Marriage Blunders

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. I know my name this time. My name is Mike Avendroth. You can write me mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

Subscribe maybe, tell your friends. I'm working on daily shows again. Wednesday will be video,

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, audio only. And so bear with me, we're getting closer.

Don't forget the new book, King, How the Sovereignty of God Changes Everything.

Talking about understanding God as a king. You will grasp doctrines faster,

I think. I mean, we don't have a king here in the US. We don't have a king even really in England.

I mean, he's called king, but it's more of a constitutional monarchy. What did kings like Ahasuerus and Esther, what kind of power did they have?

Could they choose their own bride? How does that all work? So it's the book,

King. I think you'll be encouraged. By the way, I pulled some other chapters from other books out on the topic of election, unconditional election, and put it in a new book like this about this size.

And that should be out sometime in the next couple months. And my brother said, why don't you call it The Chosen?

I said, okay, The Chosen is gonna be called, but the subtitle will save me from the movie, the

TV series. And I think it's The Beauty of God's Sovereign Grace or something like that. Anyway, today I wanna talk about marriage.

Marriage mistakes, marriage blunders, why? Well, I have been doing a lot of pre -marital counseling lately because we've got folks here at the church getting married.

And in my notes, I've got a marriage blunder section, mistakes that I think married people make.

And I thought, well, I think that'd probably be a good show because we're relevant on this show. We're practical, we're hands -on.

We've got our finger on the pulse of the nation, the no -co -nation. If Pat Ebenroth has a pactum verse, then what do

I get? I get this. So I'm gonna talk about marriage blunders because we can all learn from those.

And by the way, if you're not married, I think it'd probably be a good show for you anyway, because you'll know how to play, how to play.

Well, you know how to play, that's true, but know how to pray for people. I remember when I used to officiate weddings, or if you say, let's see, if I do baptisms, if you say it's my privilege and prayer.

Sometimes I say player, I wouldn't wanna do that. So anyway, we all make mistakes. Here we go. By the way,

I'm an expert at all these. Done them, recognize them, far from having some perfect marriage.

I've been married for 36 years. Probably I've been married for that long because of God's grace and a patient wife.

But today we're going to look at marriage blunders. Marriage is important, even if you're single to watch this because you realize how it reflects

Christ in the church, Ephesians chapter five, et cetera. Number one, the first blunder is, see your differences as something bad.

Instead of saying, we have complimentary roles, we have complimentary backgrounds, we have complimentary personalities, we have complimentary strengths and weaknesses.

If you see your differences as bad, that would be a blunder. Now, when you first start dating, you're thinking,

I've met this person, they're exactly like me, we love the same things, we do the same things, we have the same. And then you get married and you realize, well, we were just in love and we just loved being around each other.

And so we loved all these things as well because we were together. But the longer you're married, and I think

Mario would vouch for this as well, the more you think, this person is so unlike me, we have so many differences.

And what Kim and I would do often if we were at a conference or something or even sitting around the dinner table with another couple, we would talk about all of our differences.

I mean, the small ones to just make a point. And I would say things like, I drink coffee, she drinks tea.

I want to ride a road bike, she likes to ride a mountain bike.

I like to sleep in, she likes to get up early. I like crunchy peanut butter, she likes soft. I like to go skiing, she likes to go snowboarding.

I want my sheets tucked into the bed, she wants her sheets untucked to bed. I mean, we just go on and on and on, all these differences.

I always obey parking signs, she doesn't. I use hand sanitizer all the time on my hands, my nose, everywhere.

She's like, forget the hand sanitizer. I like taking naps, she likes doing things.

Anyway, we have all these differences. And by the way, it's a sovereignly designed system, if you will, because my strengths can cover her weaknesses.

Her strengths cover my weaknesses. It's almost like plurality of elders at a local church.

And we compliment each other. We're stronger together. We have differences in roles, leader, helper, strengths, even physically.

We're different emotionally. We have all these differences. And I just want you to know, those are good things.

Think about even the asymmetry in Bible commands to couples.

