Rick Warren - How to Keep Your Marriage Growing—Part One

Everybody longs for deep, lasting love. But strong relationships don't

just happen by accident. Today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope,

we're continuing our series called Finding and Keeping the Love

of Your Life. Rick Warren will share practical, biblical wisdom

for building healthier, stronger, Christ-centered relationships. So whether you're single, dating, engaged,

or married, this series will help you grow in love, communication,

and lasting commitment. And today we're going to hear part

one of a message called How to Keep Your Marriage Growing.

A woman wrote to dear Abby these words. Do all

marriages eventually go stale?

Ours has.

My husband and I don't seem to have much to

talk about anymore. We used to talk about our kids,

but now they're grown and gone. Now I have no

major complaints about my husband, but the old excitement just

isn't there anymore. We watch a lot of television. And

we read a lot. And we have fun with some friends.

But when we're alone together, it's pretty dull. We even

sleep in separate bedrooms now. Is there some way to

recapture the old magic? Reader's Digest reports that the number

one question people ask marriage counselors is, why don't we

love each other the way we used to? Why don't

we love each other the way we used to? Well,

the truth is, every marriage is always either growing together

or growing apart. Because it's a relationship, it never stands still.

And I'll tell you right now, if you're not growing

closer to your husband or to your wife.

Right now, you're growing apart, little by little.

Because relationships, marriages between people, never stand still. Now today,

in our series, we're gonna look at how do you

keep your marriage growing? The Bible has a couple things

to say about that that are very important. On your outline,

Proverbs 24, three says, homes are built on the foundation

of wisdom and understanding. And Paul prays in Philippians 1, nine.

He says, I pray that your love will keep on

growing because of your knowledge and insight. Now I want

you to circle in those verses the words wisdom, understanding, knowledge,

and insight because that's what it takes to keep your

marriage growing. It takes wisdom and understanding. It takes knowledge

and insights. Marriages do not automatically grow. It's not like,

I got you, babe, and now for the rest of

our lives, it's gonna just keep on growing.

No, it takes skill. It takes effort. It takes knowledge.

It takes wisdom. Good marriages don't just happen. Marriages are

what you make them. And if you put the effort

into them and you learn the right skills and you

learn the knowledge and wisdom it takes to build a

great relationship, you can have a fantastic relationship, no matter

what it's been up to this date. So today, we're

going to look at what the Bible says about how

to keep a marriage growing. And very honestly, it says

five things. There are five insights that you need to know,

things you need to keep on doing if you want

your marriage to keep on growing. Let's get right into it.

Number one, the first thing the Bible tells us to

do is to keep on paying attention. Keep on paying attention. Now,

attention means love. It's the most loving thing you do

when you give somebody your attention. When you're paying attention

to somebody, you're saying to them, I value you. When

you pay attention to somebody, you're saying, you matter to me.

You're worth listening to. When you give someone your attention,

you're actually giving them your life because your time is

your life. And you're never going to get that time back.

So the most valuable thing you can give somebody is

your attention. When you give them that, you are actually

giving them a part, a slice of your life. Now

the truth is, that's how you fell in love. you

fell in love because you began to pay attention to

somebody and somebody began to pay attention to you. If

that hadn't happened, you would have never fallen in love.

In fact, we even use phrases like, she caught my eye.

What's that mean? She got my attention.

And when you pay attention to somebody and somebody pays

attention to you, that's the foundation of a relationship. So

before we can talk about anything else, we've got to

talk about this. Now, for those of you who are

single adults.

you might want to go read.

1 Corinthians 7 today, that chapter, because that chapter is

all about where Paul discusses the value and the benefit

of staying single over marriage. And in that, he's very

honest and frank, and he says, you know, marriage takes

a lot of attention. And if you get married, part

of your life is going to have to be given

attention to your husband or to your wife. You're going

to have less attention for God, less attention for other

things that are important to you. So he says, just

go into this with your eyes wide open, that if

you do get married, it's going to require a lot

of your attention. Notice in 1 Corinthians 7, he says this.

Marriage involves you in all the domestic life and wanting

to please your spouse, leading to so many more demands

on your attention. Marriage takes a lot of attention. Now

do you remember how much attention you used to give

to your husband or to your wife before you got married?

