probably 50 years ago, we're looking somewhere in the early 20s when someone would go get married. Now we're reaching close to 30s. And because you have a generation that was set before them that said...
Speaker: No, they didn't. Marriage didn't fulfill this. It didn't do this. They're not reaching for the right solution. And so what we've told the generation is you need to hold off because you need to wait for that person that's going to fulfill you, that they're going to do all those things. And it's almost like they let a bigger span of time go on.
Speaker: And then by the time they're 29, 30 and they get married, they've already been single and that and that frontal lobe has started to develop. God started to form some things. yeah And it's even harder as you go into a marriage relationship not saying, yes, wait, do the right thing and date, you know take the time. But we almost have created this environment of it's all about us, it's all about me. yeah And then we wonder why this person that's been single for 10 years yeah goes into a marriage...
Speaker: And they have a harder time yeah connecting to a relationship. yeah So you know where this is showing up in the news you're really big right now? They are replaying this over and over and over again. They always do this kind of stuff as we approach elections. There's this video with Michelle Obama right now where Michelle Obama is talking about when their kids grew up and they got ready to leave the house and how... um how Barack was just all excuse me President Obama was like all upset because the girls were leaving home and all this kind of stuff and Michelle's going ah I was ready for him to leave I wanted my time back I wanted to do and she's just going on and on and on I'm like selfish selfish every statement is selfish it's all about you Michelle yeah um and people are hammering I think rightfully so you should have never become a mom
Speaker: If it was all about you. Sure. And I think that's what's happening in many of our homes is we get these fantasy ideas that we're going to birth this baby human and it's just going to kind of grow up, burp a couple of times and start taking care of itself. And Michelle, yeah like so many Americans says, I want this trophy, these two daughters, these two beautiful daughters. i want that trophy over here, but I'm not willing to play by the rules. It says you're going have to sacrifice. You're going to have to give. Right. You're going to have to set aside your agenda. yeah um
Speaker: I mean, let's be honest. You take two perfectly broken people and put them under one roof, they're eventually going to get on each other's nerves. They're going to expose each other. It's part of relationships. And we'll we'll get into that a little bit more. But when that starts to happen, then James 4...
Speaker: just shows up in our eyes. yeah you know What causes the fights and quarrels among you? Your selfish desires and ambitions. yes So that's what's getting played out there. All right, number five. Love is bigger than a feeling.
Speaker: Love is bigger than a feeling. Don't go to Disney rom-coms for your ideas of, wow, this is how I should do it. It'll never end up well. Because what happens is if you're writing the feelings, cracks me up whenever The Bachelor came out 20-some-odd years ago. I just, I'm kind of falling for you. Are you like mid-fall? How does this emotion work? I fell into a snare.
Speaker: Everywhere we see love in Scripture, it speaks to action. Everywhere we see love, whenever it's played out really well in our own lives, it's because there was an action accompanied with a feeling. Like there can be some really cool feelings that are invoked because of an action, but it it has to be propelling from a motion of action between two people in a marriage. I was actually thinking about this the other day and I was thinking, why do we why do we look so hard for that person person that fits us perfectly? It's because we are looking for the easiest route to a good relationship. yeah We're looking for the easiest marriage. We're looking for the easy things. And by my recollection, not a lot of good things come easy. A lot of good things require sacrifice, work,
Speaker: Commitment. Endurance. Endurance. And so to stand before someone toe to toe at your wedding day and say all the things, richer or poorer, sickness and health, you're you're setting aside all the emotion that's coming. You're setting aside all that thing that no matter what, no matter what.