Husbands, love your wives, do not be harsh with them. Interestingly, Ephesians 5, however, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

And so it's hard to be in the place of helper, wives, submitting to a husband who's not perfect and she could lose respect.

So she's told to respect her husband. Now, are husbands to respect wives? Yes, but in this role here, in what

Paul's talking about, husbands now deal with wives who are in a submissive posture of they're not the leader and they don't do what you ask or they do something wrong.

And you can become bitter toward them or harsh to them. And so we have even asymmetrical roles.

And so I want you to think to yourself that my spouse is different and praise the

Lord for that difference. How to make a marriage blunder is think to yourself, these differences are wrong.

Blunder number two, this one's more important than the first one. You have a problem syndrome.

Embrace you have a problem syndrome. Instead of there's a problem at home, we have a problem.

And by the way, specifically husbands, since you're the leader, if there's a problem at home with children or your wife,

I was gonna say wives, there's a big problem if you've got wives, both living.

You have a problem. Remember Ephesians five, one flesh,

Genesis chapter two, one flesh. If your spouse has a problem, you have a problem.

Now let's think big picture. This is an easy one. When I got cancer, I had a problem, prostate cancer.

Second time, leukemia. When I have a problem, my wife, loving wife,

Kim, it was her problem too, was it not? Was she going to the cancer hospital with me?

Yes. Was it affecting her? Yes. And so when the Bible teaches, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

The idea is when I have a problem, it's our problem.

So instead of saying, you've got this problem and then the spouse getting very defensive, no, we have a problem.

Let's work through it together. Let's solve it together. How can I help you with this problem?

That's the loving thing to do. Blunder number three, fight or argue or debate when both of you or one of you is tired.

We kind of have this rule at our house, before 8 a .m., I'm not really good at solving things and hashing things out, especially our differences.

And after 10 p .m., my wife's not really good at that. And so sometimes we can get ourselves caught up in, oh, it's 10 o 'clock, it's 10 .30,

it's 11. And no, no, let's just, I love you, talk about it in the morning after eight.

So be careful to know when's a good time or not. Blunder number four, withhold forgiveness.

Out of everything that I said, this is the big one. This is the big one. The marriages that I see here at Bethlehem Bible Church that are really good marriages,

I didn't say perfect, but good, they have a lot of forgiveness in them. They're extending forgiveness.

They're not withholding forgiveness. And the opposite of forgiveness in many cases, including

Ephesians chapter four is bitterness. Remember Ephesians four, in light of who you are in Christ, don't lie, tell the truth, don't steal, work.

Don't be bitter, forgive. And so I could ask you, are you a forgiving person?

Are you a forgiving spouse? Think about all the things you see your spouse do behind the scenes and the sins that they commit.

The Bible says in Ephesians 4 .32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

Now, sometimes the word forgive means to just let go. This word here in Ephesians chapter four means to grace.

God has graced you, forgiven all your sins in Christ Jesus. And therefore, when someone sins against you and it'll probably be your spouse, the person that sins against you more than anyone else will probably be the one you're married to because you spend the most time with them.

And then what do we do when they sin against us? Sometimes we have to say, you know what, sweetheart, that was wrong and that offended me.

And then they say, please forgive me. Sometimes we just cover the sin, right? A love covers a multitude of sins.

But if you have received grace, generous grace, free grace, then you ought to be a forgiver.

Your forgiveness ought to be modeled after God's forgiveness. That's what the text says, just as. And so if you'd like to have a horrible marriage, you just don't forgive.

I think about bitter people and without kind of throwing my grandparents under the bus, but just for an illustration.

Grandma and grandpa were kind to me. I was at their house usually Monday, Wednesday, Friday, as dad and mom both worked early on in my childhood before mom stayed at home and worked at home raising us.

And my grandparents really didn't have any friends because they took an account of all the wrongs done to them.

Think 1 Corinthians 13, love doesn't do that. And they were bitter people. All of us have received battle wounds from other people.

