Highlands Fellowship Marriage Transcript
Well, welcome everybody. A big hello to each and every one of you. I'm so glad that we get to spend this time together. So whether you're joining us from Bristol, Marion, here in Abingdon, you happen to be in one of our cafe venues in the country tent in chapel or online or on TV, I'm so glad that we get to be together. Each one of you, each and every one of you is important to God and you are important to us as well, and I want you to know that I love you and I pray for you regularly and I'm so glad that we get to be together.
Today we are in week two of a four-part message series called Love Restored. And throughout this series, we're going to be looking at the different relationships that each of us have in our lives. And I mentioned last week that studies reveal that relationships are a key factor in what brings us joy, what brings joy into everybody's lives. And my prayer is for you that this year would be a year of great joy for you. Last week in week one, we started with family.
And you know, that's probably where most of us get the most influence from the relationships that we have in our lives. Your family plays a huge role in how you believe and in the direction that you'll go. So, we're praying for the families in our church. We're praying for the families in our communities to be restored. But today's message is about marriage and I believe God wants to see our marriages restored in our church and in our communities as well.
This is so very important. So, I pray that today's message would not only build marriages, but if you're not married, that this would be a foundational message, that there would be some seeds that are planted that may create a harvest of righteousness for a marriage in the future, or that this would be a way to bring some health to some relationships in your life. It could be applied to your children or to your friendships. But I'm going to speak directly and specifically to marriages today. So, what is marriage anyway?
Well, I believe and our church believes in the biblical view of marriage, which is a lifelong covenant union between a natural-born male and female. Anything other than that would not be what the Bible teaches. So, marriage is a covenant relationship between a male and a female. So, with that understanding, let's look at God's word to see how this came about. So in Genesis chapter 2, the context is in the beginning, God, he created the world.
He created man. And he said it's not good that a man be alone. And if you've ever been around a man that's been alone for too long, you know that we tend to get into trouble. We need some help. So God brought him what he calls a suitable helper.
And scripture says this in Genesis 2:22-24. "Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib that he had taken out of the man. And he brought her to the man. The man said, 'This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.
And this is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.'" So, this is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh. Today, we're going to be talking about hope for your marriage. So, let's do this. Let's pray and ask God to prepare our hearts for what he's getting ready to tell us today. "Father, we ask that your living word by the power of your Holy Spirit would bring hope for hurting marriages today, plant seeds that would impact all of our relationships and that we would glorify you in all that we do.
And we pray these things in the name of Jesus." And everybody said, "Amen." Now, I'm curious. How many of you have ever made a fool out of yourself because of love? Anybody? I know that I have, and I hope so. It's really fun when you are so in love that you do some silly stuff.
And so just a quick story. When I was like in the eighth grade, myself and some of my buddies, we came up with this idea that we would actually shave the initials of the girls that we liked into our leg hair on our shin bones. And listen, this was basketball season. So this was a huge statement of love to the girls that we liked. And we thought that this was going to be like the best thing in the world, okay?
And that, you know, they would see it as the statement that it was. Well, needless to say, that trend did not last very long. And we realized very quickly that it was utterly ridiculous. But I am proud to say that I am now married to the girl whose initials I shaved into my leg hair. And Meg, I want you to know that I love you so very much.
Well, what I know about all of you is this. If you're married, there was probably some time when you did something crazy, maybe even silly or stupid because you were in love. Maybe you spent way too much money on something that you shouldn't have bought or you stayed out way too late or you drove 2 hours in the snow just to see her, right? Or you would sit up at night and text all night or talk on the phone. And everybody probably has their own version of this.
And then one day, years later, you wake up and you wonder, "Where'd the romance go? Where's the passion? Where's the intimacy? Where's the fire? What happened along the way?" And what I can tell you is somewhere along the way, you stopped pursuing one another.
There was a time when you pursued her or you pursued him that you made an effort and you were intentional. And somewhere along the way, you got relationally lazy. So, I have a question for you. Is there any other area of life that you can be consistently lazy and see improvement? The answer is no.