Speaker: I'm to serve you for the rest of my life. How did ah how did that no matter what change from the day that you guys got married to now? That's right. Yeah. like Because i think we have this concept of no matter what, but then whenever you come up five, ten years out of the road, no matter what. I'm pretty sure that when my wife stood in front of that crowd and said, sickness and health and richer poorer, she was probably thinking the worst she was going to have to face if I had the flu. And then she woke up one day and realize realized, I can be a real pain in the butt. Yeah. She said, okay, this is way deeper than the flu. i don't I don't know why I'm doing this. I hope he's sick. Yeah, can we trade this in on something smaller? yeah Listen, where I don't think any of us are saying that emotions should not be part of love. right um I think there is a part of that. But when you get this idea that, that again, that Hollywood, Madison Avenue try to give us of, I am uncontrollable when I fall into this emotion. If you can't control falling in love, then you can't control falling out of love. Sure. Mm-hmm. So to me, it's ah it's like a scale. The less intentionality, the less mental decision to commit to someone that's involved in that, the less pure the love is. That's right. If it's just raw emotion, it's no better than bringing a puppy home. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And if you look at it the other way, when Jesus was in the garden before the cross, if he would have acted on his feelings. Yes. yeah I mean, if you just hear his desperate plea before he went to the cross, he's saying, Father, if it's your will, take this cup from me. You so you know what he was feeling at that moment. Right. But in the end, he said, not my will, yours. He knew what had to happen. Right. And so if we based every decision off of all all of our feelings, it's
Speaker: your chaos, right? Chaos, right? Sometimes it just, it means knowing the truth and the truth is that you committed yourself to this person and you're going love them no matter what. Yeah. So i tell couples when we're doing premarital counseling, if it was all about the emotions and the feelings and then when Jesus said to us, you must love your enemies, he gave us an impossible command to fulfill.
Speaker: Because he's saying, go against your emotions. Well, you can't go against your emotions. You have to choose to make a decision to go against your emotions. It just doesn't come naturally, just like Jesus. It did not come natural for him to go, I'll take that cross on you. know yeah um So, yeah. um The question then becomes...
Speaker: What can I give to the person in the relationship, not what can I get from them? Sure. That's where true love begins to show itself. all right, next We've got to keep moving. ah Man and husband and wife are different, and that's intentional by design.
Speaker: Yes. Hallelujah. Yes. Yes. Are these yes or no questions? That's a yes. Different in a physical nature. And as silly as that sounds, we have to say that. Yeah. Because there's this, go back to the feeling deal. hu um I was born this way and then I feel this way. Yeah.
Speaker: No, you you were given a chromosomal setup that God said, man, this is the way that... she was made and she is wonderfully and fearfully and beautifully made. So let's let it stay that way. If God designed it that way. And then in even in the spiritual aspect, um whenever God designed the structure of a home, he designed it beautifully. Yep. Where you had the man that would take a role and then a woman that would take the role um in And I would say all of those things really kind of correlate to the way that we have amazing households. The way that kids grow up in a healthy environment is when mom and dad are enacting their spiritual roles well. Yes. i watched a clip this morning from a progressive liberal Catholic church, which none of that goes together, up in Syracuse, New York, where a young
Speaker: It was giving testimony of how it was born a girl, but inside kept longing to be the boy she knew she was created to be. And she kept listening to mom and dad and teachers all telling her, no, you're a girl. No, you're a girl. But she just knew she was a boy.
Speaker: I mean, how confused can we be? yeah The world's telling you, you are a girl, and someone got in her head and said, no no, you're really a boy. And we get all confused about it. Listen, this is the simplest, probably the simplest decision you'll ever have to make in your life.
Speaker: If you don't know if you're a male or a female, This is the PG part of the program. Don't check your brain. Don't check your heart. Check your anatomy. That's right. And that's where you start.
Speaker: That's right. That's exactly right. And it goes back to the the first verse that we read here on the podcast today, Genesis 1, 27. God created them male. and female and there's no I get to switch that. Nope. There's no nope I get to change that. You can change your physicalness. You can have surgery and change things on your body. You could take pills of estrogen or or testosterone. You can cut your hair. You can do your makeup. You could do whatever you want to the physical aspect of your body, but you cannot change your chromosome structure. Correct.
Speaker: Now, so let's let's say this unapologetically. Men and women were created to be intentionally different, to work side by side, to fulfill the purposes of God. Yes.
Speaker: Male and female are not equal in their responsibilities, but they are equal in the fact that they were both created in the image of God. Yes. um But men think differently than women. they they yeah They behave differently than women. They have different emotions than women. That doesn't mean it's always the case.
Speaker: Nothing wrong if a man's more emotional than his wife. There's nothing wrong with that. It just means there's differences there. yeah And we have to recognize those that God, with all of his amazing knowledge, intentionally put that together that way. Yeah. yeah Okay. ah Number seven. We're doing pretty good here, I think. ah Communication isn't just about talking. It's about understanding.
Speaker: Communication in marriage. Number one reason I hear for divorce. Communication. This is the part where the experts have left the room. ah Have you ever seen the video of the woman and she has a nail in her forehead?