We've been sinned against by our spouse, others, et cetera. But how do we respond? Kim's grandmother who raised her, her name was

Evie. She was in all kinds of ministry opportunities, got burned by a lot of people, but she wasn't bitter because she was a forgiver.

And so we regularly need to forgive our spouses. And when you forgive your spouse, when you say,

I forgive you, they say, will you please forgive me? And you say, I forgive you, you're saying, I won't bring it up again.

I won't bring it up to friends. I won't bring it up to you. I'll try not to bring it up even to myself. When I start thinking about it,

I'll try to think about something else. When God forgives, He casts the sin behind His back.

He throws it in the deep sea. He remembers it no more. As far as the

East is from the West, and it's just gone. He still knows about it, obviously, but the language,

He remembers it no more. He's not gonna rub your face in it. It's forgiven in Christ Jesus. And Luke says, chapter 17, basically if someone keeps sinning the same sins against you and they say, please forgive me, and I repent, you have to forgive them.

I know some people will say, you know what? If your husband keeps sinning the same sins against you after 10, 20, 30, six years of marriage, hopefully

I do it less often. Hopefully I repent faster. Hopefully I see that more.

And as I'm learning and growing, but we both sin and we need to grant forgiveness.

And you say, yeah, but he doesn't deserve it. Just as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Yeah, but you don't know what they've done just as God in Christ has forgiven you. But they keep doing the same sins over and over and over just as God in Christ has forgiven you.

If you have anything against anyone, Jesus said, when you stand praying, forgive so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive your transgressions.

So I want you, dear married person, to be a liberal, generous, forgiving spouse.

And you will be surprised how wonderful that is.

Not bringing up old offenses. I mean, think about bitterness. We've talked about this on the show before. How are people bitter?

Well, they're not forgiving and they also remember details. Why? Because they keep thinking about it over and over and over and over and over.

Bitterness remembers details because it replays it the whole time. Forgiveness is I let go. I grace you.

I don't bring it up again. And bitterness says, you know what? I remember that day 15 years ago, standing there in the kitchen, you had that suit on with that red tie and your shoes weren't really shined so much.

And you unbuttoned that tie of yours, that shirt. I don't even know what I had for lunch a week ago.

How could I remember what happened 15 years ago? Because bitterness remembers details. And so you want to have a bad marriage, then don't forgive.

Just, you say, yeah, but I can forgive maybe, but I can't forget.

Well, we don't bring it up to the Lord. Don't bring it up to other people. Think about something else and off we go.

Marriage blunders here on No Compromise Radio Ministry. Blunder number,

I don't even know what number this is. Five, is this blunder number five, number four. I'm sure you're taking notes.

So you probably know. Regularly say these words,

I deserve better. I deserve better. Or think these words.

What I'm after here is chronic complaining, chronic discontentment.

If you want to have a bad marriage, just think to yourself, you know what? I wish she was better with that.

I wish she wouldn't do that. I mean, obviously some of these things we can talk about, but if you find a wife, the

Bible says you found a good thing. Lamentations 339, why should any living mortal or any man offer complaint in view of his sins?

And so you think to yourself, what do I deserve and what do I get? And then now I'm complaining about the weather and my wife and my kids.

How about this verse? Here's a good one for all of us. James 5 .9, do not complain, brethren, against one another.

And that's including spouses. Do not complain, brethren, against one another.

We are in a complaining culture, a chronic complaining culture. And I remember the first time

I read A .W. Pink's Sovereignty of God and talked about the weather and how it's God's weather and how

God sends rain and God sends snow and everything else. I'm like, I can't believe, I thought complaining about the weather was, this is something we did.

That's what you do. Like, wow, chronic complaining. Here, this is a, for the

Greek students, a present imperative. Don't do it. If you're doing it, stop.

Chronic complaining. Yeah, but they irritate me. They're doing the wrong thing all the time.

They don't live up to my standards. Chronic complaining. I don't wanna do that.

And by the way, don't ever complain about your spouse in front of other people. Don't talk about their negative things in front of other people.

