Marriage

Wouldn't it be great if 60 years of marriage was simply following a recipe? Like a cake recipe, you know? Add a little of this, add a little of that. You know, the shame is that for many people, there is more work and care put into baking a cake, or taking care of the car, or taking care of our careers, than there is in taking care of a marriage. Marriage takes work. It takes commitment. We talk about those words. But when you're really in it, you find out, oh, commitment means something different than what I thought it did. Work is something more than I thought it would be. It is very sad when we see how many people may even stay married, but have very unhappy marriages. Part of the problem with marriage is it's not a static relationship. Things change. Life changes. Careers change. Your health changes. People change. I've said this before, and I've read it many years ago, and it's very true. Be happy with the man you married, because that's basically who you're going to get the rest of your life. You will be married to at least three different women in your lifetime. And there's a certain truth to that. Women do go through dramatic personality changes, more so than men do. So there's adjusting on both sides. I thought after 20 years, he would figure to pick up his underwear. And he still doesn't.

It's not static. And yet most people enter into a marriage relationship with the belief that they're unique. We won't be like other people. How many times have you heard young people say, but we're not like our parents? We're not like other people? We love each other? We could never end up like that. And six months later, they can't figure out what happened to their relationship. It's sort of like something I read once that illustrated this. A young couple get married, and this is the way the guy treats her the first time she gets a cold. They're married. This is their first year of marriage. Sugar, I'm worried about my little sweetie pie. You've got a bad sniffle. I want you to go to the hospital for a complete checkup. The second year. Listen, honey, I don't like the sound of that cough. I've called the doctor. He's going to come right over. The third year. You know, maybe you'd better lie down, honey. Nothing like a little rest. If you're feeling bad, I'll even bring you something to eat. The fourth year. Look, dear, be sensible. After you've fed the kids and washed the dishes, you'd better hit the sack. The fifth year. Why don't you just take a couple of aspirin? The sixth year. If you just gargle or something, instead of sitting around barking like a seal, it might help.

Now, the only reason that's funny is that's sort of the way it can be.

That as time goes on, we begin to take each other for granted. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a recipe? Well, there's no exact recipe for marriage, but what we do have are ingredients that make up a marriage, a healthy marriage, that make up a marriage that works. So we're just going to look at two ingredients today. There's a lot of ingredients that go into a marriage. There's just not one or two. This is a complex relationship. And we live in a complex world, by the way. It is harder, probably, to have a marriage today than ever in history. We think, wow, it's perfect today. We can go find our perfect soulmate, and we love each other. We can do all these romantic things. And it's very interesting. Have you ever talked to somebody who has had to go through an arranged marriage? I've talked to people from India. They have arranged marriages and say, wow, this was the most wonderful thing that happened to me. My parents found somebody, and her parents found somebody, and they matched us up. And this was great. I don't understand you Americans.

And part of the reason why is we put expectations on a relationship that are absolutely unreasonable at times. We're going to talk about that in a minute. Unreasonable expectations. Our first question is, okay, if there is sort of a recipe, we can add some ingredients here. Whose recipe are we going to use? Well, the husband is going to say, my recipe. And all the wives are going to say, my recipe. Wow, the problem is already started. The truth is we have to use God's recipe. And this is, you know, we're back to a very fundamental concept, but you can't discuss this without this fundamental concept. Then we're going to go into a couple of ingredients and how to make it practical. By the end of the sermon, I'm going to give you some things you could do this week to have a better marriage. Some things that the two of you can do this week, and we're not going to go to scriptures you think we're going to go to. We're going to go to some other scriptures. But let's start with the fundamental concept. Because the fundamental concept is, if God isn't the cook, this recipe isn't going to work.

God has to be the one who determines how marriages work. And this is not a popular concept because, in all honesty, as I mentioned last week when I talked about parenting and family, the concepts of parenting and family we talk about from the scripture is absolutely looked down upon in our society. The result being it's very easy for us.

And in the church we have acquired, to a certain degree, some false concepts about marriage and family. And so when we go to the concepts, they seem strange. I have a series of a set of books at home I was getting rid of. I was looking at a box. I keep this box of books to get rid of because I'm always getting new books, getting reading books, or getting rid of books.

And they're from the 1920s. Five books on advice for parents, advice for husbands and wives, advice for raising children. I started to go through there and I thought, wow, what a different world we live in. What a different world than the 1920s. If I got up and gave that advice today, you know, if I was speaking outside of a church context, probably most people would get up and walk away. They would think it's absolutely stupid. And you realize how much things have changed in a hundred years. So where do we start? Let's just open this up, begin with our big concept in Genesis 2.

Genesis 2. Remember last week I said that the foundation, we went through foundational concepts of family and child-rearing. The foundation is God and the relationship between husband and wife. That's two of the foundations we went through. That was number one and number two. So we have to go back to God and relationship between husband and wife is the foundation of raising children. Genesis 2, verse 18. We know the scripture. And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone, I will make him a helper comparable to him.

That is a very, very important statement from all kinds of different directions. It is not good that man should be alone. Now remember, God knew that when he created Adam. Adam wasn't like God said, you know, the guy is hanging out and he is sort of lonely. I guess I better make him somebody else. God don't even be fruitful and multiply. He didn't know how to do that. What does that mean? Right? So Adam had to figure out something. And remember he made him name all the animals in the garden.

He showed him all the animals. What do you want to call this one? I don't know. It's got four legs and a big trunk. I'll call that the big trunk. Okay, well that's what we'll call it. And so he named all the animals and in the end he said, there's no one for me. When we come into marriage, one of the things that we realize as men is our need for a wife. Our need for this person that helps us.