Speaker: Oh. and It's just stuck to the center of her forehead. oh And she's like, babe, I don't know what's going on. I have this headache like right here and and the pain just won't go away and it's it's actually distracting me from my day. And he goes, well, you got to nail it. And she's like, no, no, no, no it's not that. it's you know It's more than that. It's deeper than that. And he's like, it takes probably 45 seconds to a minute.
Speaker: And finally he just understands and says, man, i'm I'm so sorry you're feeling that way. And she goes, am I right? You know? and then she you know they go to kiss at the end and the nail hits him in the forehead and she's he's like, babe, you gotta take care of it. She's like, don't even start, right? But the idea of it is lot of times,
Speaker: a lot of times Just understanding, just understanding fixes the problem. yeah And I get so anxious to solve the problem. um And it's probably because of my selfish desires to to just get through it. Right? yeah And so when my wife's saying something, I'm already thinking of the the resolution in my head yep without even hearing the core issue of what's in her heart. And if I listened and just understood what the core issue was, then I would be able to communicate better with her.
Speaker: Sometimes it just it means sitting in that time for a little bit and exchanging back and forth. John, I'm looking at you like my wife or something. John, sorry. I appreciate that. yeah This is one of those places where we can say intentionally that men and women are different because most men, by and large, are protectors yeah for their families, providers. And to your point, first thing we want to do when we hear a problem is, all right, let's start working on a solution. That's right, yeah. And I can't tell you how many times my wife comes to me, says something, I can tell that's what she's wanting to do.
Speaker: I'm starting to give the solution, and that voice in my head, which I'm convinced is the Holy Spirit, is going, shut up, shut up, shut up. Quit trying to fix it, just listen. That's all she needs right now. Yeah, it's so hard. It is. It really is, because there's this...
Speaker: emotions or the the the absolutes that God designs. I would say this too, nonverbal communication. ah this ah yeah We just talked about listening, but there's the, just the body posture of me sitting in front of my wife and saying, you have my full attention without saying a word. If I sit down and if I look at her in the eyes, I have eye contact. And I just say, you know, based on those things, I'm here.
Speaker: It changes my wife's whole tone because she says, okay, for you man he's calming down to the point of like, he may not agree with me, but at least he's sitting down to try to listen and hear out what I'm i'm trying to say here. And John, what would happen if you had your phone in your hand? Oh gosh.
Speaker: That's another part of the nonverbal. it's It's what are the distractions that are still kind of, because I don't even have to be looking at my phone. Sometimes the, sometimes it's on the table, the the view of my phone lighting up yeah and it is near. She's like, are you busy? Yeah. No, I'm not busy. Yeah. You have my full attention. So eliminate the distractions and how it splits the focus. It does. It really does. It splits the focus.
Speaker: Yeah. And, and, you know, don't, Guys, when your wife comes in and says she wants to talk to you, don't keep looking at the TV. In fact, you want to win some points, turn the TV off. Don't even let it be a distraction. In my smarter moments, one of the things I've learned to do is... How many of those do you have? Once a month at least. I've learned to just ask when she says, hey, can we talk? okay is this is this a like you want me to listen or you want me to help you resolve sure um and i don't do that often enough that's probably a place where we could fix a whole lot of our conversations where i could just go you know if you're just needing me to listen i'm good to do that yeah i'll turn off my fixer you know but if this is a fix if this is where i need to do a solution then let's talk about it but whatever i do
Speaker: flip the phone upside down, turn off the TV, even go outside and sit on the porch, leave everything inside. I need to use that more often. yeah Fixer or listener. And this really goes to other relationships other than yeah your your marriage. just goes i mean I was talking to a dude one time and he was just pouring out his heart and it was supposed to be like a kind of a counseling session and I never really said much. And as he walked out the door, he's like, hey, thanks for all the advice. yeah And I'm like...
Speaker: I didn't say anything, right? But the fact that he can dump into a safe place yeah and someone hear him out, he felt like he felt like I was giving him something, right? And so same thing. If I keep chiming up and giving the offering the solutions to my wife, she's not really feeling anything. Like I understand what it's funny because I've been talking with counselors in our church here recently. and We've been working on a new counseling program. Hopefully we'll be rolling out in our church soon. And they've confirmed most of the time when you're going to a professional counselor, the desire is just to be heard. It's not really, i want you to fix anything. I just need somebody who can listen. all right. Number eight conflict is not evidence of a bad marriage necessarily. Hmm.