If you're at a counseling session, you're both sitting there and you're working through something, I wish you would do that or we can't figure this out.

Okay, there's a time and place for that. But sometimes, it reminds me of a lady that used to attend the church here and she would go to the lady's

Bible study and then for prayer time, it was basically complaining about her husband and in the guise of prayer.

And so I think she could have just said, do you know what? Could you pray for me? I need to learn how to be content.

I need to learn how not to complain. I need to learn how to forgive. And I would know if I heard that, well, her husband's probably involved to some degree with this, but she's not throwing him under the bus.

She's not talking about him. She's saying, I need to respond better. I'd like to do the things that the

Lord requires me to do. Philippians 2, do all things without grumbling or disputing.

Complaining is, she's doing this, he's doing that. We're not even to grumble or mumble.

This is like a murmuring under your breath. This is like, if you wanna have a bad marriage, just think to yourself, you know what?

My wife doesn't do these things. And God, you could have had her mature faster in Christ.

God, you could have given me a different wife. You could have given me a better wife. You could have her do this, that, and the other instead.

And I just think, oh, impatience toward others is impatience toward God.

Groaning and grumbling toward others is really an attack on the providence of God and the sovereignty of God.

I don't wanna fall into that trap. I know God is sovereign and I know

He's maturing my spouse. Next blunder here on No Compromise Radio Ministry, marriage blunder, is use sex as a weapon or demand it.

So this is a generalization. I'm sure I'm gonna get in trouble for doing it. Wives can fall into the habit of using that as a weapon in terms of, you know,

I won't be with you if you don't do this, that, or the other. And then husbands can be rude and demanding and say, you know, without considering the wife and loving her to demand intimacy.

And so we wanna make sure we're careful with that. I love studying the Protestant Reformation and of course the five solas and the doctrines of grace.

And one of the things that I loved in the Protestant Reformation is the rediscovery of biblical marriage and all the pleasures that go along with it, including physical pleasures.

And I think of Ecclesiastes 9 .9, you can enjoy life with a wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that he's given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.

And so we wanna make sure we're careful. If as long as you're loving each other, if you think about agape love, agape love will then have eros love take care of itself.

That is to say, love sacrificially, love in a leading way, husbands.

When you love your wives in that sacrificial way, I think pretty much everything else takes care of itself.

1 Corinthians 7, the husband owns the wife, the wife owns the husband.

We have a mutual respect, a mutual intimacy, everything's fine. I'm sure

I've told the story before. I was preaching through 1 Corinthians and chapter seven was coming up. And I was thinking, okay, be with one another, don't deprive one another.

It's in this intimacy aspect and I'm not gonna say anything weird or gross or anything, but I'm gonna have to address the passage.

Let Satan in the house, if you would deprive one another except for a season with prayer. I did really like 1

Corinthians 7 aspect of, it's not man owns a woman and she's left to herself like some people would think, but no, no, it's a mutual reciprocal relationship.

Husband has the rights to the wife's body, she has rights to the husband's body, this wonderful thing that God has designed.

And I got up to preach it and a new family was sitting there with their four young homeschool kids.

And I thought they're never coming back, but they stayed. And I said, well, you made it through that sermon.

And he said, well, it's in the Bible. We have to teach the Bible. I remember some people say, you should not teach the song of Solomon from the pulpit.

And you don't read it until you're about ready to get married. Thinking, well, I think it's okay to read that.

Orthodox churches, some crazy Orthodox churches. It says here, traditionally, some spouses abstain from physical relations on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, the eves of great feast and throughout the four

Lenten periods, the great Lent, Nativity fast, Apostles fast and Dormition fast.

What does this have to do with using sex as a weapon or a demand? Nothing, but I just wanted to read that because it sounded really funny.

All right, I have another blunder here in my notes, but I have such a big section on 1 Corinthians 7.

I don't know where those blunders are. Oh, I've heard this,

I don't find my wife attractive anymore. Don't ever say that in my presence.

