Love & Marriage - The Wholehearted Family

You're listening to this edition of the world.

Okay, here we go.

So here's the first question.

What revelation, meaning, wisdom here?

How do you love your wife as Christ loves the church?

How do I show honor and respect to my husband?

I'll take that one.

I don't know.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message.

If you turn in your Bibles before we get into the discussion that we're going to have up here, I want you to turn to Ephesians 5.

And as I shared at the conference, and for you that weren't there, Ephesians 5, 18 through 33 is God's manual on marriage.

You know, God wrote a book on marriage.

My book just came out, second edition, Godwile Marriage.

It's available at the Welcome Center.

You can purchase it.

It just came out a few days ago.

It's on Amazon.com also.

You can get it on Amazon.

But this book is built on a series that I did years ago on Ephesians 5, 18 through 33.

So this is a picture, my version of a picture, of what is already here in Scripture, in which we elaborate on how to grow a godly, powerful, spirit-anointed marriage.

And I just wanted to read this one part.

And then what we're doing today, men and women, is we're answering some of the questions that you asked.

I think it was three, two or three weeks ago, we asked you to write down on cards any questions you had about marriage.

We condense them into a few because there were so many.

There was five times, ten times, five or six times more than this, but we kind of condensed this down and we're going to cover this and uh and answer a few questions that I think will be helpful.

But let's look at verse 18, Ephesians 5.

And here's my thesis.

My thesis is this that if you get what I'm about to read right in your marriage, it covers a multitude of sins.

How many are sinful out there?

How many know that your spouse is sinful out there?

Okay.

Wouldn't you want to know how to cover a multitude of their sins?

Because you've got it all together, but their problems.

Well, it's through the power of the Holy Spirit.

You may not be the greatest communicator.

You may not be the greatest in money management.

All those are important, by the way.

But if there was a starting point, a foundation for everything in marriage, I would say this is it.

Because if you surrender your heart and your mind to the power of the Holy Spirit, you now have the creator of the universe giving you wisdom and insight into your mate, and for you that are single and are dating into your relationships that you could not naturally have.

It's called supernatural.

His super gets on your natural and you begin to see things and understand things with wisdom that you didn't have.

Ephesians 5.18.

Do not get drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.

Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

Giving thanks always for all things to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.

Now I gave a message on that, and I'm not going to give a message on it right now.

But I want it to just cover real quick and then we'll go to the questions that we have, and we're going to have an animated time together because not everybody knows what the questions are.

So we're going to really give you straight from our heart what we think God might be giving us for each of you that might be concerned or want to know the answers to those questions.

But the first message was on the differences between men and women.

And Vince and Cindy did a superb job in explaining why we have conflicts and how we need to complement each other.

It was a beautiful set of messages.

Then Liz and I talked about the power of the Holy Spirit.

After that, Liz and I talked about praying together.

And then listen to this.

Listen to this statistic.

And it's actually the preface to the new edition of the book.

If you, as a couple, pray together and read the Bible together, your chance of divorce is 1 in 1,156.

That's 0.0008%.

One of the questions in here is how to divorce proof your marriage.

So we'll cover that.

And then lastly, Vince talked about being mission-directed.

Having a purpose in your marriage greater than your marriage.

Greater than yourself.

So that's what we covered during the marriage conference.

Are you guys ready now?

Okay, here we go.

So here's the first question.

What revelation meaning wisdom here?

How do you love your wife as Christ loved the church?

How do I show honor and respect to my husband?

I'll take that one.

I I don't know.

Well, I think that our greatest Valentine is Jesus Christ.

And we have a Valentine God, and he wrote a love letter to us.

And so I think we're going to find a lot of answers when we're in God's word.

And there's a great quote about God's love letter that was, I don't read this, I let it read me.

So I think our greatest opportunity to change is to let God's word read us.

I think we're all on a journey and we're all learning how to love like our Valentine God.

That's just a starter.

Yeah.

I I would add to that.

We actually kind of closed with something like that at the end of the conference yesterday, and and I um uh I talked about the two uh the greatest uh uh commands that Jesus ever uh gave was to love who first?

The great commandment love the Lord your God, right?

And then your neighbor is yourself.

And um my takeaway from that is that they're in that order for a reason.

You cannot really do the latter without the former.

And so the idea is until I know in our early uh relationship when we we were just kids when we met, uh I I had no clue what it meant to love her like that.