Speaker: No, I think it's just evidence of two unique people. of There are, i would say, if you ever think that there's going to be a perfect marriage where there is no conflict, I would say you have a lot of question marks. So conflict is a good thing. ah There's conflict probably in my marriage, I would say, you know, in certain fractions throughout the month. Sometimes it's conflict with...
Speaker: hey, why did you do this this way? Sometimes it's just methodology. It's not right or wrong, but that turns into, why did you do it this way? sure And Manic can go back and say, i can say...
Speaker: I've done that just because I grew up doing that or I did this because this is how, you know, I was adjusting to adulthood in this way. And and she gets the idea and concept, but no, yeah, conflict is not a always a telltale of, man, you got a bad marriage. Yeah, when when Kelly and I first got married, ah I would put the toilet paper roll on one way and she would it on the other way. Well, we had a cat growing up that would spin the roll and so we'd mount it the other way so it couldn't spin the roll out. And i was like, hey, it goes this way. And she's like, well, actually, i like it this way. And I'm like, well,
Speaker: what if a cat and she's like we don't have a cat like ah right but it's like just so just how we grew up right yeah and so we figure it out like do i really care which way the the toilet paper roll goes no yeah right i don't yeah Yeah, I mean, we we said this earlier, probably have said it numerous times, actually, but conflict is the result of two people living together. yeah I mean, you do it with your siblings growing up, and you can live with your husband or your wife when you get married, you add children to the picture, more conflict comes in. So conflict's just part of it. I think probably the two most important sentences for a healthy marriage is, I was wrong, will you forgive me? Mm-hmm. Those two things can change a whole lot in ah in a marriage in a second.
Speaker: They are well-worn sentences in my vocabulary. So, yeah, i I can tell you they work. I would say, importantly, too, just learn how to fight fair. Yes. When you have ground rules of how you're going to treat this person that you committed to and that you love to say,
Speaker: I don't agree with you right now, but I'm going to fight this out fair. yeah We're going to have ground rules in the way that we talk to each other, the way we hear each other out. Have those established things that you go to yeah whenever you're trying to work through something that's a little tense. One of the really important ground rules, never use the word divorce. Never threaten it. That's not a negotiation tool. It's not a card to be played. no If you're doing a healthy Christian marriage, it shouldn't be part of the conversation. Kelly and actually had that conversation before we were married and just said, hey, this isn't an area we're going to go into, right? yeah Dr. James Dobson used to say one of the healthiest things you could do for your children is to resolve conflict in a healthy way in front of them. Yes, absolutely. And so a lot of people will go into the bedroom because they want to fight dirty, right? Like they want to they want to scream and yell and all this stuff. But he was saying, have that conflict.
Speaker: Navigate it in a healthy way and resolve it in front of your kids. Yes Because otherwise you're gonna give them this this instance I knew this girl who her parents would always go in the bedroom to fight Mm-hmm and she thought parents didn't fight. Yeah And so when she got married and her and her husband had the first fight She's like it's over right like yeah her her idea of marriage was peace. Yeah, no conflict but her her parents had deceived her right? Yeah And so it's okay to have those conversations. And Kelly and I would look at each other sometimes while we're doing it.
Speaker: yeah And we look at the kids and we're like, okay, let's let's figure this out here. Yes. Because that's going to give my son the idea of what a man is supposed to handle conflict. And our daughter of how a woman is supposed to be treated in that conflict. How else are your kids going learn if you don't model it? That's right. Yes. All right. ah We've given them a lot of of bad examples too. so yeah Number nine, physical intimacy matters.
Speaker: I think so. Oh, yeah. All in favor? i Yeah, it's really, really important. um You know, there was ah a period in American history, I won't put a tag on it because I don't know exactly, but there's a period in American history where I think the church retreated from the conversation of sexual intimacy. yeah We shouldn't have, we shouldn't be ashamed of marital intimacy. God created it. He's the one that came up with this wonderful idea for physical intimacy. We should enjoy it. We should talk about it. We should talk about but it with our children. The public schools should not be teaching our kids about physical intimacy. The church has got to quit being embarrassed about it. yes we We had a situation here a few years ago.