Especially, I see how you look. He hasn't turned me on any longer.

Secular talk show, you probably know who this person is. This lady called, tried to get advice and she's like my husband's, always wanting to be with me.

Host, may I ask how old you are? Caller, I'm 45. Host, okay, so let me get this straight.

You're probably a bit wrinkly. You probably have to dye your hair and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that you have a couple of extra pounds you're trying to get rid of.

And your husband worships the ground you walk on. He wants to be with you more than any other woman in the entire world.

You still excite him more than anyone else. You're the queen of his world and you're complaining about this? This is a secular talk show.

In a few years, no one will be interested in you. I think you ought to thank God you have a great loving husband and get over it.

Do you have any real problems to talk about? All right, here's a blunder.

Try to change your spouse. Try to change your spouse. By the way, you can't even change yourself.

It has to be the Lord who does it. You are not called to sanctify your spouse.

You will be a sanctifying agent in the hand of the Lord to sanctify your spouse. Yes, that's true.

We realize when you wake up with the biggest sinner in the world yourself, you're like, okay, I didn't know

I had that many sins because I didn't have anybody I was living with to sin against regularly. And so we wanna make sure you're not running around with the spiritual gift of rebuking people like your spouse.

If you rebuke your spouse every day, it just shows your pride. It shows your lack of humility.

It shows that you really have the problem pointing out other sins all the time when love is supposed to cover sins.

Remember, Jesus is the sanctifier. The Spirit of God, He's the sanctifier.

You don't sanctify your spouse. I like that new book by Van Dixhorn, Chad and his wife,

I forgot his wife's name. They co -wrote it and it's got an appendix on how to change your spouse. And it's got two blank pages.

You can't change your spouse. And so you can pray for your spouse. You can talk about the issues to try to work through better.

But remember, you're not the Holy Spirit. You're not the Holy Spirit for your spouse.

And I think you wanna be very careful that you don't run around just thinking that you can change them.

I think you could probably change some behaviors or you could even ask, could you do this instead? Or could you not throw your socks on the ground or something?

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about inner life. I'm talking about how do you change somebody on the inside to be more like Christ?

No, no, Jesus has become for us wisdom from God that is righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

So you wanna be as careful as possible when it comes to that. Remember, your righteousness is in heaven for the last 2000 years, that is

Jesus. And he gives us a spirit of God and he's the one that changes us. Marriage blunders, somehow thinking you've got to change your spouse.

How about pray for them more than confront them? How about point them to Jesus more than,

I want these internal changes. Next blunder. I said this before, but this is something

I wanna make explicit is disparage your spouse in front of the kids. Say bad things about your spouse in front of the kids.

Never criticize your spouse in front of the kids. You can work through problems.

Kim and I have talked about differences and work through them in front of the kids to try to give them a good example.

I have a friend who was an elder here for a long time. He's in glory now. His name's Louis Brown. And he had a mom and dad that were married for almost 72 years.

And he said this in an email, never ever criticize your spouse to another person.

And for the ladies, especially not to your mother, you will forgive your husband. Your mother never will.

The older I get, the wiser my mother and father become. That was advice that he got from his mom and his dad.

We are not to disparage our spouse in front of other people. Actually, if you think of Ephesians and put off, put on, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.

That's what we're after, building people up, encouraging them. By the way, one day your spouse will be in glory.

One day your spouse will be glorified. So why worry about something that's for sure going to happen? My spouse one day will be perfect.

Thomas Watson, God has set two natural fences to keep in the tongue, teeth and lips.

So be careful what you say. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth.

Today I was just talking about some marriage blunders. Maybe the whole show is a blunder. I don't know.

You can watch it at 1 .5 speed. You can tell your friends, watch all these episodes except this one.

I don't know. There's all kinds of blunders we could make. Don't forget, you can write me, mikeatnocompromiseradio .com.

Website, nocompromiseradio .com. You can go to that as well. And one of these days we're going to have a new website and we probably should get an app sometime, but apps don't grow on trees, do they?