I really didn't.

I tried to love her in my flesh.

But the more we grew in our relationship and the closer that each of us got to God, and that that's the old triangle, how God's at the top and then the man and the woman, and how we really worship and love God, and he sheds his life and his grace upon us and enables us to love each other on this plane in a way that meets our fears and needs uniquely, it can only happen as we love him.

And what I closed with last night was the illustration I believe I've used here that many of you remember about the great exchange.

Uh if these are my circumstances and my problem is out here, and let's say my problem is my spouse, if I'm seeing my spouse through my flesh and my circumstances, they look fuzzy.

But once I put God here, and then and only then will he enable us to see our spouse through his eyes.

And listen, guys, I'm telling you, it's impossible to see somebody through Jesus' eyes and not love them.

It's just not possible.

The key is to really be so close to God and ask God, and sometimes I'll do that, I'll say, Lord, could you uh remind me afresh of how precious my wife is in your eyes?

Could you help me today to see her the way you see her?

And he does, he'll answer that prayer.

I think when we were we were young and we were having some really difficult problems, and uh there was a period of about eight years that I was praying.

The Lord showed me a lot of things, uh, and one of them was that I needed to be in his presence, I needed to get to know him, I needed to be in the word, and that I wasn't going to change a hair on Vince's head, that the Lord was calling me to be the woman of God that he wanted me to be.

And I've kind of learned over the years that the best gift we can give our mate is our own wholeness.

Because when we're right with God and we're walking close and we're in the word and we're trusting the Holy Spirit, it changes everything.

Then the things that the Lord calls us to do, we're able to do.

In the flesh, we're just not able to do that.

But to love and respect our husbands the way that the Lord wants us to will only come by growing and hearing God's word and allowing his spirit to change us.

Love that.

You know, um, we were missionaries in Japan, and you get a passport.

And you get this passport because we're American citizens living as expatriates in another land.

So we're in a host country.

And the scriptures say this, and this is actually what the person I think is referring to, is that husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her.

So Christ left heaven, became a man, foreign territory, foreign land, and he died here.

And men, how many of you know that women are a different land?

They're a different culture, they speak a different language, they are as different as going into another country.

And you almost need to, we we should do this.

I always said I would do this, and I never have done that.

We almost need to give a passport out when we do a marriage ceremony.

One for her and one for him.

Um but the call here is that you, men, would be willing to enter into your wife's world and die there.

Yeah.

Because if you enter her world, you will die there.

And it's and it's hard, it's difficult.

I think this is why um Vince, Cindy, Liz, and I believe so strongly in having other mentoring couples in your life that are older than you, that are more experienced than you, or more successful and effective than you are, so you can learn from them.

Because everybody will answer that slightly different.

I want to say one thing.

One of the greatest gifts that Steve gave me most of the time was um that I always felt like his favorite place was our home.

And even though he couldn't be there as much as I was there, he always felt like this is his favorite place too.

And that made me excited about what I was doing in um what God called me to do.

And it's different for every woman, but I always felt like he's coming home and enjoying being there with our family.

And I think that's a great gift that a man can give us that that feeling of like, I love being here.

That's great.

So here are here's a question applicable things a man can do to lead his family, lead his wife.

What would you say, Vance?

Applicable things that a man can do to lead his wife, or even let's just let's just think that we have so many couples in here that aren't married, that are young people, even in a dating relationship, how can that man be a spiritual leader?

You know, uh I I'll take that one first because when when I first asked Jesus into my heart, Cindy was already, gosh, I don't remember, several years, I guess, uh ahead of me.

She probably about eight years or nine years ahead of me.

So I kind of looked at her, and I'm sure this may be true for many of you men that are here today.

You look at your spouse, and if they've come to Jesus before you, you have this assumption that they're spiritually more mature than you are, and that they're in a position to be better able to lead you and your family spiritually.

Uh but at the end of the day, that's not the order God created.

He really uh uh a woman, it says in the Bible, will desire her husband.

It's we unpacked that at the conference yesterday, and it says that her husband would rule over her, but that doesn't mean to to lord it over, guys.

That means to be a place of safety, a place of security.

When we've talked to women's leaders all across the country, really all around the world, they always come back and they say the same thing.

They say, we are desperate for our men to become the spiritual head of our home.

How many of you ladies would say that's what you're really looking for?