You know, we live in a society where if a man says, I need a woman, I need a wife, he's looked down on. And you know what's even more strange? If a woman says, I need a man, I'd like to be married, she could be absolutely put down. What do you mean you need a man? No woman should need a man. Well, too big a need is actually bad. We can have too big a need for a man or too big a need for a woman. But the bottom line is, we were created with a need. He had to make sure Adam figured that out. Oh, I need her.

I need somebody else. And then he made woman. So Adam figured it out. He's not this emotional lone wolf that can handle everything by himself. It takes us even now, it takes us a while to figure that out. I'm not this emotional lone wolf that can handle everything by myself. Adam figured that out. And then he made for him someone comparable to him. She was made out of his rib. That's very important because the rib, she stood right beside him. This is not a master-slave relationship. It is not a master-slave relationship.

Although she would have automatically looked up to him, there's a whole reason God did this. Just think about it a minute. You suddenly come alive, and there's God talking to you. I've created you. Come here. This is your husband. Well, first of all, you have no idea how long the husband's been around, but he's a lot older than you. There's an automatic respect. There's an automatic respect issue here.

He and God know each other. I'm the new person on the block here. I don't even know what's going on. What's that? He says, oh, I call it the trunk animal. He's named everything. That's the one that runs really fast. That's what I call it. Really fast. He's named everything. He and God talk to each other, and God brings me to him and says, I made her for you. And it says she was made to be his helper. Ladies, this may come as a shock, but one of the reasons you're designed different than men, I don't mean physically, I mean emotionally, is to be a man's helper. Oh, wow. He just insulted me. No, I didn't. I told you why God made you the way he did. Women aren't inferior. They're our helpers, but that's why they're different.

It's interesting. He didn't say, Adam, I made you her helper.

That's interesting. He said, I made you as his helper. These are foundational concepts. She stands beside us. She doesn't walk three feet behind us. She stands with me. She is comparable to, you know, my wife is comparable to me. But she is my helper. To live a godly marriage, the man has to see her as bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.

She's like me. And she's here because I need her. And she's got to realize, one of the reasons I'm here is to help him. To help him. Now be his mother. Now be the one person that corrects him all the time. Be the person who, you know, runs the family. I am here as his helper. Boy, these are hard concepts in today's world, aren't they?

And your job isn't to be there as her man, you know, as you're my slave, I'm the master. No, no, no. She's comparable to you. She's like you. And that's what makes his comment. She's bone of my bone. She's flesh of my flesh. She's like me. These other things are like me. She talks. I understand. She understands.

So we go back to here. This is fundamental to understanding the whole concept of marriage. And sometimes we'll have to do the sermon or what that means in terms of roles within marriage. Roles within marriage are flexible. They're different sometimes between couples, but there are principles that apply to all marriages in terms of the roles within marriage.

That means, though, the bottom line here, and the point of this, is that to really make our marriages work, we have to seek God's instructions first. And that's hard because there are other people that will give you different instructions. Not only that, God's instructions sometimes go against our own feelings. What's so hard in marriage is that it touches the deepest emotions of all of us.

It touches the deepest emotions of all of us. So when we're involved in a marriage conflict, we are not rational beings. We're just not.

We're at the core of where we're really messed up, maybe in a way that sometimes you've never been with another human being. Because husband and wife are to interact with each other at a core emotional level that is quite unique. I mean, there's no other relationship in life where he says, you shall become one. We become one. So we're at the core. That's more than just the physical relationship. That's part of it. But we are wanted that there's an emotional attachment. Psychologists call it level five communication, which occasionally you can do with someone else, a best friend or something, but it's supposed to happen on a regular basis inside of marriage. And at that level of relationship, we open ourselves up to painful experiences. It also tends to bring out the worst in all of us. At the core, marriage brings out the best in all of us, and it brings out the worst in all of us, and it's a matter of which side wins.

And that's why there's so much conflict. So if we seek God as our cook, and by the way, if you seek God as the cook in your marriage, there's something you cannot do. You cannot say, I'll do my part when my wife does her part, or I'll do my part when my husband does his part. You cannot do that. Because the moment you say that, what you're saying is, I'm not spiritually equal. If we're spiritually equal before God, we're to do our part even if the other person doesn't. Think about that. You wouldn't apply that to other relationships. Oh, well, you know, this person isn't doing their part, so I'm going to... my boss isn't doing his part, so I'm not going to show him at work today. You get fired. See, you couldn't apply that principle directly to other situations. But we do emotionally with our marriages. If God is telling us what to do, we must do it even if the mate does not.

Because if God is the head of our marriages, then God gives the instructions. We follow God directly as husband and as wife. And wives, this is important for you to understand, because you are spiritually equal with your husband.

Because you are spiritually equal with your husband before God, you are to do your part even when he doesn't do his.