I mean, you bought flowers. You wrote notes. You made

phone calls. You talked for hours. You spent a lot

of time together. And in many, many ways during dating

and engagement, you said, you have my undivided attention. In fact,

you thought about him all the time when you weren't

with him.

Now, what happened? What happened?

You don't think about your husband all the time now

or your wife all the time. Your attention shifted. You

got complacent. you begin to take things for granted. And

all of a sudden, over time, we tend to pay

less attention to our spouse rather than more attention. Because

we start paying attention to things like bills and babies

and budgets and career and work and hobby.

And sports and all kinds of other things.

And all of a sudden, your husband is no longer

the focal attention of your life. Your wife is no

longer the focal attention of your life. You are giving

your attention to a lot of different things. And when

that happens, the marriage begins to deteriorate. I don't know

if you've noticed that attention tends to wear off. And

so does attraction. You know, when you decide to buy

a new car and you see it on the road

all the time, you go, wow, that's a good looking car.

I'd sure like to get that car. And you pay

attention to that car over and over and over. And

when you first get a new car, you buy it, man,

you take care of it. I mean, you're waxing it

and polishing it. And, you know, you keep it in

the garage and you won't let the kids ride in

it unless they've taken a bath. And I mean, it's just,

you know, we're going to keep this thing in really

tip top shape. Now, fast forward about a year. You

have French fries molding between the seats. Little Taco Bell

packets that have been smashed in the back seat.

Coffee that spilled. Milk shapes.

Wrappers from a whopper tucked back under the seat. And

the dust covering your dashboard is getting about an inch thick.

What happened?

You're not paying attention to it anymore. It lost its attraction.

It happens with everything in life. You go out and

you see a dress in a store and you go, wow,

that's a good looking dress. I'd like to have that.

And the first time you wear it, you think, I'm

looking good. You know, this really looks good on me.

But about the 50th time you wear it, you don't

think it's attractive anymore.

Why?

We tend to lose attraction. Now, I wonder how many

things that you thought you just had to have, I've

got to get that, are now sitting, rusting in your garage.

You know, just taking up space. Stuff that you thought

was very, very important, but it lost its attraction. You see,

you have to intentionally keep paying attention. Now, I need

to talk to you women for just a minute about guys.

I'm going to set you straight this morning. Ladies, men

are goal-oriented. And unless you understand that, you're never gonna

understand the male psyche. They're hunters, they set a goal

and say, I'm gonna go after that goal and we're

not gonna stop until we reach that goal. A good

example would be a vacation car trip. Have you ever

taken a family vacation car trip with your dad? Okay,

it's we're going to drive and drive and drive and

drive and drive because we're going to get to the destination.

It's none of this enjoy the journey.

No, no, no. It's we're not having fun until we

get there.

And once we get there, we are going to have fun,

believe me, because that's the goal of this vacation. Now,

men will set a goal, and then they just aim

for it. It's like my dad, when we were growing up,

we'd go on car vacations across America.

He goes, all right, family, here's what we're going to do.

Tomorrow morning, we're going.

To start our vacation at 4.30 a.m., and we're going

to get up, and we're going to get in that car.

And two things will be true when we get in

that car. The gas tank will be full, and your

bladder will be empty, right? And we are going to

drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and

drive until two things are changed.

True.

The gas tank is empty and your bladder is full.

Now God help the child whose bladder is full before

the gas tank is empty. Because we are destination oriented.

Now women, that's the way guys think. So you take

that logic and you apply it over to marriage, this

is what happens. One day, a guy wakes up and

he goes, I gotta get me a wife. Okay, I

gotta get a wife. This is one of the, you know,

you need this in life, okay? Standard operating procedure, and

now he is a man on a mission. He has

a very clear-cut goal, get a wife. It's on the

to-do list, you know, check it off. And And so

he goes out, and during this stage of his life,

a man becomes very, very creative. And he woos, and

he wins, and he's looking for the woman of his dreams.

And he finds her, and he will do everything. In fact,

he'll do stuff that he would never otherwise do, like

read poetry and stuff like that. He'll just do it

because he's a man on a mission. Now, I'm not

trying to be crass or anything, but once the wedding happens.