Even though we men may be intimidated, they're desperate for it.

So early on, I was intimidated because she knew so much.

She had so much wisdom about the Lord.

It was like, well, who am I?

It was hard for me to even pray around her.

But I had to work through that.

I had to just work through it.

She kept encouraging me, honey, just spend more time with the Lord.

Work through it.

And I I did.

I started to do that, and the more I did that, uh uh the more the bet the better I got at it, the more closer I got to the Lord.

And so the the idea for you men is just go for it.

Stay, get in the Word, uh ask God to give you some wisdom.

Uh be the one that takes charge and prays, even though you may think you're not a good prayer, just do it anyway.

And for you ladies, uh do what our men need the most.

Encourage them.

Even though it may not be perfect, encourage them anyway, and just keep doing that, and you will get there.

But the God's order is that we men are supposed to be the spiritual head of our home, and nothing makes my wife feel more comfortable.

Now, and I get this.

When she knows that I'm spending time with God and I'm in the word and I'm reading and I'm doing my devotional time, nothing gives her more peace and security than to know that her man is doing that.

Would that be accurate?

I think, too, that in those kind of situations that we as women have to remember that to allow a space there for our husband to move into.

Because we as women, if we see an empty spot, we usually jump into it and take it take it over and try to control it.

If somebody isn't doing it, we're gonna do it.

And that's kind of a motherly thing or taking care of our household or whatever.

And I I remember when Vince really did give his life to the Lord, and uh before that I kind of felt like the Lord said, for now you're the redeemer of the household.

Um and I think that could be true with a child in a household.

God said, Whosoever, who wants who wants to follow me?

And God will work through that person in the household.

But then when Vince came to know the Lord, um the Lord really spoke to me and he said, You must decrease and let him increase, make a space for him to move into.

And I thought that was powerful.

Can I just add out that real quick?

The where the passage in Timothy where where Paul says uh that women should be quiet in the church.

Uh nob nobody wants to preach on that verse, by the way, because they they have a misunderstanding of what Paul was saying.

The word quiet is tran is is in three uh texts in that flow of text, and it means the same thing in all three instances.

It the word is Hesushia, and translated it means to step back and live quiet and orderly lives.

What Paul was saying is, ladies, resist your temptation to fill the vacuum and the void left behind by maybe men who weren't stepping up and doing their job.

Step back and live quiet and orderly lives and pray for and encourage your men to step into their rightful position of spiritual authority within the church.

That's really what he was saying.

And I think that's really what Cindy is is saying here, too.

She did exactly that.

She stepped back and allowed me to make mistakes, and then eventually uh we grew.

I'm sorry we took too much time, maybe for that one, but you want to say anything, Hun?

So I would say this that don't hear us saying that women, that you should in any way limit your passion for the Lord.

No.

That's not being said.

Go for it.

Just fan that flame in your heart big time.

Go for it.

But here's what I would say to the men.

If I was coaching you and if we were one-on-one, I would say, here's where I'd start.

Just start with a simple prayer every morning where you guys come together and like we modeled it at the conference, you would just lay hands on her and say, Lord, I pray a blessing over Liz.

I pray, Lord, that you'd minister through her.

I pray for the passion of the kingdom to be over her in the name of Jesus.

As simple as that.

Then she prays a prayer over you.

That's one thing.

Then, second, I would say, you need to get fired up.

You men have got to get fired up.

And the only way to get fired up is becoming a worshiper and a warrior.

And the way you become a worshiper and warrior is you get into the word every morning.

You spend time.

Just read one chapter and say, God, fire me up.

God, would you speak to me and just start following the PB and J that we have in our journal?

If you don't have a journal, go pick up a journal.

And just don't even worry about the first part of the year.

Just start wherever it is, which would be the 17th tomorrow, and just read those passages or just take one of them and start reading.

Say, God, would you inspire me?

Would you fill me?

Would you empower me with your spirit?

And he'll come.

And he'll come in a mighty way.

Good stuff, right?

All right.

How to use differing strengths, and you guys covered this at the conference.

See, I'm going to give it to you guys on this one.

How to use differing strengths to bless and strengthen each other instead of driving each other nuts.

Do you guys drive each other?

Do you guys drive each other nuts?

Well, we we really uh that was really the essence of what we unpacked.

Many of you here have taken our spiritual gift tests.