You can't. If physically you don't take care of yourself and you eat anything you want, maybe the four basic food groups like Taco Bell, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Hardee's, right? Whatever it happens to be for you. After a while, your body will not be what it could be. In your business, if you don't crunch the numbers, if you don't really guard the culture of your business, if you don't cast vision, will your business or even your ministry, will it be what it could be over time?
No. The answer is no. If you get lazy, it will struggle. The same thing is true for your yard. If you don't take care of your yard, if you don't water it, if you don't fertilize it, you will not win the yard of the year award in your neighborhood.
And your neighbors will eventually whisper behind your back because you don't take care of your yard, okay? But what's crazy is that in marriage, a lot of times you'll look at somebody else's marital lawn or yard and the grass looks greener, doesn't it? And I've heard it said like this, that if the grass looks greener somewhere else, guess what? It's time to water your own yard. It's time to water your own yard.
And some of you in your marriages right now, it's time to water your own yard. You know, "But we just don't love each other anymore. We just don't know that we can go on or we're going to give up. We're gonna get divorced." Listen, if you get divorced because you ran out of love, it's like selling your car because you ran out of gas. But if your car runs out of gas, what do you do?
Well, you refill the tank, right? If your marriage is running out of love, what do you do? Well, you refill the love tank. And I want to talk to you about doing that today. And I want to go back to a verse that we read in our opening passage to do it.
It's Genesis 2:24. And it says this. "This is why a man leaves his father and mother and is," and here's the key word, "united to his wife and they become one flesh." You know, a lot of times we look at that and we think, well, united, that's like a one-time event, and it actually can be a one-time event. But the Hebrew language is really interesting. Hebrew words are often like little stories.
There's so much more meaning there. And it's hard to translate a Hebrew word into one or two words. So the Hebrew word that's translated as united means to cling to or to hold fast to. And at its core it means to stick to, to cling to, or to pursue closely. And this verse carries a strong pursuit theme with it even though it doesn't use that particular word.
So why is it that you had something special for years and years and years? Well, it's because you pursued each other. Why is it that you don't have something special today? Maybe you've gotten lazy and taking each other for granted and stopped pursuing the one that God gave you. You know, one of my favorite stories from the Bible on pursuit is found in the Old Testament.
And it's when Jacob met a woman that he fell in love with and her name was Rachel. And the story is found in Genesis chapter 29. We're not going to read the story but you can go back and read it later if you desire. But Jacob went to her father Laban and said, "Hey, you know, could I marry your daughter?" And he said, "Well, you're going to have to work for me. You need to work for me for seven years." And Jacob's going, "Oh, well, no problem.
No problem at all. That's worth it. I'm in." And so for seven years, he worked for her father. And he loved her so much that scripture says time passed like it was just a few days. But Rachel had an older sister named Leah.
And so it's interesting that Jacob worked for seven years and then he was ready to marry Rachel, but the father tricked him and gave him Leah instead. Of course, Jacob wasn't so excited about this and said that he had worked for seven years and he was supposed to marry Rachel. You know that was the deal. But the father came in and said, "Well, in our culture, the oldest daughter needs to be married first, and so I had to give her to you." And so he makes him work for seven more years to marry Rachel. And what I thought for so long is that as I was growing up, I always thought that Jacob had to work another seven years and then at the end of another seven years, so 14 years in total, then he got Rachel.
But that's not what happened. What happened was the dad said, "I'll give her to you, but you have to work for another seven years after I give her to you." Which to me is beautiful to recognize that Jacob, he continued to work for his bride even after he already had her. And this is a great illustration for so many of us because we will do our version of pursuit. But then once we get the person, a lot of times we get relaxed and we stop pursuing and we stop working on that relationship. And what I know about you is that you want something good.
You want something good. Nobody says my goal is to be married for 5 years and then have an ugly divorce. Nobody says that. Nobody says my goal is to betray his trust or my goal is to betray her trust. My goal is to fight about money.