Speaker: I'll try not to give details, so the information... But but we had a situation here a few years ago where somebody came to us and said, hey, y'all mentioned something in church and it caused us to go home and have to have conversations with our kids. And they were saying that to us as if, oh, shame on you. And when you they told us, we were like, congratulations. Because you should have had the conversation three years ago. you know So I'm glad it's been forced on you. um Parents, don't don't don't shy away from that. yeah But when it comes to your marriage, physical intimacy is absolutely important. It helps to...
Speaker: It helps to relieve insecurities. It helps to reaffirm the the connectedness of the marriage. It should never be a negotiation tool or a blackmailing tool. um And there should be understanding in it, especially as...
Speaker: Things change as you get older, as stress in the marriage may cause issues between one or the other. remember when I was working as a student minister, I had a young couple that worked in my student ministry where he would come to me and it became a joke for him, I think, as a way to cope with it. that she used to always use a negotiation tool. How good is the week gone? Then we can have relationships later this week. But I mean, I just felt sorry for Yeah. And it was a hard thing to watch as they tried to work through their marriage. I think you said something that's very important. I think because the church absence in it, in fact, even in my generation, I was always told that sex was bad. was a sin. All this stuff, right? Never given the context of, no, sex is amazing within the confines of marriage, right? Correct. And so a lot of Christians will get to marriage and then they'll have they'll have struggles in the sexual area because they've been told their whole life. It's a no, no, no, no. Right. Yep. So having the conversations saying that, no, these things are OK within this guideline right here. But right now we're going to remain pure until we get to that point. You know, I think it's incredibly important. Another thing I wanted to say
Speaker: as men, we need to implement a lot of physical touch without sexual intention. yeah And what I mean by that is putting your hand on your wife's thigh, just letting her know that you're you're there, your arm around her, hugs, kisses without the intention of it going further, combing her hair, whatever it may be. yeah um There's a need for a woman in that area that doesn't involve the actual act of sex. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I want to mention something to establishing specifically the dads. um You establish the baseline of what sex is like in the sense of dads and moms talking to your sons and daughters of what sex is in the the bounds of marriage, confines of marriage. Go to First Corinthians and talk about I'm not my own. man that's My wife, you know, we are each other's, you know, obviously in Christ. But whenever it comes to that, if we don't set the bound boundaries and we don't set the establishments and confines of that,
Speaker: Guess what? You just said it. The world is going to. And so I'm living proof of that. Pornography was, it hit me hard yeah as a high schooler. Yeah. And you know what it did? it ruined some of the very, very beginning moments of marriage. Mm-hmm. where I had this conception of, okay, this is what sex is. And it was hard to work through some of that stuff. So just really defining what intimacy is in Christ and what distorted intimacy can look like. So we we really want to draw back on, man, let's let's do intimacy God's way in the marriage. And let me just say this to you if you're listening out there. If you're one of those people, kind of like what Kyle described, where
Speaker: your whole um education about intimacy growing up was sex is bad, don't do it kind of thing. And you're going, you know and I'm in a marriage where i just don't i don't know what to do. There's no shame in reaching out to your pastor or to a counselor or someone to say, hey, let's get this fixed. It's that important. yeah It's so important that 1 Corinthians 7, Paul gives instructions about don't withhold this thing because it opens the door for for Satan to do what he wants to. Yeah. Yeah. He given the instance of withholding is for a time, agreed upon time ye in regards to like fasting, right? Of prayer. And so um really it's like if there is a time where you decide to withhold, it's a mutual agreement between the two of you saying, hey, for this amount of time, we're going to for these reasons. Yeah. Speaking of Satan, the next one, your marriage has a real enemy.
Speaker: Your marriage has a real enemy, okay? Not everything that happens in your marriage that's on the negative side of things, not everything is spiritual warfare, but you are deceived if you don't believe there is spiritual warfare around your marriage. no Every day. yeah I would say probably there a lot of the issues in my marriage is me, like my choices. Yeah, yeah. um But we definitely know when things are good, like when we are doing well and I'm not making mistakes and she's not making mistakes. Yeah.
Speaker: that's when we feel the spiritual warfare. yes When we're headed in the right direction, Satan doesn't want that. When I'm doing the work on my own, Satan doesn't need to involve himself into it. it' right But when I've committed and and she's committed and we're just we're seeking the Lord, that's when we file fear the you know the second flat in a week and the the third car to break down in a week, whatever it may be, and you feel like it's just hitting you and then people are accusing you. It's it's like, okay, there's something other than us feeding into this.