So we have to start with that. God's instructions to husband and wives, we must follow even if the mate does not. Because that's the spiritual thing to do, it is what God tells us to do. That's a very difficult concept. That's a very difficult concept. And that's something really, that's a whole sermon in that statement. And I'll give a sermon maybe someday on that. The understanding as a responsible adult, I have to do what's right even if the other person doesn't. And we will apply that to other situations, but we seldom apply it to marriage. We seldom apply it to marriage. Nope, I'll do it when you do it. Well, I'll do it when you do it. Boy, you're really going to go someplace there. So now let's look at, that's our starting point. God's in charge. And since God's in charge, we have to carry out his instructions even if our mate doesn't. That's why marriage is more than a lot of the reasons we get married. I want romance, I want friendship, I want a sexual relationship. We get married for all different reasons. And marriage is more than that. It is created by God. It's created by God. So he's the one who tells us how it works. Now, two basic ingredients. These are very basic concepts, but they're very important and they have to do with emotions. We're going to deal with two emotional issues today. I had more than I realized. There's only so many emotional issues you can deal with in a short period of time. So we're only going to do with two emotional ingredients to marriage, a healthy marriage. One, and some of you have already heard me say this in terms of we've been talking or counseling or in different situations. These two issues I bring up all the time in conflict. That we have to deal with these two issues, whether we're in any kind of conflict, but primarily today we're going to talk about marriage conflict, because that is the most intense conflict that we get into. Every human being has a certain level of desire. And for most people it's very intense. Some people it doesn't matter, but for most people we have a desire all to be loved. Yeah, but we have something else that we don't think about much. We have a desire to be understood.

I just want you to understand me. Have you ever said that? I just want to be understood. I want you to know what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, why I'm thinking, why I'm feeling this. And it is in conflict within marriage, it is one of the most difficult things to do, because what are both people doing? Trying desperately to get the other person to understand him or her. So she's saying, you just have to understand me, and he's saying, you just have to understand me, and nobody's understanding anybody. There's no real understanding. In fact, you must be stupid. Well, you must be. You're just mean, right? Now the names start, the attacks start, because nobody could really be that stupid. Nobody could really be that mean. Nobody could really be. You have to be doing this on purpose. Doing what on purpose? See, you don't understand. And we do have a need to be understood, because only then can real communication take place. Now if you're the type of person that likes to be totally alone, living out someplace, you know, on a farm where you don't talk to anybody for all day long, just the cows and the chickens, because I don't want to understand anybody, and I don't want anybody to understand me, then probably this means nothing to you. But you're probably not married, either. In fact, I understand it's as important as I love you.

I am sorry is also as important as I love you. Maybe even more at times. I understand. Interesting. Let's go to 1 Peter 3. I stress this in every married ceremony I've ever done. 1 Peter 3.

There's instructions here in the first six verses to the wives, but I could talk about the structures to the wives because it is dealing specifically with issues of wives to husbands. But I want to deal with this one here in verse 7 because it's to husbands that applies to both, but he specifically nails us husbands on this one. Husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding. Now, that's understanding of God's ways of how God wants us to be his husbands. So we have to understand what God wants us to do. We're not allowed to set up our own domains as the head of this family. We have to use God's ways as the way that we run our families. We lead our families. But the understanding also would go beyond that. We must understand our wives, as we'll see as the sentence plays out. He says understanding, giving honor to the wife, so it's not only understanding our role, it's understanding the wife and honoring her. In other words, she's comparable to me. She's here at my dinner beside me. She's right beside me. She's comparable to me. I honor her. As to the weaker vessel, now once again, that doesn't mean that women are emotionally or mentally weaker than men. It does mean that most women are physically weaker than men. Which, if we ever use the physical strength we have to dominate a woman, that marriage will never be happy. A man could never use physical violence to dominate women. I've seen men do it, try it. I've occasionally seen a woman do it.

Usually it's men. Why? Well, because we can.

And this, you know, we cannot do that. That is a sin before God. He says, as to the weaker vessel, as to being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayer is being unhindered. Aires together, once again, spiritual equality. Now, there may be a difference in roles, but the difference in roles has nothing to do with the relationship with God. And anyone who has children, has sons and daughters, knows exactly what I'm talking about. You may treat them slightly different at times, but they're both equal when they come before you. Right? You love them the same. You care for them the same. But the interesting thing here, he says to us men, if you don't use this understanding to honor your wife as an heir together, your prayers will be hindered. God, well, listen to us. I find it interesting he doesn't say that to women. Now, I have my own personal theory about that. Well, my daughters came to me, even if they were wrong, I was open to them. If my son came to me and said, hey, come on, boy, grow up. I think God does that with us guys sometimes. I think there's times God says, come on, boy, grow up. And I think he has a little soft spot for his daughters. And that's okay. I appreciate that. Although, I don't like being told grow up, but he's told me that many a times. I'm 60 years old and he still tells me once, so come on, boy, grow up. I get it. That's what I'm supposed to do. So I do believe that's why he mentions this specifically to the man. Come on, you mistreat her and dad's going to say, hey, you take that care of that with her, then you come talk to me. You go deal with that with her, then come talk. But you know, that's exactly how my dad would have handled it. If I would have ever gone to my dad with a problem in my marriage, I know what he would have said. Son, you go deal with that. You go take care of her. You fix the problem, then we'll talk. I know what he would have said. He needs some advice on how to fix it fine, but don't come to me and complain.

I'll give you some advice, and I'll go fix it. I understand that as a man. That's how I know he would have treated me. That's how God treats me. Understanding.

Understand is an interesting word. To stand under somebody is to hold them up so that you can see them. You know how they think. You know how they feel. You know why they do what they do. Now, realize this. To understand somebody doesn't mean you have to agree with them. To understand somebody doesn't mean you have to agree with them. So someone's talking, you know, the husband's talking, and the wife is interrupting because she disagrees. The point is, does he know you even understand? Because if he doesn't, your disagreement will probably mean nothing. Until you can prove understanding, disagreements don't mean anything.

Isn't that the whole point of people who are good debaters? They understand the other side. Of course, sometimes you may find that if you understand, you actually end up agreeing. That happens sometimes, too. But do we understand each other? Look at Philippians 2. Now, let's think of this in context of understanding, okay? Understanding where your husband's coming from. Because he's different than you, and you're his helper. And understanding where your wife is coming from because you were to honor her as someone comparable to you.