Nobody says that, you've got good intentions. But a lot of times our good intentions don't translate into the right actions. And so if it's okay with you, what I want to do is I want to get really, really practical and I want to give you some suggestions that we find in scripture that we can apply to our marriage or really to any other relationship that might add value. And I'm going to give you three specific thoughts to close the gap between our good intentions and our actions. So, the first thing that we're going to do to apply to our marriages and to our relationships is this.
When you think something good, say it. So, when you think something good, you're going to just say it to the person. Every time you think something good, something positive, something affirmative, something loving, something special about your spouse or about your children or about a friend or about people that you work with, we're going to give life to it and we're just going to say it. So, why would you ever in your marriage think something good about your spouse and then rob them of the blessing of knowing that thought by keeping it to yourself? We shouldn't do that.
When you think something good, set it free. Say it, text it, write it, but let them know and give them the blessing. Scripture says this in Hebrews chapter 3:13, "But encourage one another." How often? Every single day. And when I say every day, I mean every day.
"Encourage one another daily as long as it's called today." And the verse goes on to say, "So that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness." So, how different do you think your marriage relationship would be if every single day without fail there was some form of encouragement building each other up along the way. So, I want to talk to those of you who are men and who are women in a slightly different way because generally speaking, we receive and we give love in different ways. And these rules are not absolute by any means, but generally speaking, there are some ways to approach this that we can make clear. And there are some big differences between men and women. So let me start with the men.
Men, when you pursue her, pursue her with these types of words as you encourage her. Pursue her with words of affection. And what I'm talking about when I'm talking about words of affection is I'm talking about nonsexual affection, okay? You just need to know that nonsexual affection. Now, there are some of you that are still looking at me confused and you're like, "Well, what is that?" Well, it's affection that does not have a goal on the other side of the affection because men do that quite well, right?
And men can honestly, we have this supernatural gift, it's second nature. You don't have to teach a man to do this, but a man can make almost anything sexual, okay? A woman can say, "Hey, I think we ought to rotate the tires on the car." And men, they'll be like, "I'll rotate your tires." I mean, you don't have to teach this stuff, right? "Would you mind unloading the dishwasher?" "Well, I'll unload your dishwasher," you know, and men just typically only have this one gear. And the thing about women is you've got different gears, right?
You're unpredictable, which is fun, right? The only thing consistent about women is you're unpredictable. And my wife is this way. I walk up to Meg on just a regular day and I can kind of be a little bit frisky, and one day I'm funny, I'm cute, I'm playful, and I'm adorable. And the very next day, the same time of day, same circumstances, same mood, same climate, and I walk up and I can be a little frisky.
And listen, I'm not cute. I'm not playful. I'm a pervert and I'm a jerk. And really, I don't understand this. I really don't.
And it's always a gamble, right, man? It's always a gamble, but it's always a gamble that you're willing to take. Why? Because you're a man and you don't know any other way. So, that's why I want to teach you another way and that is nonsexual affection.
Pursue her with words of affirmation. And gentlemen, I'm going to give you the simplest tool. And when I tell you it's simple, it's simple and it's a game-changer for your relationship. So, just tell your wife, "I love you." But not just "I love you," but "I love you because." And then fill in the blank with something genuine and different as often as you can. Not just "I love you," but "I love you because," and then tell her why.
And do that consistently. Pursue her with words of affirmation. And ladies, what I would encourage you to do is to pursue him with words of affirmation, okay, with affirmation. And the reason is because guys tend to be wired a little bit differently and we act all cool. We act all confident, but the truth is a lot of times we're really insecure.
And what I found about men, and I know this to be true about me, is that I'm often becoming what Megan sees in me. And when she might pick apart something about me or tell me something wrong, it weakens my confidence and increases my insecurity. But when she builds me up, I tend to become more of what she wants. So, one of the biggest complaints that I've heard, just being a pastor for over 17 years, is a lot of women will say something like this, "My husband is not a spiritual leader. I want a spiritual leader." And something that I tend to say is what you see as the spiritual leader may be very different than what he's ever going to bring as a spiritual leader.
