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

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 let's wrap up with the final

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

You know what the greatest enemy of romance is? It

is not adultery. It is not anger. It is not bitterness.

The number one enemy of romance is busyness.

You're just too busy for each other.

You don't have time together anymore.

Your schedule is full, and your spouse has been sidelined

by your schedule. And your two ships passing in the night,

rushing around, and you don't have time for each other. Now,

let me tell you this. Nobody is going to make

time for your marriage except you. Your boss isn't going

to say, oh, go spend more time with your wife

or your husband. No, you have to make time for

your husband. You have to make time for your wife

because nobody else is going to do it. Your marriage

is what you make it. In fact, everybody else in

the world wants to keep you from spending time with

your husband or your wife. Your girlfriends, the guys, all

kinds of people would rather have you spend time with

them than with your husband or with your wife. And

yet the University of Nebraska did a study on what

makes a fantastic marriage. And they discovered that the common

denominator in every great marriage was real simple. They spend

a lot of time together. They spend a lot of

time together. Now, I don't care how dedicated you are

to Jesus Christ, what a wonderful Christian you are. If

you don't spend time together, your marriage is going to

drift apart. You have to spend time together. No matter

how dedicated you are, you have to spend time together

if you want to have a strong, healthy, deep marriage. Now,

did you know that sexuality and spirituality are very closely related?

Because God wired you up that way. You're not just

a body. You are a spirit. Spirit. And when your

spirits are both in tune with God, he brings you

together in a bonding that unbelievers know nothing about. They

know nothing about that level of intimacy. It's not just

body to body, it's heart to heart, soul to soul,

spirit to spirit. It's a kind of intimacy that God

intended for every married couple to have, but it only

comes when you're growing closer to God. and your mate

is growing closer to God, and he pulls you both together,

and you spend time together. Christians should have better sex

than anybody. You can quote me on that one. You

know what Rick said the other day? You know the Puritans,

the people who started, founded this country, you know, came

over on the Mayflower and Pembroke and founded Thanksgiving? The

Puritans have gotten a bad rap. Because we've been told

for years that they were prudes, that they were anti-sex,

that they were very sexually repressed because they were very

spiritual people and very, well, that's not true at all.

In fact, they were just the exact opposite. In fact,

the Puritans believed that sex was one of God's greatest

gifts that he had given to marriage, and they considered

that a lack of affection in marriage was actually a

major sin. Dr. Leland Ryken, a professor, has written a

book about this, and he sets the record straight. And

on page 39, he says, a Puritan wife in New

England felt that her husband was neglecting their sex life.

So she complained, first to her pastor. Please don't do

that to me. Let's see, 70,000 people in our church.

I can imagine the number of emails I'd get this

week on that one. First, she complained to her pastor

and then to the whole church that her husband was

avoiding sex. Well, the Puritan church took it so seriously

that they proceeded to kick the man out of the

church membership until he rectified the situation. Now, I wonder

what would happen to our church if we did that

at Saddleback. What kind of reputation?

Oh, that's the.

Church where you get kicked out if you don't make

love to your wife. Not a bad reputation, I tell you.

Let me show you one of my favorite verses in

the Old Testament. It's not on your outline, it's up

here on the screen. I love this verse.

Genesis 26, eight says, Isaac.

Was sporting with Rebecca, his wife. I love that verse.

Now leave that up there for a while. Let's look

at this verse. If you had a pencil, I'd have

you circle the word sporting. Do you know what that

word means in Hebrew? Sporting. You know, I've had years

of Hebrew. You know what it means?

It means caressing. It means petting. It means fondling.

It's the Greek word, I mean the Hebrew word, saked. Now,

ladies and gentlemen, this was the very first sport ever invented.

I love this sport. I love this sport because you

can play it any time of the year. You can

play it outdoors or indoors. There is no fee for it.

It requires no equipment. I am a sports fan. I

really am. Let me show you the next verse. Psalm

Psalms 128:6

128 verse 6 says, may you live to enjoy your grandchildren. Now,

some of you are saying, Rick, what in the world

does that have to do with this point? And the

truth is, absolutely nothing. I just threw it in so

I could show you this picture of my grandbaby. There

she is.

Okay.

Yes.

Now, I wrote the outline. It's my prerogative to throw

it in.

Oh my. He's shameless, just shameless. There's a fourth thing

you can do to keep your marriage growing. Number four,

keep on giving affirmation. Keep on giving affirmation. Listen, every

single person, every one of us, we desperately need affirmation.

God has wired us that way.

You need to be affirmed.

You need to be adored.

That's how you are made.

One reason that you fell in love with your mate

is that they affirmed you. Who's going to fall in

love with somebody who doesn't affirm you? You fall in

love with people who express the fact that they love you.