Something clicks in this guy's mind, and he's thinking, mission accomplished.

Got that one done, what's the next goal? Now, he's

not being selfish, he's just being a man. And here's

what men think. You need to understand this, ladies. The

moment you get married, his goal shifts. His goal shifts

to now, goal number two, I've got to provide for

this woman.

I love her.

I've taken on extra responsibility. I've got to go make

some money because I have committed myself to caring for

this woman. And so subtly, the focus shifts from attention

to the woman to attention to providing for the woman.

Do you see the difference?

It's still love, it's just the focus has changed from

the woman to now I've got to provide for this

woman that I love. Now, He's doing this in a

loving way, but what happens is the woman goes, what happened?

I thought we were going to spend long walks in

the park. You know, I thought we were going to still,

you know, read poetry. And all of a sudden she thinks,

what happened here? You know, I'm kind of left behind.

I've been sidelined. I've been displaced by a career path.

I'm on the edge.

I've been dumped. I'm devastated. And she feels a little

bit into the marriage. It's been a bait and switch.

But really, he's got the same goal. I just want

to provide for this woman that I love. Now, you

need to write this down in your outline. I show

I care by staying aware. I show I care by

staying aware. And if your marriage is gonna keep on growing,

you've gotta figure out a way to keep on paying

attention to each other. If you don't do that, your

marriage is gonna start to crumble. You've gotta keep on

paying attention. Now one of the biggest problems in marriage

is that we don't listen to each other. We stop

listening to each other. We assume we know what the

other person said. We think we've heard them say it

over and over and over. We're very presumptuous. We know

in advance. So we start jumping over their words and

thinking that we know what they're going to say. Look

at what the Bible says about this. Let's read Proverbs 18,

13 with great enthusiasm. Answering before listening is both stupid

and rude.

That's one to put up on the refrigerator. There you go.

Answering before listening is both stupid and rude. Now, why

should I pay attention to my spouse? Well, there are

two really good reasons. Number one, you love that person.

And love means paying attention. When you give attention, you're

showing love. More important, number two, sometimes God is speaking

through your spouse.

Oh, yeah. In fact.

God's favorite way to speak to you next to the

Bible is through your spouse.

Hello?

Now, they don't realize it. They think it's their brilliant idea,

but it's really God. I can't tell you how many

times God has spoken to me through my wife, Kay.

And she has said things that just went inside my

soul that I knew were She didn't know what was

going on in me, and yet God did, and what

God was saying to me was through her.

Look at this verse.

The Bible says in Job 33, 14, God speaks in

different ways, and we don't always recognize his voice. A

lot of times we don't recognize it because we're not listening.

We're not paying attention to our spouse. Your husband or

wife does not even have to be a Christian for

God to speak through them. God speaks through all kinds

of people. Now, when God gives you an idea, we

call it inspiration. When the devil gives you an idea,

we call it temptation. But it's coming out through your

husband's voice or your wife's voice, and you need to

pay attention because God may be wanting to say something

to you at that very moment that you need to hear,

and your wife or your husband is the closest megaphone

he could find. Why don't we pay better attention to

our husbands or our wives? Well, one reason is pride.

You know, we think we know it all. Another is presumption.

We think we know what they're going to say. And

a third reason is a lot of times we're just

in a hurry to get out what we want to say,

so we're not even listening to what the other person says.

So God gives us an antidote.

James 1.19. Notice it says, well, let's read it aloud.

Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to

become angry. Now, if you do the first two parts

of that sentence, the third one's automatic. If you are

quick to listen, and if you are slow to speak,

you will be automatically slow to get angry, and it

will keep your marriage going and growing.

You must keep on paying attention. Tom's gonna talk about

the next one.

There's a second thing that you can do to keep

your marriage growing, and that is keep on making adjustments.

Keep on making adjustments because over the years, you're going

to face lots of opportunities to make adjustments. Things are

going to change. Your kids are going to grow up

if you have kids. You're going to find yourself moving

from time to time. Job changes, even illnesses force us

to make adjustments. And because circumstances keep changing, you have

to keep adjusting. And as we adjust, let's just admit it,

we're adjusting as two imperfect people. We're not adjusting in

this situation where everybody's perfect. I also noticed a letter

from Dear Abby this last week. Somebody wrote in and said,

Dear Abby, I'm 40 years old and I'd like to

meet a mature man my age with no bad habits.