But there are a lot of ways that he could potentially be a spiritual leader. And if he does something spiritual that's spiritual at all, don't tell him he's not a spiritual leader. But when he does something even remotely spiritual, you can celebrate it and applaud it. If he just says, "Hey, let's go to church," that's leading spiritually. And you can just say something, "You know what?
I love it so much when you say, 'Let's go to church.'" And you build him up. And I'm telling you, he'll say it a lot more. You're pursuing him with words of affirmation because we need it. So, when I get through preaching on a Sunday, you know, I've told you I'm a people pleaser and I do care about what you think of me and whether you like me or not and all that sort of thing. I don't base everything on that.
But the reality is, as long as my wife believes in me, that's enough for me. And I'll go home on Sundays and I'm like, "Give me something. Tell me I did good. Tell me that I was funny. Tell me a lie if you have to make something up." It doesn't really matter to me.
But I just need to know that the person who knows me the best believes in me the most. That's what I need to know. And some of you may say, "Well, my husband's just really hard to believe right now." And I get that. And I want to acknowledge that there are some of you that are in some really, really, really tough relationships. It may be hard for both of you.
But what I found is if you'll encourage what you like rather than pointing out the things that you don't like and pursuing with words of affirmation and pursuing with words of affection, we can make a lot of progress in our relationships. I believe that. So the first thing we're going to do is when you think something good, we're going to say it. The second thing that we're going to do is this. When you think something special, do it.
James was very clear in James 4:17 when he said, "If anyone then knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them." And if I could just get up into your business a little bit and say this, why don't you stop sinning with just good intentions and close the gap and do what is on your heart to be a blessing to your spouse? What have you thought about? When you think it, do it. When you think about coming home early to surprise him, come home early and surprise him. When you think about maybe getting some food together and going out and doing a little picnic lunch or something like that in the middle of a Saturday, go ahead and do it.
When you think about something special, do that thing. And you might even go as far as to put things on your calendar for when you want to do these nice things because we need to close the gap between our good intentions and actually doing it. It might mean that you watch a cooking show because she likes watching the cooking show or you go for a ride in a truck because he loves going for a ride in the truck. It could mean that there may be times when you prioritize your intimacy because when you have little kids running around and you're so exhausted, how do you have time for that? The answer is you have to make time for it.
But you might need to put it on the calendar and just say, "We're going to get a babysitter this night." So if you think something good, you're going to say it. If you think something special, we're going to do it. And number three is this. When you want something different, be it. If you want something different, we're going to be the difference that we want to see.
And so often I work with couples who are pointing at each other as if the other person is the one who is the problem. "I wish he was this or I wish she was that. I wish he was more adventurous and I wish he was more fun. I wish he was more attentive and I wish he was less distracted. I wish he was more romantic and I wish he was less critical." Whatever it might be.
And then they point the finger at the other. And what I would encourage you to do as best you can is to stop griping about what your spouse is not and continue to let the Holy Spirit grow you into who he desires for you to be. You become something different. You let God work on him and you let God work on her, but you become who God desires for you to be. That is different.
Because I found that every time I'm looking at my wife Megan and I'm saying, "I wish something was different about her," I could also look in the mirror and I can see that there are three or four or many more things in me that God needs to work on to transform my heart as well. And so, gentlemen, I want to talk to you for just a moment because I feel like I have a little bit more of a right to get up in your business as a man. But this is what I would say to you. It is time to get up off your butt and lead. Lead your family toward Jesus.
And that doesn't mean that you have to do a three-hour Bible study every single night, but that could simply mean that you're going to start leading your family by making a commitment to gather with other believers at church. Look, we don't just go to church whenever we're not busy or whenever there's not a big game going on. No, we are people of God and we gather together to be encouraged by the teaching of God's word, to worship our Lord and Savior, to bring our tithes and offerings to God and present them to him, to pray and to cry out to him. That is what we do as his followers. And in our family, it's not an option.