Speaker: yeah And don't don't be mistaken. Satan can use normal, everyday, common things as an open door to create gaps in your marriage. It could be the kids misbehaving. It could be a long bout of sickness that brings the house down. It could be a bill that was unexpected. All kinds of things he can use to set you off. Marriages don't end because you had a bad Monday morning.
Speaker: They end because slowly you let Satan begin to separate you and divert your paths. So that's why I would argue intentionally every couple should at least every once a week through church. But I would argue every morning come back together, align their hearts through prayer, in conversation about the marriage. It's just like our Christian relationship with the Lord.
Speaker: ah The more things we allow to come between us and Him, we're breaking that fellowship. It's the same thing with your marriage. so right The more things that you put selfishly in between you and your spouse, the further you grow apart. And so, you know, you have your hobbies, she has her hobbies, and then your hobbies you spend more time on and she desires this. And then you add kids into the situation and you put sports first and you you put all these things together. That you think you're doing right, and yet you're just building space between you and your spouse. And so when when the trials come, you're so far apart, yeah you can't reach to hold her hand. All right, two more. Number 11, your marriage needs friendship in the middle of it.
Speaker: In other other words, your spouse should be your best friend. Yes. And you've got to be intentional about that. Oh, yeah. yeah you know It can't always be about who's paying the bills, who's picking up the kids, you know that kind of stuff.
Speaker: Date one another. And when you say date, immediately people go, you man, you know how hard it is to find a place to afford to go eat Go pick up chicken nuggets from the Publix grocery store. Go walk around Walmart or Costco. Go to a state park and walk around. There are affordable ways to yeah date and court your your spouse yeah without having to put yourself in debt. Yeah, we we have this conversation a lot being in the youth group and, you know,
Speaker: watching people go into the young adults time and they're looking for that spouse, right? And so there's a lot of questions of compatibility. Yes. And it all comes down to, are you obviously, your faith in the Lord. yeah But it all comes down to, are you able to be best friends? Yep. And if you can be best friends, like you enjoy being with each other. Genuinely enjoy. And you have the same desires towards the Lord.
Speaker: There's no other explanation. right Yeah, people think that they can hop that step. And they think, oh, it just goes to a romantic. But no. yeah Can you enjoy some this? No, I'm not asking that you have to like the same football team. Correct. I converted my wife. She is now an Oklahoma Sooner. But in all seriousness, we we befriend and we love to just be in the presence of them because there's this... ah That kind of sounds weird, but this camaraderie of, man, we just enjoy spending time with one another. you know So that dating thing that you're talking about, it makes total sense because you're intentionally spending time at a rhythm of, hey, maybe once or twice a month, I'm just going to go, hey, kids, you're going to stay with this person yeah that I trust, and I'm going to go take your mom because at some point,
Speaker: You're going to leave the house and it's going be me and mom here 20 years later. so And you're also going to start dating your own person. So I want you to see how this is done. Exactly. You don't just quit because you get married. yeah That's right.
Speaker: That's one of the best advice we got at our wedding was never stop dating. Never stop intentionally pursuing. and Never stop learning because we change. you know We go through our 30s and our 40s, and then maybe our preferences change. yeah And so to be able to know you know your wife's favorite food and what she prefers in the evening and all these types of things are things we need to know. Guys, if you've stopped writing poetry for your wife, get back to doing it, even if it's roses or red, violets or blue.
Speaker: If you don't open the door for your wife, get back to doing it. That's right. um Be your rice protector. Do the little things. Hold her hand in public. ah Intentionally plan dates. Little things like that go a long, long yeah way with your spouse. All right. Last one Your marriage is part of your witness.
Speaker: Yes. I like these yes or no questions. They're all yes. The whole intention is is to be a conduit. We are to share in the... Philippians 3 says we're the whole goal is to share in the sufferings of Christ and to also share in the resurrection. So that there's resurrection hope in our life. Man, yeah if the closest relationship that we have on earth... yeah it should be a magnifier of that, that we should say, man, the hope of Christ lives in us. And because of that, we love like Christ does. We we give you know unselfishly. The the whole agape love, this selfless love, God wants us to push towards that in a marriage. And so, yeah, definitely conduits of that. yeah sure The goal of your marriage shouldn't be to stay together.