But we have to understand them.

Now, think of that in terms of what Paul is talking to the church here, but if I'm going to apply this to fellow church members, who's the closest church member to me? It's my wife. And you can say, well, my husband or wife isn't in the church. That's not a good excuse. They're still the closest person to you. So, if these instructions are how we're to treat each other, think of this as we read through this in terms of how do I understand and treat my wife or my husband? Therefore, if there's any consolation, this is Philippians 2, verse 1, in Christ, or any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, wow, if there's any of these things in our marriages, consolation in Christ, comfort of love, fellowship of the Spirit, affection and mercy.

Fulfill my joy, Paul says, by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Now, if he's saying to the church at Philippi, this is the kind of relationship you should have with each other in the church, how much more should we have this kind of relationship with each other as a husband or wife? It's a lot easier to give sermons about roles. Husbands do this, wives do that. Let's go to Ephesians, read through that set of scriptures, and there's our marriage sermon. But what we are supposed to build within our marriages is more, you know, how does that happen? How does Ephesians 5 happen? And a lot of the problems in marriage are the emotions that we bring in and the emotions that we create between ourselves. Somehow we have to step back to take this approach to say, I wish to understand you. You know, the best way to know if you understand of somebody is listen to them without comment, only asking questions. Until when they're done, you say, let me see if I understand you. This is what you mean. And you say back, in your own words, what they said. And when they look at you and they smile and say, yes, that's what I meant, now you have understanding. Until you can repeat back to that person, so that person says, yes, that's what I meant. Yes, yes, you understand me. Then you actually have understanding. But you have to stop, contain your own emotions, which is not easy. Sometimes you have to take a timeout. Timeouts aren't bad. I've got to take a timeout. Take a timeout. You have to listen and let that person go on. And at some point you might want to say, but that's not right. You can't. You have to ask questions. And when you're done and you say, this is what you think, this is what you feel, and that person can say, yes, now you can talk about, okay, but that's not what I meant, or you're misunderstanding. You said to me, now you can actually discuss. But until you have understanding, discussion turns into argument. But why don't they understand what I'm saying is perfectly clear? Well, it might be to you.

What you're saying may be perfectly clear to your buddy, but it's not to your wife. What you're saying may be perfectly clear to two or three other women, but your husband thinks you're speaking in Swahili. Does that person understand? This is not easy to do. Listening, asking questions, until you finally say, so let me see, you think this and this and this. And the person says, yes. Now, it may be very painful because they may be saying they actually believe things about you that aren't true. But it doesn't matter because at that point, you understand. Now you can actually deal with the issues. Because you know what the other person has to do now? The same thing.

Listen, ask questions, and say, wait a minute, this is what you're saying? This and this and this? Yes. You have the beginning of discussion. Look on what he says here in verse 3. In your marriage, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem the others better than himself. I will understand you because you have value to me. So right now, I'm esteeming you more than me.

Now that becomes very unhealthy when one person does it and the other doesn't. Right? I'm esteeming you more, esteeming you more, and you never esteem me more. That becomes very unhealthy. The whole point he's making here is this is each person doing that. Let each of you look out not only for his own interest but also for the interest of others. How much more does that statement apply to our marriages? You just can't look out for what's important to you. You must look out for what's important for your mate. But you know what that means? You must understand the needs of your of your mate, the desires of your mate. And those needs and desires have to be important to you even if they're not your own.

Even if they're not your own.

All people coming into marriage believe that the other person is going to fulfill certain needs that they have or desires that they have. Oh, this person is going to... I'll never be lonely again because I will have a friend for life. Or, you know, affection, acceptance. This person will always accept me and never disagree with me.

Recreational companionship. Oh, we always had so much fun together. Every day will be fun with her. And then you find out she only went bowling because you liked it. Now that you're married, she never wants to go bowling again. We have this... people come in with this sense of security. When I get married, I will feel secure. People come in, of course, with a need for a physical relationship. Everybody brings all these emotional and physical needs and desires into marriage. And part of the reason God created marriage was because there is this connection between a husband and wife. Because there are different needs, different desires that they can fulfill in each other. But the truth is, no, the perfect husband, the perfect wife, could not fulfill all of your emotional needs and desires.

Your husband wasn't designed to fulfill all of your needs and desires, and your wife wasn't designed to fulfill all of your needs and desires. We are designed to help fulfill the needs and desires of our mates that are designed for marriage. I mean, if you come into a marriage because you think, well, at least I won't be depressed anymore, you're going to be depressed. If you come into a marriage saying, well, if I get married, I will never feel insecure again. Yes, you will. If you come into a marriage saying, if I marry her, I will be happy the rest of my life. No, you won't. I'll never be unhappy again. Well, that's not possible.

I mean, there are certain needs and desires we have as human beings that only our union with God can fix. You can only receive the fruits of Galatians 5 through our union with God through His Spirit in us. Your husband can't give you love, joy, peace, love, suffering, gentleness, mercy, faith, like God's Spirit. Oh, yes, he can if he would just do everything my way. Oh, yes, my wife. All those things would happen if she just do everything my way. No! She can't do that. You've already doomed your marriage to failure.

So what we have to do is we have to understand marriage and we have to understand each other. We have to understand why this person does what she or he or she does. One of the most amazing things about marriage is over time because of a lack of understanding. We will impute motives to each other that have absolutely nothing to do with reality. After we've been married a number of years, Kim said to me one day, I finally figured something out. You're not doing it on purpose. And I said, what? She said, that's it. She said, there was something—I forget what it was I was doing—it was hurting her feelings. And she said, I've thought for a long time he asked me to do this on purpose. And then I realized, wait a minute, he's a man. He has no idea the effect this is having. And I said, I don't know what she's talking about.