I can tell you this, in my home, my kids never ask me, "Are we going to go to church this weekend?" And it's not because I'm a pastor. Listen, when we're off, like when we go on vacation, we go to church. That's who we are. That is who we are as followers of Christ. We gather together with other believers.
And gentlemen, you might say, "Well, we're going to be in small group." And the reason you might say that is because I don't know how in the world marriages can thrive spiritually with all the satanic forces of darkness pushing against marriages and families today. We need each other. I mean, we really need each other. And small groups are not just a program that the church puts on. It is a necessity for spiritual health in our families and in our marriages.
We lead our families to serve. We might serve together as a family. And so, what you need to do is you need to lead. You need to lead. And listen, if you don't like what you're getting, look at what you've been given.
Look at what you've been giving. And here's something that I want you to consider. If your marriage is struggling at this point, I can guarantee you that there was a time where you had something special, didn't you? There was some reason that you bought the ring. There was some reason that you said yes.
There was some reason that you planned the wedding. There was something special going on. And what I can guarantee you is there was something that you were doing then that I guarantee you're not doing now. And if you tell something good or if you think something good, you got to say it. Tell him.
Tell her. If you think about something special to do, do it. Don't hesitate, but do it. Be kind by showing that love. If you want something different, be it.
And here's one simple thought to remember. If you had something special before and you want that again, I would say this. To get what you once had, you must do what you once did. Do that same stuff that you used to do. Say it.
"I love you because." Do it. Get involved. Stop thinking about it and act on it. And if you want something different, rather than pointing at your spouse all the time, be the difference that you want to see. Jesus said to the church in Ephesus in a different context admittedly, but I want to use this to point you back to a relationship with Jesus.
Jesus said this in Revelation chapter 2, the first part of verse 5, "Consider how far you have fallen. Repent and do the things you did at first." This is a biblical principle. To get what you once had, you must do what you once did. And some of you, you need to apply this to your marriage as well. Some of you, you need to apply this to your relationship with Jesus Christ.
You were close to him at some point, and maybe now you're not. But just remember where you were with Jesus before and do what you once did. You got to do something different. Repent. And that means to turn away from the things that you've been doing and turn toward God in your marriage.
If we can apply that very loosely, if you had something special before, I'm telling you, with the help of God, with the grace of God, there is no marriage that is too far gone that the power of Jesus Christ can heal. To get what you once had, you must do what you once did. Remember what you had, repent, and do the things you did at first. There is hope for your marriage, and I pray that we would begin to see marriages restored in our church and in our communities. Would you pray with me today?
"God, my prayer today is that for all the hurting marriages out there that you would begin to work in our hearts and in our lives that we would do the things necessary to see those marriages restored. That restoration would be a goal. Not divorce, not separation, but that restoration would be the first course of action. And that we would do our very best to see those things that you see as a big deal, like a covenant relationship with one another. That's a big deal.
And so when we make a covenant with somebody, it's something that we need to fight for. Something that we need to give it everything we've got. So my prayer is that we would begin to see restoration take place in the marriages that are in our church and in our communities. That would help to rebuild families and it would just have this generational effect that would change the lives of so many people. But God, I know that you can do a work in our hearts and in our lives.
And so often we can sit there and we can point the finger at our spouse and we can say, 'Well, they're the problem.' And they may be a problem. They may have issues. We all do. But so often if we focus our relationship on you and we do the things that would have us be in right relationship with you, it will allow us to have a good relationship with our spouse as well. So, we're not asking you today to change our spouse necessarily.
Maybe in some situations that's true. But what we're asking is that you would change our hearts. Help us to seek you with everything we've got and to share the love that you've given us with our spouses, with our children. And I believe that as we do that, there will begin to be a shift in our marriages that will change our outlook. It will change our perspective.
And again, we will see restoration. So God, restore us, restore our marriages, restore our hearts toward you, restore the relationships that we have because we believe that the joy that comes from you comes through many of the people that we're around. And so God, help us to really invest heavily and be very intentional about our marriages. God, we love you. We praise you.
It's in the name of Jesus we pray." And everybody said, "Amen."