And by the way, if you if you've never done that, um we are actually requiring that of all of us here at our church that are going to be in leadership in any capacity.

Um we, if you go to our website, which is otm.co, that's it, just otm.co, right on the front page you can click on a free gift test, and you it takes about 20 minutes to take.

And it'll you can hit submit at the end, and it'll actually produce a report and it'll tell you how God has wired you uniquely.

It's driven by the gifts, the seven natural gifts that are found in Romans.

And so when we do that, we discover why we as a man and a woman tend to look at the same illustration and see it through two entirely different lenses.

At the end of the day, what we're what we're saying is a sign of spiritual maturity in a relationship is when we uncover and recognize those differences and use them to complement each other and not beat each other up.

And the illustration I closed with, uh Cindy and I were in Canada doing a couples event for a ministry there, and at the end of the event, the uh we were at lunch with the uh founder and his wife, and she asked me a question.

And when she was asking me the question, I mean, my pride was telling me I am the man, I should answer that question.

But in the middle of her asking me the question, I knew, you know what, I don't think I'm supposed to answer this question.

And I deflected it to Cindy, okay?

And so Cindy answered the question.

And like all three of us were listening to her, and it was like in the spirit realm, our hair was flowing straight back, and our eyes were bugging out of our head, and it's thinking, I'm thinking, man, am I glad I didn't try to answer that question, okay?

But and so it was like, wow, man, am I glad I did that?

And they actually asked us about it afterwards.

They said, We noticed that you did that, and we told them.

We said, We're learning that.

We don't always do it right, but we're learning because we're wired so differently.

And so I knew that she was the one that needed to do that.

So learning about your differences is the first step, and understanding that you're different because of your past life experiences, you're different, different because of your physiological makeup, you're different because of the way God wired you uniquely.

There's a lot of different ways we differ, but learning that and allowing those differences to complement each other is what God really intended.

Awesome.

Good.

Here's an Important one.

This is one that everybody in this room struggles with.

How do you not carry difficulties or disagreements forward?

How do you truly forgive with I think that this isn't just about marriage?

I think it's about life.

We hurt each other at times unknowingly, and it's hard.

And we can feel kind of down or upset about things, and the other person doesn't even know sometimes.

So I would say that, well, first of all, this is really an interesting question for me because I can be kind of quiet, but if you know me, I can be a great debater.

So poor Steve would do something that annoyed me, and all day long I'd think about, I know how to get him when he gets home.

And I'd be like debating.

I'd get all my debate points.

And so the poor guy walked in and he didn't even know he did anything wrong, and man, I got him.

And uh remember those days?

Marital ambush, marital ambushes.

Yeah.

But one thing I realized is doing that is so such a waste of time because we have to make up, we have to talk about it.

So I learned I want to disagree with unity in mind.

Disagree with unity in mind.

So we don't have to waste time.

Um so isn't that a good thing that I got to that point?

She got to that last week.

I'm gonna have to think about that.

Um but anyway, I feel that um I started, I've learned to start out with one phrase, and I really believe this for most of the the conflicts that happen.

Is I'll say to you, I know you didn't mean to do this.

You're so good at that.

But I felt hurt when this happened.

And then we can talk about it, and I didn't come and like ambush him and make him feel like a total loser.

He can just talk about what happened, and it goes quicker, so we don't have those long silences and long cold moments, yeah, and we can just talk about it.

So I love that phrase, I know you didn't mean to do this, but I felt this way when you did the this thing or said this.

So think about um disagreeing with unity in mind and realize that God is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And when we're filled with God's Spirit, that's how we should be.

There is a great um quote by Ruth uh Graham that said that a good marriage is made of good forgivers, and a good relationship is made of good forgivers.

So just waiting to forgive, um, being anxious to forgive is so powerful.

All right.

You know, uh let's stay there for just a moment because in all of our marriage conferences, that is probably the number one thing that comes up every time.

And uh George Herbert has a great quote.

He says, He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.

And while that's a powerful, kind of a more of a secular quote, um, how many of you know Jesus uh believes forgiveness is very important, and uh that's why he says how many when he's asked how many times we uh should forgive, he comes up with uh there's different translations about that, but Jesus is not talking about uh getting a leather belt and making notches in it until you reach the math.

He's saying that it has to flow through us always, all the time.

I believe the number one thing that Jesus looking for, is looking for in all of us who are believers is humility.