Speaker: Okay? sadly, in 41 years of ministry, I've seen a lot of marriages that and stay together. And they stay together by agreeing not to be together. You know, you do your thing, I'll do my thing, I'll work 70 hours a week, you go be with the girls, you know, that kind of stuff. That's not marriage. Your marriage should honor God by reflecting Him well.
Speaker: And there's a lot of things about that. We obviously don't have time to dig into all of that, like we didn't have time to really dig into all 11 of the other points. But... um it's It's scary because I worked with a guy who preferred to work double shifts because he didn't want to be home with his wife, right? He would say, the reason we are still married today is because I work night shift, she works day shift, and we never see each other in the passing, right? And those types of situations break my heart, right? Because if I weren't sitting here with you guys, like I want to be home, yeah right? like oh when When the time clock punches, i want to be with my family. want to be with that wife, right? And so there should be there should be that desire. And if there's that desire is gone, then your marriage is likely not reflecting Christ. And so Paul made it very clear. paul Paul said, husbands, love your wife like Christ loves the church. at to And this whole... this whole um
Speaker: comparison between a husband and his bride is the comparison between Christ and the church. yep And so if we're messing that up, we're giving the world a skewed version of what Christ and the church looks like. oh I had a really good guy in my first church, well, it's my second full church out of seminary. It was when was a student pastor and he did I mean, every time I turned around, he was in everything the church was doing, projects, mission trips, serving with the youth, things like that. And one day I just in awe said, how do you manage it all and take care of your family? And he basically em admitted the reason I do this is so I don't have to be around my wife. You know, it's kind of just our agreement. she's She works full time, takes care of the kids. I'm here.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, being there serving Jesus does not take the place of loving your wife. That is not the way this works. I'd like to know where his kids are today. Yeah, you' no kidding. All right, so that's a lot about marriage in a very little bit of time. We probably set a record there. But listen, 12 different things that we've shared. I hope you'll go back and listen to it again. If you want to dig in deeper on any one of them, reach out to one of the three of us or something and just say, hey, I would love for you all go back and visit number two or number four whatever. um I also would encourage you, if you didn't, if you weren't at our church on October the fourth go back and listen to Kyle's sermon he preached yesterday. it it was fantastic.
Speaker: ah Although it wasn't about marriage, I feel like it had so much to do with marriage because he was talking about living in the rubble of your life and putting up with those things. And those are messages you'll hear coming back around again and again and again as we try to encourage people to grow in their faith and grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Thanks for joining us today. We're going to pray here in just a second. But as we get ready to do that, i want to kind of let you know we are still at our old building for the next few days.
Speaker: 8, 9, 30, 11 o'clock. If you're in the area locally, we'd love for you to come worship with us. But beginning November the 1st, that is our first Sunday in our new facility just down the road from where we currently meet. We would love to have you come and join us. We will be shifting our worship times to 9 a.m. and 1045. So we'd invite you to come and be a part of that. Come worship with us.
Speaker: We'd love to meet you if you've been following us and listening to us but haven't ever attended. We'd love to make a connection with you okay? I'm going ask John if he would close us in prayer, and then we'll wrap up. God, we thank you for the the design of marriage. We thank you for the group of ah people that we have here to talk about it today. And I pray that ah all of our listeners today would just be able to to look at the things that the world throws them and be able to to combat it with what your word says. We go back to your word every single time and we get something that is living and breathing and we get something that is ah the source of life and the source of the answer that we need. So God,
Speaker: We pray that you are glorified and that you are made much of in all that we say and do. Be with everyone as they go about their week and pray that we live changed lives in light of it.
Speaker: Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I invite you to join us next week. We're coming back with the subject of parenting, a subject that all three of us are equally inept at. And now we're going to come off for some wisdom on what the Bible has to say about parenting. While we're on that subject, check out ah Kyle's Student Life podcast that he does every week as well. Great tips there for parenting for you and a great place for you to gather some information there. We love you. We're thankful you're joining us, and we would love to hear from you. In the meantime, I pray that you will focus on your marriage and make it what God really wants it to be instead of what the world tells you should be. All right? Have a great week. Make sure you like, click, share, and follow.
Speaker: Bye. by