And she explained it to me. And I said, that bothers you? She said, yes. I said, well, I don't want to do it anymore. She said, I figured out a woman would have known that.

Probably. I didn't. Right? I'm not a woman. There's been times I've tried to explain things to her. I've said, Dad, I said, well, this bothers me. She said, why? And there's times I've said, if you were a man, you would know. But you're not. So I accept that you don't know. But I'm asking you to understand.

And we've had that conversation many times with my son. Gary, I'm going to. No. But Gary, no. Leave it alone. Why? He's a man. You'll have to learn this one himself. But Gary, if I could... No. Don't baby him on this one. You're going to have to let him be a man here. But he's going to get hurt. Probably.

That girl's going to break his heart. Yup.

He's playing basketball on a sprained ankle. Yup. It's stupid.

I'm going to go stop him. Nope. I'll talk to him when he's done. Hurts, doesn't it? Yeah. That was stupid. Sure was. That's the extent of our conversation afterwards. It was, yeah. We'll do that again. Nope. Okay.

It's different with girls, isn't it? You have guys and girls. It's a lot more complicated with girls. Remember this important truism. In a healthy marriage, each partner is not dedicated to forcing the other person to become a good mate. In a healthy marriage, each person is dedicated to becoming a good mate. We waste all our energy trying to make our wives the perfect wife, or make our husbands the perfect husband. Well, what we should be doing is becoming the perfect husband, or becoming the perfect wife. Put our energy into that, instead of the constant conflict of trying to change the other person. Understand. It doesn't mean you always agree, but it is the only way you'll ever be able to manage conflict. It's to actually understand. And sometimes you sit down and say, okay, I didn't know how you felt. Because a lot of times it's not about logic, it's not about facts, it's about emotions, it's about feelings. So that's our first ingredient, understanding. Our second is the absolute need to forgive. Now, if you've done something wrong, say you've lost your temper and you just yelled at your wife, or the wife you yelled at, you lost your temper, and you screamed at your husband and slammed the door and didn't talk to him for two hours. Now, you know that that behavior was wrong. Even if you were right at the point you were making, you know the behavior is wrong. You need to be forgiven. You need forgiveness. You need to walk up to your wife and say, I'm sorry. Sometimes, the wife, all you need is for him to come up and put his arm around you and say, we'll work on this, and then you can say, I shouldn't have done it that way. But I want to talk about the need that you have to forgive. We all understand the need to be forgiven. Oh, that was dumb. To this day, my wife reminds me of we had only been married a few years, and we had two cars, and one day I sold the car thinking she would like the money, only to find out she wanted the car. She would go away to visit her parents for a week, take the baby out to visit her parents, came home, and the car was gone. Look, here's the money. I gave it. It's yours. You can do whatever you want with it, but I wanted the car. Oh, I needed to ask for forgiveness.

But the need to actually forgive, because we make fun of that today. But what if she still harbored resentment over that? You think, well, that'd be silly. Yeah. How much resentment and anger and bitterness is in your marriage? Because you won't forgive. You say, well, I can forgive. I just can't forget. Well, there's actually—we'll talk about that in a minute—there's actually a little bit of truism to that, but how do we deal with that? Let me give you three reasons why you have to forgive for your marriage to work. You have to forgive for your marriage to work. Matthew 6. Matthew 6.

Verse 14, For if you forgive men their trespasses—this is in the Sermon on the Mount—your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Now, the point being made here is that when you and I refuse to forgive somebody, we build a barrier between us and God.

Now, we know that with other people, but how many times have we refused to do that with your husband or wife? Yeah, well, if you do my wife, if you do my husband, I just can't forgive him. He says the stupidest things. Well, I can't forgive her. For years, I've been telling her she needs to be a good cook and she's a lousy cook. Or, basically, you've just picked at each other for so long. You don't even know why you're angry with each other anymore. You just are. You just feel frustrated. You're just angry with each other. You haven't forgiven. You're carrying around things. Here's what's interesting about arguments in a marriage. You ever have an argument? And if somebody was listening to that argument, they would think you're insane? Because neither of you finished the sentence. And you're laying some kind of time warp, jumping around from issue to issue, and no one else would know even what you're talking about. I mean, Kim and I have done that, but it's interesting in marriage counseling, because sometimes I'll be going along. I've actually got husband and wife into a fight sometimes, just so I can figure out what's going on. Because they say all the nice things that they want the minister to know. Okay, let's just pick a fight. And then at some point I'll say, well, she did that to you? Yes. Well, have you dealt with that? Yes. Well, when did this happen? 1993? Have you forgiven her for that? Forgiveness.

If you do not forgive your husband or wife, you put a barrier between you and God. Your prayers are hindered. Now, this doesn't matter whether you're a man or wife or woman here. Your prayers are hindered when you refuse to forgive your husband or wife. There is an issue between you and God. But this is so difficult because it's an emotional issue. It's like understanding. But that's so hard. There's a 40-volume set I have at home of books I've used for many, many years. For professional Christian counselors, and they're all written by counselors, psychologists, everybody's got a doctor or two behind their name. But it's all based on the Scripture. It's a remarkable set of books. And in one of the books called Counseling Christian Workers, Lewis McBurney, Dr. Burney, makes this statement. I want to read it to you. It's about forgiveness in a relationship. When we refuse to forgive, we become judges of those who have hurt us and become spiritually blinded to the reality of our own imperfections before a holy God. The result is a growing coldness and loss of love. Healing does not occur in such a climate. It can't. What's difficult here, and it's a whole other subject. It's hard to forgive when the person keeps doing it. If you keep calling your wife stupid, she can forgive you, but the next time you do it, you just keep opening it up. Or you could call your husband lazy or something. But we have to forgive. But if you keep doing it, you cannot manage conflict that way.

