- 00:07
- All right, let's let's pray before we get started father we thank you for the conference thus far and we ask for your help as we discuss this topic right now of whom we're not experts help us to have this conversation and we pray and ask you help us to be biblical and point to Jesus in his name we pray amen so in keeping with the theme of the conference we want to make sure that as we look at marriage we want to make sure we're looking at marriage in light of what
- 00:42
- Jonathan has just talked about Jesus is the authority over marriage we wanted to make sure that we informed you that we're not perfect so we're not coming up we're not coming up here you know we are not an authority on marriage and how to do marriage and this is the way a marriage should be and this is the way a marriage should look because oftentimes our marriage is a real marriage and has many blunders on the daily and I think it's interesting bringing up the word perfect it's interesting how we often use the the word perfect in our marriages it's uh we use it in such a way um well
- 01:26
- I'm too bad we all can't be as perfect as you are you know in our in our arguments in our conversations not that he's calling me out what that's never happened okay so at the beginning and and you may have to decipher my notes here um
- 01:46
- I just throw a lot of stuff down on the page but the first one is obedience is where we find freedom in marriage obedience is where we find freedom so this first part is kind of like I said what not to do um you've heard popular phrases in Christianity uh called we they say we need to mirror
- 02:05
- Christ we need to be like Christ what would Jesus do what would Jesus do bracelets um you know in some areas biblically we find verses we're called to that we're the image bearers of Christ we're we're to mirror him but here in marriage we want to look at it in a different way um the way
- 02:25
- I think it's taken in this context is often wrong um using these methods to me often end up being behavior modifications uh used as tactics to receive a desired outcome so I want to behave this way so that it makes her react and behave a certain way towards me it's kind of reactionary um we we are not called to control things that are not in our control um we are not called to find our joy in their response so you know we're working for that response thinking that we're going to get joy out of getting the desired response so it's that that cyclical thing that's happening right there once we get to the end of it that joy is not found because that's not the intention it's not
- 03:27
- God's design um and here's something interesting too uh you know we talked about mirroring
- 03:34
- Christ you know we we mirror reflect him but in in doing that in this context because of who we are because of our humanity because we're human what happens is and and we've you've heard people talk about this in evangelism if you uh if you're speaking to an atheist or somebody and you want to share the gospel with them and they say well well my
- 04:04
- God would never send anybody to hell and your response is well you're right your God wouldn't send anybody to hell because your
- 04:10
- God doesn't exist so we do that when we mirror Christ to our spouse because we mirror the
- 04:18
- Christ to our spouse that we've created in our mind that we want them to be so however we start here instead of there we want them to behave and respond to me in a certain way so I'm going to create a
- 04:34
- Jesus that I can mirror so that they will reciprocate that that which
- 04:43
- I want from them do you have any comments on that first part not yet can we ask questions absolutely absolutely so would you say that what you're describing is that kind of like a manipulation absolutely yep very manipulative and that's that's a hard pill to swallow because we we don't want to think we're being manipulative so in marriage we're not called to be our spouse's
- 05:22
- Jesus their savior and we're not called to be their Holy Spirit we cannot do for our spouse what
- 05:29
- Jesus can do and being like Jesus to our spouse can potentially set us up for unmet expectations
- 05:37
- I treated you this way therefore I deserve equal or or better treatment those expectations are not met then
- 05:45
- I become bitter and this is similar to the the five love languages which
- 05:51
- I can't even tell you the names of unless I have to look them up I mean what are those the the five love languages well
- 06:00
- I've I've kind of checked out on that anyway I just I just know they're bad they're not I mean it it takes us in the wrong direction it's not a gospel direction physical touch affirmations gifts quality time and serving yeah those are the five love languages very popular it used to be very popular still probably popular in certain circles but the problem with the five love languages is if I learn their love like no yeah if I learn their love language and I just pour into that love language then
- 06:38
- I'm going to get the desired response or if I figure out what my love language is and they're not treating me according to my love language then unmet expectations and and so we're not treating each other in light of the gospel
- 06:55
- I'm going to treat you based on the fact that I'm the worst sinner in the room
- 07:01
- Jesus died for me he loves me he's forgiven me I deserve hell therefore serve serve serve serve despite your behavior towards me does that make sense it's often the picture of how it goes by the way he's really good at that and I'm really bad at that he's far better um what we have been called to do in our marriages is obey
- 07:35
- Christ so that's that's the main point our aim in the conference and in this life is to be biblical obeying
- 07:42
- Christ because he is our authority is biblical and is what he has led to this particular theme of the conference notice our verses for the conference all authority has been given to Jesus in heaven on earth teaching them to obey so that's that's the thing obey obey
- 07:59
- Christ not do all these other techniques these other forms of manipulation that we talked about we've been called to obey
- 08:09
- Christ this approach keeps Jesus in his position and in our lives we are not the ones in position to expect to have our needs met and be served we love our spouse beyond words to serve and honor
- 08:24
- Christ the expectation is to obey
- 08:30
- Christ and leave the results up to him in this approach we are responsible for ourselves before God oh yeah just in in that point number two um you you have written that um if we don't receive the response that we think we should it means either we have the wrong expectations or that God is doing something else sometimes it's both of those things um and I think and I don't know if this is the right place to say it
- 09:08
- I think one of the biggest things that I have learned I don't know in being married and I try to do and I'm not the best at doing
- 09:20
- I don't it's not my desire to change you even when my expectations are not met it's not my desire to change you because you are not the one who needs to be changed it's me and that's always my goal it's how can my heart be changed what needs to be changed in me because I have those unmet expectations so I don't know if that's the right place to say it yeah do you have any questions about one through three there yeah you so they probably should have came to Jeremy's breakout session earlier on patience um because you're going to need a lot of it and you're talking about expectations and and that's a really good question and something that we need to address what happens and there's as a pastor