And your mate needs desperately affirmation from you. One of

your God-given roles as a husband, as a wife, is

to be your husband or wife's greatest fan. It's desperately needed.

Why is that so important? Because we live in a

world where there are a lot of critics. There's a

lot of detractors out there. Would you agree with that?

It's easy to find somebody who'll criticize you and put

you down. And so one of the most important things

that you do is you lift up your husband, you

lift up your wife by affirmation. Now, how often are

we supposed to do this? Well, the next verse in

your outline talks about it. Would you read it with me?

The Bible says in Hebrews 3.13, let's read it. Encourage

each other every day while it is today. So it's

a daily habit. It's something we do every day. Now

one small way that you can affirm is just through

using terms of endearment. There's an affirmation in that. And

there's a national survey that was done on the top

ten terms of endearment. I thought you might be interested

in what these were in the U.S. Number one is honey.

Number two is baby. Number three, sweetheart, dear, lover, darling, sugar, pumpkin.

Number nine, angel pie. Number 10, beautiful. Now, not making

the list were love puppy, wild thing, or Shondell's favorite

for me, stud dumpling was not on the list. So

moving right along, what do you affirm?

What can you affirm?

Let me give you three things you can affirm in

your spouse. Number one, you affirm their value. You know

that the word appreciate, like what the house means to

raise it in value as it appreciates? You can raise

somebody else in value as you appreciate them. As you

appreciate them, you raise their value and you raise the

value of your marriage. Look what the Bible says in

Proverbs 12, 25. A word of encouragement does wonders. A

word of encouragement would do wonders for your marriages next week,

for any relationship that you're in. You appreciate their value. Now,

some of you might be thinking, what do I, I

can't even think of anything. What do I appreciate? Well,

let me give you a couple things. First of all,

you can appreciate the fact they stuck with you. You

can appreciate that. They didn't give up on the marriage.

And you know what you can always appreciate? You can

appreciate the effort that at least some trying.

They're making an effort.

They may not be doing it as well as you

would like or like you would like, but they made

the effort. Sort of like that husband. His new bride

came in, make the first meal and said, put the

plate down in front of him and said, honey, I

made for you tonight my two specialties. I made meatballs

and peach pie. And the husband says, great, I love both.

Which one is this? You can always appreciate the effort,

what somebody gave to it. One of our couples at

Saddleback that's been married for 50 years. Isn't that great

when you think about somebody who's stayed together for 50 years?

Here's what the wife said.

She said, if you treat your husband like a king,

he'll treat you like a queen for all your life.

That's appreciation and the value of that. The value of

valuing somebody else. You can also affirm each other's strengths.

The strengths that you have. You build each other up.

The power of praise, of seeing someone's strength and praising

that strength is amazing because all of us blossom with affirmation.

That's how our lives are strengthened. We become what other

people see in us. And as you affirm those strengths,

you help someone to grow. One of the greatest models

of this is the Apostle Paul. He was always doing this.

There was a church in Corinth in his day. It

was a messed up church. It had a lot of problems.

But when he wrote to them, here's one of the

things he had to say to them. In 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 7:4

chapter 7, verse 4, he writes and says, I have

great confidence in you and a lot of reasons to

be proud of you. He affirmed their strengths, the good

things about them. It is your job to bring out

the best in your husband, in your wife. Now a

lot of us think, I'll bring out the best by

pointing out the worst. If I can point out the worst,

that'll bring out, never works.

It never works.

You bring out the best in someone by pointing out

the best, by affirming what's best.

So you make this decision. I'm going to be, I'm

going to.

Be a dream builder and not a dream buster. I'm

going to be someone who decides to not nag, but

to brag on my spouse. Instead of giving, I'm going

to give strokes instead of giving pokes. Make that decision

and watch the difference. And there's a third thing you

can affirm as you think about things to affirm. You

can also affirm each other's ministry.

It's very important.

Affirm what you're doing for God's sake in the world today.

Romans chapter 1 verse 12 says this. Let's read this together.

Romans 1:12

I want us to help each other with the faith

that we have. Your faith will help me and my

faith will help you. As an example of that, I

want you to listen to a story today. I want

you to listen to the story of Bob and Carrie.

Would you give them a warm welcome?

Good morning, everybody.

My name is Bob, and this is my wife, Carrie,

and we'd like to share with you how serving Jesus

Christ and ministry together has made our marriage stronger and healthier.

In 1994, my life was completely changed by Jesus Christ

when I started attending Saddleback Church and Celebrate Recovery. It

was the first time in my life I had been

attending church on a regular basis, and I had a

lot of questions about who God was and why he

would want to know me, a man who had hurt

so many people with my selfishness and self-centeredness. But Jesus

transformed my life and gave me a sincere desire to

serve him with a grateful heart.