You simply keep creating the same level of anger, frustration that's there. But if we can forgive and understand, then what we have is the ability to move beyond where we are.

But you know, if God's at the center of this marriage, we have to go ask God, help me forgive my mate.

We have to do it all the time. Help me forgive my mate. Because if we do not, now our relationship isn't just a problem between the two of us, it's a problem between me and God. Remember, every time we do a marriage ceremony, we say this is a three-way relationship. It's not just between husband and wife. So that's the first reason why forgiveness is absolutely necessary. The second is that we have an emotional need to forgive.

Here's what happens if you don't forgive. It's in your mind and you play it over and over again like a bad movie. You know what I mean? You play the scene over and over again until you memorize everything that's happened. And sometimes you even add things that weren't there. Now we do that with movies, too. You ever do that on a movie? Oh, you're going to love this scene. And then you watch it with somebody and you've seen the movie before and you say, oh, wait a minute. That wasn't what I remember. That's not exactly how I remembered. Well, that's what we do. We play the hurt. We play the wrong. And I'm not saying what they did was right. Sometimes our mates need to repent for what they've done. They've maybe abused us or yelled at us or said certain things or gossiped about us or lied to us or, you know, all the things that we can do to each other in a marriage. Yes, they need to repent. But we're talking here about forgiveness. Well, okay, the moment they repent, I'll forgive. Well, if the person doesn't repent, it's very difficult to have a relationship. I mean, even God says you have to repent to have a relationship. But God offers forgiveness before we repent. Think about that. Why? Because God's emotionally healthy. God isn't sitting in His throne thinking about your sins and thinking, I can't believe that person did that to me. I can't believe that. In 1987, they did that to me.

Isn't that what we do? We carry things inside of us and we repeat it and we repeat it and we repeat it and we play it out and we play it out and we play it out. And what we do is we create emotional dysfunction. We can even create, by the way, mental illness. It is possible to think about distressful things, bad things, abusive things long enough that you change your brain chemistry. You can actually make yourself ill. By dwelling on, this is what's so hard when people have been abused as children. It's just embedded in their minds.

And they've dwelled on it and played it out and played it out and played it out. That's why some children develop schizophrenia. Not all schizophrenia is demonic. Some children become schizophrenics because they're abused. So during the, especially sexual abuse, during it, they pretend to be somebody else in their mind. Can you imagine it? Some of you may have gone through that. You pretend to be somebody else. So in any stressful situation, you become a different person.

Why are they acting that way? Because they've actually created somebody in here they can go pretend to be to escape abuse. We have to forgive. I'm going to read again from this this book for professional counselors. Emotionally, forgiveness allows us to invest energy in the relationship. If you do not forgive, how can you ever invest any positive energy? You simply look at the other person as a guilty person that you want corrected. You're guilty, you need corrected. You need to do what I want to. You need to do what you just can't forgive. So you can't invest any positive energy. We cannot move forward towards intimacy without taking the risk to make that investment. Oh, that's hard. If I make that investment, I may get hurt. If you don't make the investment, you will get hurt. So your choices between being hurt or maybe getting hurt. It's the price for being married at times.

An individual who does not take that risk becomes trapped in self-centeredness, bitterness, loneliness, and despair. And the shame is here, the person who's feeling this isn't the person who did the wrong. Right? The person who did the wrong may have forgotten about it by now. But the person who cannot forgive emotionally becomes trapped in that. You just relive it over and over again. And therefore, you can find yourself living in self-centeredness, bitterness, loneliness, and despair. And the more the mate doesn't remember it, or doesn't deal with it, or thinks it's done, you know, I thought we dealt with that. The more this person becomes lonely, despair, bitter, and it starts to spill over into other relationships.

And now they're actually sinning. And they're not the one who did the wrong originally. This is the problem. If we can't say, I forgive you, I let this go. Now that doesn't mean I forgive you because you were right. You never have to forgive somebody because they're right, do you? The whole point of forgiveness is you were wrong. Have you ever forgiven anybody because they were right? Oh, you were absolutely right. I appreciate it and I forgive you for it.

Thank you. And I forgive you for being so kind to me. The whole thing about forgiveness is they were wrong and it hurt. That's the whole thing. That's the whole point of forgiveness. The whole point when we're wrong and we hurt God, He forgives us. It's because He's emotionally healthy.

He just doesn't sit around harboring all this. Can you imagine harboring 7 billion people's hurt? Every person every day hurts God in some way.

He handles it. He goes on, our own need for love and intimacy demands choosing to forgive. That's a remarkable statement. Our own need, even if it's just for our own selfishness, our own need for love and intimacy demands choosing to forgive. It is critical that we understand forgiveness is a choice, an act of will, not a feeling. If you wait to feel forgiveness, you'll never forgive anybody. I'm glad God doesn't wait to forgive me when He feels like it.