- 11:06
- I'm sure you've seen it you know couples come in to your study or wherever you meet and both will say
- 11:15
- I was baptized 15 years ago you know I'm a member of this church
- 11:20
- I'm safe but fruit tells you otherwise so you often have couples come in and one's not safe um and and how do you deal with that and I think the word expectation managing those expectations is key there from my perspective and what
- 11:39
- I mean by that is you've often heard you talk you brought up Todd Friel and I think
- 11:46
- I heard this from him a long time ago when it comes to like Christmas Christmas has been brought up so far in our uh when it comes to Christmas and you'll hear
- 11:58
- Christians talking about what we need to protest against the Walmart because they won't say
- 12:03
- Merry Christmas well why would they say Merry Christmas because they're of the world it's we need to have realistic expectations that's easier said than done but when you're in a marriage who with an unbelieving spouse the expectation is they're going to act like an unbelieving spouse and so they need the support of their church their brotherhood and sisterhood in church they need faith and prayer they need the word and they need patience and of course their ultimate desire is not not that they'll and this goes back to what we talked about before if if I'm a believing spouse in the home uh with an unbelieving spouse if we want to get our priorities right my first priority is not that she treats me good if I'm a
- 13:09
- Christian and my spouse is unbelieving my first goal is that she becomes believing she becomes born again and so I want to live with her in an understanding way and in a gospel -centered way pointing her to Jesus and and go back to the breakout sessions probably that Tyler did where we're we're talking about suffering through things and God's design for sanctification because it may be for our sanctification that we need to be whittled whittled down living with a unbelieving spouse just all those scenarios why
- 13:52
- God why do you have me in this scenario what do you want to use me here in this scenario for not this needs to change because God promised me a happy life he didn't he he promised that he would work on us to make us holy to be presentable to the father and so that would be my first my start on that answer which is difficult you have anything let's see page number two what's our time um the gospel the purpose of the marriage is the gospel we've already heard that that the gospel presents images
- 14:37
- Christ and his church and and oneness is easier to explain than applied um and there's your there's your question there hopefully here we're talking about both parties being christians and the holy spirit empowers us uh for this journey yet if we don't yield to him we're we're losing and we're fighting a losing battle yielding is what number one and number three i guess are all about um great marriages can be a reality and i would go back to jonathan sermon that he just preached great serm great marriages can be a reality we just got to get back to this is this reality is
- 15:26
- God's reality this world is God's world and marriages are God's marriages and we need to do it his way um when it comes to the point there that daily we must die to sin and self and have faith in Jesus the times that are hardest for me in our marriage are likely the times when my eyes not on that when i am when i'm letting one or two or all of those balls drop in some way and it just makes everything that much more difficult and and and then it comes out here one of the reasons why number two here is so important it's because it helps us with with our motivation and perspective uh we can go back to the sermon i tried to preach and the message i tried to bring across on thursday is that God is
- 16:22
- God is saving a big world he's saving a lot of people and if you were in Jeremy's session he was talking about how um the kingdom starts out like a stone comes into a big mountain a little seed grows into a big tree and God's kingdom is forever his dominion is forever and it's going to keep going and he has a zeal it's his zeal that's doing it and it's him that is doing it and so this this kingdom and this accomplishment is his work and it's going to continue and his reign is forever and so he's he's saving the world and it's global and it's big but his means to do it is through us and working on the local level and through marriages and so that's another motivation another reason for us to to seek the
- 17:15
- Lord and um really desire to have godly marriages is because um we want to have the same global saving perspective that God has that my marriage my marriage is important to God's economy and so i want to have a
- 17:44
- God honoring marriage because my marriage is important in God's economy any comments on that one you're right um remember and remember the gospel in your marriages i'm a bigger sinner than my spouse i've sinned against God more than my spouse has sinned against me
- 18:06
- God saved and forgave me and treats me as if i've never sinned because of the imputed righteousness of Jesus not anything that i've done not only is
- 18:17
- God not bringing uh not going to send me to hell he treats me as a holy joint heir with Christ and we get to inherit the world so i've sinned so much against God yeah he's going to treat me like that and yet my spouse in in that perspective does something this minute compared to what we've done to God and yet i'll you know i'm right there ready to to pounce on my spouse when
- 18:51
- God treats us as a joint heir inheriting the world despite what we've done to him i was gonna i was gonna i was gonna jump on to number five because really if i could take my feelings out and treat him as the glorious highly favored child of the king that he is wouldn't our marriage just be even more wonderful than it already is because my feelings get in our way i tend to have big feelings and they get in the way but however i could put if i could post this on the inside of my eyelids so i could see that he is a child of the king and remind myself of that every time i blink we'd probably have far fewer issues so we don't have time for number three so if y 'all want to have further discussion about this send me a question or we can talk about it later um but i did want to share one more thing that i thought was so so fascinating when you do word studies you find you learn you find out so much more than than you didn't know so when i when i was looking up the verse that said that what
- 20:05
- God has joined together let no man separate or let no man put asunder and you can find out and i think
- 20:14
- Claude you brought this out in your message that this particular word you can understand it in yeah these several different ways and one of the ways that you can understand that word not separate or put asunder is um put no gap or or space in between so what oneness means biblically is that we're so put together that there is there's not an air bubble or space in between that's what