Strangely enough, I also started attending Celebrity Recovery the same

month and year that Bob did. I was a single,

broken woman, alone and afraid, and looking for hope out

of my despair. It wasn't very long before I too

opened up my heart to the love of Jesus Christ.

After about a year and a half of recovery and healing,

I bumped into Bob, who at the time was a long-haired, truck-driving,

tool-using hippie guy at our Celebrity Recovery barbecue.

He's changed a lot.

I noticed when so amazed by how kind and thoughtful

this guy was. Everyone seemed to really like him, and

I thought he would really make someone a great husband someday.

Well, my first year and a half of being a

new Christian, I attended everything that Saddleback had to offer.

I was young, single, and had nothing but time. So

I went to small groups, midweek services, celebrate recovery twice

a week, several Bible studies, and all the church classes.

I was like a sponge during that time. I guess

you could call me SpongeBob. I couldn't get enough of

my newfound faith, so dating and romance really wasn't even

on my radar. That is until Carrie walked into my

Thursday night Bible study, and I thought, wow, there's a

woman that, there's no way that this woman that's so

beautiful would be interested in a guy like me. Well,

let's just say that God's plans were far greater than

anything I could have imagined, and that following April, Pastor

John married us. By this time, we were both serving

here at Saddleback to help others overcome their hurts, habits,

and hang-ups. It was in ministry that brought us together,

and it was ministry that helps keep us growing together.

What both Bob and I have discovered is that God

never wastes a hurt. He uses all of our life

experiences for his purposes. Bob and I have found that

serving together in ministry has doubled the joy in our

life and in our marriage. There is nothing to compare

to the thrill of serving God together as a couple

and knowing that God is using both of you. God

has given us the same passion and heart for people

that were hurting just like we once were. There is

nothing more fulfilling than seeing someone that is broken and

being able to offer them a ray of hope and

that God can make a real difference in their life.

Our passion for serving God together has also increased our

passion for each other. It has brought us closer together

than anything else I can imagine. It is difficult to

put into words how much I love this man and

how much I enjoy watching him fulfill God's calling on

his life. Another benefit of sharing a ministry together is

that it has taught us how to minister to each

other during difficult times. When I lost my dad a

year and a half ago, it was devastating for me.

It had happened so suddenly. And Bob was always there

with words of encouragement or just to hold me quietly.

He wouldn't try to fix me, but he would bring

me before the one who could. And I will always

be grateful for what I have learned from serving in

ministry side by side with him.

And this last March, we were given the privilege to

go to Japan for 15 days. where we taught two

seminars to Japanese churches on how to start Celebrate Recovery.

Knowing our backgrounds, it was completely amazing and humbling to

think that God was using us, Bob and Carrie Wood,

together to help change lives for eternity. As we sat

in our hotel room the night before the seminar, we

reflected back on all the events that God had orchestrated

in our lives to bring us to that point, and

we realized that we make a great team. It was

a great time of expressing appreciation to God and affirming

each other. Because each of us has our own gifts,

we were able to meet the needs of the Japanese

people on all different levels. Being able to serve God

is the most incredible journey I've ever been on. And

being able to serve God with my wife makes it irresistible.

My wife is my best friend. There's not another person

on this planet that I'd rather spend time with. She's

my love and my life. And next to Jesus coming

into my life, she's the best thing that ever happened

to me. So ministry gives us even more time to

spend together.

In closing, I want to encourage you to do something

that we know will bring you much closer as a

couple in marriage. Find a ministry that you can do

together and get involved serving God together. It's a wonderful

bonding feeling. And if you like to do different things,

then be sure to affirm each other's gifts and rejoice

that God has made you both unique. But always support

what God is doing in each of your lives. Thank

you for letting us share it.

Now the most important thing you've got to do in

order to keep your marriage growing is to keep on

following Jesus.

He's the glue.

He's what holds you together when everything else is going

to tear you apart, when you feel like giving up.

Jesus Christ is the glue. Keep on following Jesus. The

Bible says this, you have accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord,

now keep on following him. Don't just say, well yeah,

I became a Christian back in 19-whatever, but Keep on

following him. The next verse, Colossians 2, 7 says, keep

your roots deep in him. Build your lives on him

and become stronger in your faith. Now, how in the

world do you do that? Well, let me give you

some practical suggestions. First, if you haven't already done so,

you need to publicly identify yourself as a Christian. You

need to come out of the closet. And the way

you do that is by being baptized. Any week, go

get baptized and say, I am saying Jesus Christ is

going to be the center of my life and Jesus

Christ is going to be the center of our marriage.

I love it when I baptize husbands and wives together

when they're both saying we're committing our lives and our

marriage to Christ. That's a wonderful, wonderful symbol. Second thing,

get in a small group with some other couples who

can help you grow. I know couples who take this

sermon outline every week and Sunday afternoon go home and

have a barbecue and their family discusses it every week.