It's just who He is. As in love, we decide in forgiveness to act a specific way. We decide to relinquish hurt rather than reinforce it. You and I have an emotional need to forgive. And if we don't, it will make us very bitter, unhappy people. And it will bleed over outside the marriage. This brings us to our last point on forgiveness. You have a physical need to forgive. People make themselves sick by refusing to forgive. We'll actually make ourselves sick. Here's the problem with forgiveness. You and I are physical. Memory is stored in little molecules and parked away in the brain. Stored in the brain. So all these little molecules have memory stored in it. And your brain grabs hold of those molecules. I'm simplifying it because I read a book on it and I still don't understand it. It pulls it out of where it stores memory and brings it into the conscious mind. And there it is. Physically it pops up. And it's always by association. I'll give you the perfect example. You're driving in a car and you turn on the radio and you hear a song you haven't heard in 20 years. And you remember, oh yeah, I remember that time that so and so and so and so and we were driving in the car. This song came on and we were all singing it at the same time. And all of a sudden you remember the words? Well, how in the world does that happen? Association. The problem is that you get older, you get so much stuff stored in there it's hard for the brain to figure out even what to associate with, right? But if you harbor negative thoughts, I want you to stress, it's thoughts. If you think negatively about your mate and those get stored, then what happens? Every time your mate does something that's not specifically what you want, guess what your brain goes and finds?

All the related memories. And guess how that floods into your mind? As feelings? Well, this reminds me of the time you... You think, how did that person remember that? Easy. It's stored in there and it's an associated emotion. So I'm going to find it and grab it out. Pop! There it is. Well, now you've been having conflicts for five years. Your brain is filled with a thousand feelings, just like that one. So guess what the brain does? It goes all... it goes and finds all thousand related feelings and pops them into your conscious mind and you suddenly feel sick at your stomach. You're overwhelmed with frustration and anger towards this person. You can't even look at them. Why is that happening? Because you haven't forgiven them. Forgiven them, that's why. See, forgiveness is refusal to keep the memory in the conscious part of the brain. You can't erase it, by the way. It's there. You can only say, I refuse to think about that. I refuse to think about the time he did this. I refuse to think about the 50 times she did this. See, the longer you're married, the more they add up. You refuse it. You actually say, I will not think this. You consciously decide it. Because you can't say, you say, well, I'm going to change my feelings. You can't. Try to change a feeling someday. You can only change thoughts. You can only change thoughts. And you replace the thought with something else. And it's not easy, just like understanding isn't easy. You replace the thought with something good. You replace the thought with a prayer to God. You replace the thought with Scripture. There's a whole process how we have to learn to replace thoughts with Scripture. But we refuse. Let me give you... just think about this for a minute. This is a made-up example.

Did we start late? Did we start late? How am I running out of time? Did we start late? Okay, how much late did we start? Five minutes. Okay, okay. I'm better off than I thought. I thought, man, I'm starting to go sit down. A man is having trouble with his wife. And difficulty. She goes and tells all of her friends. And all of her friends are mad at him. Okay? He's really hurt by that. You know, he goes home, starts... he just unloads on her. Why did you tell all of them about our problems? That was wrong! That shamed me! Well, you should be shamed! You did this and this and this! Now, she should have never done that. But his reaction now is to ignore her for a week. So how does she feel during that week? Oh, look what he's doing to me! He's ignoring me! But something else happens. Say, over a week or so, the two of them get where they just sort of forget about it. You know, they sort of have a truce. It's there, but it's underlying. Okay? But they have a truce. So now what happens is, he goes to church and sees those ladies. And he says, they're looking at me. They're looking at me. They're looking at me. What is he associating?

So after a while, he can't stand to go to church. He can't stand to go to Bible studies because I know those women are gossiping about me. And one day, the wife is shocked three months later when he says, you know what? I'm just not going to that church anymore. Those women are nothing but a bunch of gossips. And she's thinking, how in the world did he get to that conclusion? Well, it's pretty easy if you could sit down and work it through. It's because she went and told them things she should not have told them.

And now, he's taking those emotions and he's making an accusation. Those women may have forgotten about all of it. He doesn't know, but it doesn't matter. And his mind, I've been shamed, I've been put down by my wife with those women, and I don't even want to go there anymore. So I'm just not going to church. I'm going to stay home. Well, I've worked, I've sat with too many people and listened to that process. And then you try to work back through, what's the original issue? Kim and I will talk sometimes when we sort of jabber and eat out of each other about something. And I'll look at her and say, hey, what was the original issue? And sometimes we'll just laugh. We have no idea. How did this get started?

Something craziness started it.

What started it? So let me wrap it up here with the things you can do. Five things you can do this week. Understanding forgiveness, these two issues.

One, make a commitment to pray every day that God will show you, God will show you how to be a better husband or a better wife. And that God will soften your heart and soften the heart of your mate.

Oh, good. I'm going to go pray that he'll make my husband a better husband. No, pray that you'll be a better wife. And husband, go pray that you'll be a better husband. Then ask that God will soften both of your hearts towards him and towards each other. You have to go ask God for this. Help me be the husband I am supposed to be. Well, I'll do it as soon as she does it. We're back to it. You're back to a no-win situation. Yes. Did you pray today that you would be a better husband? No. Well, then I'm not going to pray. I'd be a better wife. You're the leader. You're going to pray first. Oh, no. You're the follower you're supposed to pray first. We have to go ask God because we, it has to be, I want to be a better husband. I want to be a better wife. 2, Romans 14-19. Okay, this has nothing to do with marriage. Well, what was it? The prince's bride, Manwich? How many have seen the prince's bride? Oh, man, not very many.

Of course, it is a quirky sense of humor. There may be a reason lots of people haven't seen it. It was my kid's favorite movie, Romans 14-19.