Signed, Rose. Abby wrote back, Dear Rose, so would I.

Because the truth is we all need to learn to

grow to adjust to each other. That's just the truth

of the matter. It takes unselfishness to adjust. In fact,

learning to be unselfish, it's one of the greatest lessons

of life. It's one of the greatest lessons. In fact,

maybe the number one lesson that God wants to teach

you through your marriage is to learn to be unselfish.

If you want to be selfish, never get married because

to have a successful relationship, you've got to learn to

be unselfish. To do what the Bible talks about in

1 John 3, 18. Would you read this verse with me?

Our love should not be just words and talk. It

must be true love which shows itself in action, in

the way that you act. So what does this involve?

What does adjusting to your husband or your wife involve? Well,

it involves a couple things. First of all, it means

thinking about what he or she needs the most. Thinking

about their needs and not just your needs anymore. It

involves what the Bible talks about in Philippians 2, 4

when it says, look out for one another's interests and

not just your own. I don't know why it is

that the longer we're married, the less we think about

each other's needs. It's sort of a crazy thing. You

might have heard about the newlyweds who, they drove up

to a hotel and the wife says to the husband,

oh honey, I don't want anybody to know we're married. Let's,

newly married, let's not act like we're newlyweds. And the

husband says to the wife, okay, you carry the bags.

Why is it that we.

Think more and more about our needs and less and

less about the needs of the.

Person that we love?

The Bible says we're supposed to be concerned about everyone's needs.

And that's especially true in our homes. You think about

what does the other person need. Adjusting also means what

the Bible calls submitting to each other.

Giving up my.

Rights, giving up the thing that I really want in

order to meet another person's need. Listen to what the

Bible says in Ephesians 5.21. Honor Christ by submitting to

each other. Now I know how some guys think about

this because I've talked to you. I mean, some guys think, well,

wait a minute, this thing. I mean, isn't the husband

supposed to be the spiritual leader of the home? And yes,

you're right about that. The Bible says husbands are supposed

to be the spiritual leader of the home. And so

you think, hey, isn't the wife supposed to like follow

her husband? And yes, that's also true. But that doesn't

mean that she does all the adjusting. If you're the leader,

what does that mean? It means you're out in front, right?

It means you're doing it first. That's what you do

to lead. So to lead and adjusting means you make

the first decision. Ephesians 5 says, husbands, be willing to

sacrifice like Jesus sacrificed his life.

For the church.

Be willing to adjust to meet the other person's need.

That's what it's really all about. There's a lot of

ways to adjust that we have to adjust through life.

A lot of big things. But you know where it's

the most.

Difficult to adjust?

With the little things. That's what I found.

You know, the biggest argument Shondell and I ever had

was over whether in my closet the top button of

my shirt should be buttoned or not when it was

hung up on the... I mean, see, she thought it

should be buttoned so it wouldn't get wrinkled. And I

thought it should be unbuttoned so I could just get

it out really quick in the morning. I was thinking

about that this morning as I was unbuttoning my shirt

from the hanger to put the.

What I was thinking was.

We need to adjust with the little things. Maybe it

means arriving a little bit later or leaving a little

bit earlier. Maybe it means going to bed a little

bit later or a little bit earlier. Maybe it means

watching what the other person wants to watch on TV

or going to the movie they want to go to

or the restaurant they want to go to. Maybe it

means listening when they need you to listen to them

and not when you want to listen to them. It's

in those little daily decisions to adjust to meet each

other's needs that real, genuine love is expressed. That's where

it comes from. You see, the test of real love

isn't what you say about how you love each other,

it's how you act.

You want greater harmony in your home?

There's just one decision you have to make. Just one decision,

treat your mate as Jesus would. You make that one decision,

it changes everything. You begin to think that way, that

is the definition of mature love, to treat other people

as Jesus would.

He's our example.

What does that mean? That means that you begin to

become more patient with annoyances. That means you begin to

become more forgiving. You forgive mistakes. You give up some

of your fantasy, some of your unrealistic expectations of what

marriage would be, and you enjoy what it really is.