That's their time together. Now, fourth thing that you can

do is you can pray for each other. Pray with

and pray for each other. Look at this next verse,

James 5, 16. Make this your common practice. Confess your

sins to each other. and pray for each other so

that you can live together whole and healed. Would you

like to live together whole and healed? Well, it tells you. First,

you admit it when you're wrong, and second, you pray

for each other, and you pray with each other. And

then finally, you follow God's word. Keep in God's word.

Proverbs 3, 6 says this. Listen for God's voice in

everything you do, everywhere you go. He's the one who

will keep you on track. This is the most amazing

statistic I've ever read. Marriage Magazine published a national study

and discovered one out of three marriages ends in divorce.

But when the couple is married in a church service,

that number drops to only one out of every 50

ending in divorce. And when couples are married in a

Christian service, attend church regularly, and maintain some form of

regular family worship during the week, that means you pray

together or you read the Bible together, the divorce rate

plummets to only one out of every 1,105 marriages. One

out of three.

Or one out of 1,105. Think about that. That's the

difference Jesus Christ makes in a marriage. When you're growing

toward God, and your husband or your wife's growing toward God,

he naturally brings you together. You know, I've got a

redwood tree in my backyard. I planted it 12 years ago,

because I grew up in the redwoods in Northern California.

And this thing's gone really good, but this year, It

got under stress and it nearly died. All of the

needles fell off of it and first it kind of

turned to yellow and then it actually started turning red.

It looked like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. And I

finally figured out that the water, the sprinkler, had been

plugged up and it wasn't getting any water all season.

And so I went out and I watered it and

I fertilized it and I nurtured it, took care of it.

And about two weeks ago, it started sprouting new growth.

And now it's getting greener and greener and greener. And

it's going to make it. Now your marriage may have

been going through a stress season. And maybe it's been

in hibernation. And maybe it's been going through a drought.

And it's been dying of water, lack of water. And

you've got a Charlie Brown Christmas tree marriage. It doesn't

look too pretty. We can come back to life. If

you'll do what God tells you to do, if you'll

do it God's way, your marriage can start growing again.

Let's bow our heads. Now which of these areas do

you need to work on? Do you need to pay

better attention to your husband or your wife? Do you

ignore them when they talk to you, not really listen

to them? Do you even know what their needs are

right now? How about adjustments? Are you willing to make

adjustments or have you been stubborn and unbending and expect

them to adapt to your schedule? Do you show as

much affection as you used to? Or have you let

this area of your relationship become stale, stagnant? Do you

give daily affirmations and encouragement to your husband or to

your wife? Are you an encourager or are you a discourager?

Do you give more strokes or pokes? Do you nag

or do you brag? Do you affirm their value, their strength,

their ministry? Is Jesus Christ the center of your life

and your marriage? These are the things that keep a

marriage going and growing. Pray this. Say, dear God, I

want our marriage to keep growing. Help me to pay

better attention to my wife, to my husband. Help me

to keep on making adjustments and showing affection and giving affirmation.

Most of all, I want to keep on following you, Jesus. Jesus.

I ask you to give us a love that lasts

a lifetime. In your name I pray. Amen.

What a special message from Pastor Rick. And now let's

hear how lives are changing through Daily Hope. Here's Rick

with a letter from one of our listeners.

Hi, everybody. Today I want to introduce you to Allison.

She recently wrote me to tell how God had saved

her from a life of prostitution and and used Daily

Hope to help her grow as a young Christian. Here's

what she wrote. I grew up in an atheist family,

and I was taught that people who believe in God

are crazy, stupid, and brainwashed. I ended up being a

hardcore drug addict for 15 years, and to pay for

my habit, I sold my body on the street, and

I was homeless. But I found a Bible in a

hotel room where I was working, and the Lord radically

saved me through his word. Then an amazing church family

embraced me fully and helped me to grow in the Lord.

One day, Pastor Rick, I came across your TED Talk

on the internet, and I was blown away. So I

looked up your website, and I downloaded the Daily Hope app,

and I started listening to your sermons every single morning.

I then bought the book, Purpose Driven Life, on audible.com.

I've enjoyed it immensely. I am so blessed to give

a monthly donation so you can share your message all

over the world. Your Daily Hope messages have meant so

much to me in the past year, and I'm just

an infant in Christ. I appreciate all the encouragement that

I get from listening to you. Thank you, Pastor Rick.

You know, Allison, I just, I can't thank you enough

for writing to me and sharing your story. We live

to get these letters, and it's so exciting to hear

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And of course, I appreciate you giving a monthly donation.

Thank you for your prayers for this ministry that we

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I just want you to know that I'm going to

be praying that God continues to use you in the

lives of other people and to use Daily Hope to

help you grow more like Jesus. God bless you, Allison.

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