Therefore, let us pursue the things which make for peace, and the things by which one may edify another. Seek what is good for the other. I'm going to seek in my marriage what is good for my mate. I'm going to seek in my marriage what builds my mate up, edify it as a build-up to support, maybe to understand.

Or do we just tear each other down? I want to build up. I'm going to seek peace by building up my husband, building up my wife. Probably the first time you do something like this, your mate will look at you and be very suspicious. Why are you doing that? Why are you being so nice to me? You know? And then we surprise them. My wife came home the other day with groceries. I was in my office and I looked out the window and she had just drove up and I thought, oh, she's going to have all these groceries. So I went down and she opened the trunk and I carried in the groceries. She was so shocked. I didn't realize how shocked she was until I took in all the groceries and I went up and I was sitting in my office. It was like 10 minutes later I hear from the bottom of the steps, hey, thanks for bringing in the groceries. It's like, that was weird, but okay, thank you. I thought maybe I should bring in the groceries more often, you know? Edify one another. We get so used to it we don't even realize we're not helping each other anymore. Ephesians 4. So that's our second point, is that you are going to edify. You're going to uplift, uplift, stand under your mate. I guarantee, I tell you what, here's what I'd like everybody to do this week. From between now and next Sabbath, every day, starting for the rest of the day. Get a little chart and put, that I pray today, you know, no one, pray that I'll be a better spouse and that God will soften our hearts. And then check off if you did that. Two, did I at least once today do something to lift up my husband or wife? Did I do something today that made them feel understood, made them feel loved, made them feel important, identified them? I sought peace instead of seeking conflict.

You know, my little stars, give yourself a star, you know, remember, little kids do that, whatever.

I tell you what, two of you make an agreement to do this, and if by next Sabbath, the both of you look at each other's charts and you did it, go out, take, you know, go out on a date, get a babysitter, if you have kids, go out on a date, reward yourselves. Ephesians 4, point number 3. I forgot where I was here. Ephesians 4, verse 29.

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the ears? How about this week, every day, you're going to try to speak to your husband or wife in a way that lifts them up and brings grace to them?

Oh, let's go back to those old marriage verses, you know? Ephesians 5, husbands, you're in charge, women, you have to submit. Let's go back to that stuff. Why?

If we can't do this in our marriages, how do we do it outside our marriages?

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but it was good for necessary edification. Take every day the rest of this week, and every day, try to find every opportunity to say something good to your mate. You know, there was a test, a survey done a number of years ago, and they said in happy, productive marriages, the quota of negative comments to positive comments was five to one on a daily basis. In other words, the people said five times as many positive as negative comments to each other. In most marriages, it's lucky to be, you know, it's in most it's lucky to be not the opposite, five negative for every one positive. So edify one another by saying things that are uplifting. Number four, which is in verse 30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Wait a moment, grieve the Holy Spirit of God. That's right. When you and I are in conflict with our mate, we're grieving God. We're grieving God. That's not what he wants us to be in our marriages. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. So you need to look at your own relationship with your husband or wife. Is it filled with bitterness and wrath and anger and evil speaking and malice? Then we need to go to God and repent and ask to have that removed from us. Remove from me. Now that's not easy because if I give up my anger, that means I'm letting her get away with the way she treats me. If I give up my my evil speaking, then none of my friends will know what a jerk he is. Huh. Then you'll never be healed. Even if he does change or even if he doesn't change, nothing will ever be solved. Because inside, this is what you will be. Inside, this is what you will be.

You won't even know what if she changes.

So ask God to take away these emotions. We're back to understanding. We're back to not imputing motives. Let me understand why you did what you did before I make up a motive. And then our fifth point is in verse 32. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God and Christ forgave you.

If Christ forgave us, how can we not forgive the wife of our youth? How can we not forgive our husbands?

Just because they didn't do something the way we liked. Just because maybe they don't always understand us.

Just because we see all their faults, all their problems, all their sins, and we thought we married a person with no sins.

We thought we married a person with no faults. Or we'll change them.

Be kind. Find one way every day this week to do an act of kindness toward your mate.

Think about that. If I said, find a way to be kind towards a child, or towards an elderly person. Yeah, a person on the street. Find a way this week to be kind when you see someone begging on the street. Well, yeah, I'll give them something. Find a way to be kind to your wife this week. Oh, man, you're really asking me something now.

Be kind. An act of simple kindness. I'm a little ashamed that Kim was so surprised I did that. Because in my mind, I do it all the time. But the truth is, not all the time, because I don't even notice all the time. So I can't be doing it all the time. Oh, you went shopping. Yeah. I was at my office and never noticed. Just never noticed you went shopping and came back. An act of kindness. Remember, when taking this marriage recipe and mixing it together, we have to let God be the cook. God has to be in charge. Because you and I can't do this ourselves. It's not emotionally possible. It's hard.

But God gave us this wonderful gift. There is a joy and a happiness in the relationship and marriage that is the greatest single relationship in life.

But it doesn't happen by just happen. It happens because people work at it. It happens because people are willing to just start with understanding and forgiveness. Two core issues that don't just deal with marriage, but deal with the entire concept of Christianity. Don't be discouraged when you find some difficult times or face them in your marriage. There are no perfect marriages. And you live in a society, we live in a society that's trying to destroy all marriage. Everything's stacked against it. So yeah, there's going to be some hard times. But remember, your marriage isn't just the two of you. It's the two of you and God. It is God that will give you the help. It is God that will give you the direction. Remember, one of the reasons he gave us this relationship is because he wants us to learn love.

And this is a way we can truly learn love as man and woman, designed different in some ways, so that we can learn love. And it's because of one reason. Because he wants in his family, sons and daughters, who love like he does.