And there's no greater indicator of humility than the ability to forgive.

And in Proverbs 19, 11, it says, A man's wisdom gives him patience.

It is to his glory to overlook an offense.

And I remember when I first read that, boy, you talk about counterintuitive.

The word abar there, by the way, is the same word used in the Passover.

It means to pass over or to move beyond.

Uh, and then 1 John 2.11, this is really the important one.

You need to really pay attention to this one.

I think it's 1 John 2.11.

It says, anyone who hates his brother, listen, is in the darkness.

He walks around in the darkness, does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

So for any of you who are desperate for finding God's plan and God's vision and God's purpose for your life or seeing your destiny, uh, and you're having difficulty, in your heart, just ask the question, Am I being unforgiving?

Because the Bible makes it very clear that that will be stopped up.

The light will be stopped up.

So forgiveness is huge in a relationship, but only made possible, again, by what we're saying in our relationship with Jesus.

The closer I get to Him, because in my flesh, how many of you know how hard it is to forgive in your flesh?

It's really hard.

But when God's there, it makes it so much easier.

I was gonna say real quick, um, we all have heard a lot about climate change, and we all might believe it exists or it doesn't exist or whatever.

Did you know God has climate change?

And it's right here in um Galatians 6, 1, it says, brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you be tempted.

So climate change is gentleness, and that's how we change things.

Sometimes we think we're gonna change things by being really harsh, but that doesn't work usually.

And gentleness is such a powerful um almost oxymoron, and it does change the climate in someone else's heart and in a relationship.

Awesome, you guys.

Last one.

So we've talked a lot about men and their opportunity as well as challenge to be leaders, but how do you love and serve your husband biblically and practically on a daily basis?

So, how does a woman says love and serve your husband biblically and practically on a daily basis?

I feel loved by you.

So what do you do?

One thing I I've noticed too is that a marriage or a family or even a household, if you're in roommate situations, those are great training grounds for learning how to love.

And that is such that should be a very high goal for all of us is learning how to love better.

Because it's fun.

It's actually really fun.

Umticed for our marriage is I could treat Steve like an umpire at a baseball game where you don't notice that person until they make a mistake or a bad call.

Then you notice the umpire.

And it's not because I wanted to, it was because I was so busy, you know, or whatever.

And I realized I need to take time and just meditate and think about all of his strengths and all of the great things he does for me and our home and who he is.

And when we do that, we're not reactionary, we're actually proactive in thinking, thank you so much for who you are.

So even just uh having a mindset where I want to think on who this person is that I live with and just be thankful for all of the great qualities that he brings to my life and our family.

And she does that well.

I feel blessed, Sonny, to do that.

Cindy, what would you say?

I would say that um make your husband a priority in the home.

And when he comes home, make time for him.

And that's in when you know when he's coming home that you're not doing something else.

Um and I think time is really important between couples, whether it's time in the morning that you have with your devotions together, or time after work, or praying before you go to bed, and just having time to chat, not having your day so busy that eliminates that because that's what brings closeness to a relationship, is how you communicate with one another and how much you communicate with one another.

And I think to me, I know the things that Vince likes, and he likes a house to be orderly and different things, and so we get to know what makes our husband happy and what makes him feel secure and what makes him feel like he wants to come home, and that it's a peaceful house, it's not a chaotic house.

And I think as a wife, I pray through the house and pray for God's presence to be there and his righteousness and his peace and his joy a lot.

So our home would be a little sanctuary for anybody who comes that would feel the Lord's presence there and a place to feel accepted and loved.

Yeah, and and and and for you men, I would also say that we also have the opportunity to make what she and Liz are talking about much easier by the way we would treat them.

And early on, I I did I wasn't treating her the way she deserved to be treated.

I remember coming home one day and she'd been watching this neighbor across the street.

This man would come home every day, and every single day he had a fresh set of flowers for his wife.

Every single day.

It was sickening.

Every day.

And and and so and she'd been watching this and watching this, and I came home one day and yeah, I was just all of us men need points, right?

Do we not?

But I go through points really fast.

So I I came home and she told me, she says, I've been watching this every every single day.

That man brings flowers to that woman every single day.

You never do that.

I said, Honey, I hardly know that woman.

Uh I mean, I But anyway, so every day, so the more we shower these kind of things here here you go, honey.

The the more points we have, the easier it is for them.

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