And you seek what's best for the other person. You

do what the Bible talks about in Romans 15, verse 5,

Romans 15:5

where the Bible says, may God help you to live

in complete harmony with each other Each with the attitude

of Christ Jesus. Would you circle those words? Attitude of

Christ Jesus. Each with the attitude of Christ Jesus towards

the other. When you think that way, that helps you

to begin to make the adjustments that keep your marriage growing.

The third way to keep your marriage growing is to

keep on showing affection.

You've got to pay attention. You've got to make adjustments.

You've got to keep on showing affection. The Bible tells

us in Romans 12, Love each other with genuine affection

and take delight in honoring each other. Now I'm sure

you'd all agree that it's easier to fall in love than.

It is to stay in love.

How do you rekindle a lost love? When the feelings

aren't there, when the spark has gone out, when the

thrill is gone in your marriage, how do you rekindle

the affection that you felt for each other at the

beginning of your marriage? Well, you do what Jesus told

a church to do. In the book of Revelation, Jesus

told some Christians at the church of Laodicea, he said,

you guys have lost your first love for me. And

here's how you get your first love for me back.

And he tells them four things to do. Now, it

just so happens that the advice that Jesus gave to Jesus,

or that Jesus gave to the church for coming back

to him are the same four things you need to

do If you've lost the romantic feelings of affection for

your husband or for your spouse, your wife. Look at

what the Bible says. Revelation 2. Jesus said, the love

you had at first is gone. Remember how far you

have fallen. Return to me. Change the way you think

and act. And do what you did at first. Now

he says here four things. Remember, return, repent now.

And repeat. First he says, I want you to remember.

Circle that word.

He says, if you want to get the lost love back,

you start remembering why you fell in love in the

first place. Think about those good times. Remember the happy days.

Remember the feeling of being in love.

And of being affectionate.

And rekindle those feelings simply starts by remembering. God gave

you a memory, and you have to stop thinking about

all the problems you've got now, and go back and remember,

why did we fall in love in the first place?

That's the first step. Then he says, next is return.

He says, return to me. Turn your focus back to me.

Your focus has gotten on a lot of other things.

On your problems, on your pressures, on your stresses, on

your career. And he says, if you want to return

to your first love, you've got to turn your attention back.

Return to me. Refocus on me. And then the third

thing he says is repent. He says, change the way

you think and act. The Greek word for that, metanoia,

is the word repent. Now let's just review here. Love

is not a feeling. It is not a feeling. It

creates feelings. It creates enormous feelings. But love is not

a feeling. Love is a choice. It's a commitment that says,

I'm going to put your best interest over my own.

And anything other than that is not love. It may

be lust. It may be attraction. It may be sexual arousal.

It could be infatuation. But it's not love unless... You're saying,

I want to put your needs ahead of my needs.

That's what real love is. And love is a choice.

If love were a feeling, God couldn't command it because

you can't force a feeling. And yet in the Bible

over and over, God commands you to love. He commands

you to love others. He commands you to love believers

in the church family. He even commands you to love

your enemies. Now, if love were a feeling, he couldn't

say that. It's like a parent saying to a little child,

I command you to be happy.

I'm trying, Mommy, I'm trying.

You can't force a feeling, but you can choose to love.

You choose who you're going to love, and you choose

who you're not going to love. And so you can

make a choice and say, I'm going to choose to

love this person that I used to feel affection toward,

but I don't anymore. That's called repentance. It's changed the

way you think and act. And then he says, after

you remember and return and repent, he says, repeat. He says,

do what you did at first. Do the things you

did when you first fell in love. Act the way

you used to act. Now, we've said at every session

in this series that feelings always follow actions. It's easier

to act your way into a feeling than it is

to feel your way into an action. If you wait

to feel affectionate and romantic, the devil will make sure

you never feel it. So you choose to act in

a loving way and the feelings will come back.

What am I saying?

What you did to fall in love, you must continue

to do to stay in love. And if you don't,

you won't. Does that make sense? And if you say

you don't do those things that you used to do,

That's why you've.

Lost that loving feeling. Baby, baby, baby, baby. I only

do that for this service. I just want you to know.

I need your love.

Such a great message from Pastor Rick today. And I

hope you were just as encouraged as I was. Here's

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