Extreme Marriage Pt. 3

Let's go through the last session here. We're going to shift over to 1 Peter 3, 1-4, and verse 7. We're going to go quickly through 1-4 and then jump to verse 7 and spend most of our time there. This passage here, 1 Peter 3, 1-7, is a beautiful complement to Ephesians 5, 21-33.

Paul focuses, as we've noticed, Most of his words, most of his verbiage is directed to the husband. Even what's spoken about in the relationship between Christ and the church is directed to the husband and having the husband understand what that means. Peter, on the other hand, places most of the focus on the wife. Six verses. And the seventh verse is the one written about the husband. What they do say that overlaps agrees, but they do definitely put a different emphasis. They are harmonious passages.

One of the things to get the background here, in the Greco-Roman, that is the Greek and Roman cultures, It was expected that a wife and the whole household would follow in the religion of the husband. This, for example, in Acts 16 with a Philippian jailer. Believe and you shall be saved, you and your household. So that assumption was built into the culture. Any exception was taken as shocking. It would be looked upon as a domestic insurrection.

What? You're not going to follow in what we do? Since a wife who was presented with the gospel of Jesus Christ might place her faith in Christ apart from the husband, and she had to be careful about not making a domestic insurrection, Peter was providing essential guidance to such wives.

She couldn't just say, hey, now I'm a Christian, and the husband says, oh, that's great, I'll be a Christian too. She couldn't do that. Culturally, that was not accepted. So a Christian wife with a non-Christian husband was much more common than the reverse. Though the reverse apparently did occur in some households. If a Christian wife was vocal about her faith, her unbelieving husband would likely view it as a domestic insurrection. You're overthrowing the authority here. He might reject her in this rebellion along with her faith in Christ.

So 1 Peter 3 and 1 through 2 has that backdrop in the same way, that is based on the same set of spiritual principles. You wives be submissive to your own husbands. We've heard that before, right? So that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. So this being submissive, we've seen that before, it is placing oneself under. It's not a finally giving into the pressure that he says you need to submit, submit, submit, but heard deliberately as an act of will placing herself under in a position of submission and support. The disobedient to the word is a way of saying that this person is not a believer, right?

And here's another interesting thing. Is there an application for this for a couple where they're both Christians, but the husband is rebelling? Yes. Yeah. And Nancy and I have seen that. Where the husband is rebelling, this also is an application. How is she supposed to handle it? Chew them up one side and down the other? No. This is similar kind of advice.

Sometimes an unbeliever can't hear, but he can still see. He won't listen to it, but he says, there's something different about her. So any one of us, this is a take home, any one of us can find ourselves in a situation where the opportunity for open testimony about Christ may be limited. I have a wonderful job, but the job I had before, I couldn't go around talking about the gospel all the time.

There were some opportunities, but they had to get work done. So Peter recognizes one of those situations here in this passage. He says that when we find ourselves in those kinds of circumstances, we must continually show forth the life of Christ so that people can hear with their eyes. One way it's been put is, preach the Gospel all the time. If necessary, use words.

Now, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. Now, certainly, some ladies, especially mothers of young children, feel like they've been chaste all day long. But that's not the kind of chaste we're talking about. This word here is part of the family of words that mean saint or holy. So saintly behavior, holy behavior is what he's talking about. He's telling the wives the husband may be won over by her living in her daily condition as she already is in her position, a saint made holy.

And this respectful is a word, it's actually phobos, we get our idea of phobia from it. But this means respect and that's the word that was used in Ephesians 5. So, what you see here is submission and respect for Peter are same words that Paul used, right? Now, the next one, verses 3 and 4, Your adornment must not be merely external, braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

What's interesting is during New Testament times in the Greek and Roman culture, the pagan culture, men were often otherwise occupied. The wife was to run the home, but she was often not paid much attention to. But it was expected that she would spend a certain amount of her time and money in trying to make herself a trophy wife, as we would term it.

And so she would spend a lot of time braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, putting on dresses, etc. That's what he's talking about there. So, they were all wrapped up and how do I look on the outside? How tall do you like your hair trellis? They had all sorts of hair trellises and fancy braidings and they would try to compete with one another and how they did that. all sorts of ornate hair fixtures and plating and that sort of thing. Here's some examples of jewelry of the era archaeologists have discovered. And our culture is in some ways not that different. People are obsessed with all sorts of surgeries and piercings and taps and fashion and how do I look, right?

What Peter is saying is that a believer's sense of worth is not based on what human beings see and think, but on what God sees and thinks. Don't we study God's Word in part to find out how does God see me? What does God think? Not just what do other people think, right? And how does God see us? How does God see us? Yeah, if you think about it, God sees us in Christ and God sees Christ in us, right?

We have this treasure in earthen vessels. These are the earthen vessels that people get all preoccupied with, how does the earthen vessel look? And the scriptural point is to say what God values is what is spiritually of interest to Him, not just what it looks like on the outside. So what's precious in the sight of God in this passage?

The hidden person of the heart and the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit. Think about that. Remember back in Ephesians 5, what's the second kind of love? The sanctifying love. It's a concern for how is she doing spiritually. Guess what God values? when she's doing well spiritually.

He's looking inside. God is seeing the life of Christ expressed from her heart. And He values that. He looks at that and says, that looks good to me. This word adornment, the Greek word is where we get our word cosmetics. So what looks good to God? What's attractive to Him?

It's not all the outside stuff. It's the hidden person of the heart. Now what's the quality is imperishable as opposed to things you know I don't know about you but you know things on the outside it's tough to keep keep things from aging and getting various kinds of, you know, blemishes and whatnot. But this is an imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit. And here's something else.

That's what God values. So a godly husband is going to value what? Yeah, a godly husband is going to be looking at those spiritual qualities and seeing that. It doesn't mean that he doesn't look at her appearance, but he's going to have spiritual eyes to see how is she doing spiritually and to look at that. Isn't this in harmony with what Paul said? talking about where does submission come from? Not from forcing her to knuckle under, but submission comes from the filling of the Spirit. So the husband is going to be looking at these things too, because he values things as God does. Values things as God does.

This is exactly where the Lord Jesus Christ is looking and where the believing husband is to be placing his focus and even his conversation. Remember the use of that spoken word with his wife? He's going to be looking at, are things spiritually? Where are things at spiritually? This imperishable quality. He's giving an important perspective.

All the pursuits of how do I look to others on the outside definitely end when this life is over. Male, female, how they look on the outside, comes a time when it's all done. What God sees in us is based upon what He has done and is doing in us. You put this on, you put that on, and you apply this stuff, and you peel that stuff off, and you put this on, and you wash it off, and we do all sorts of things on the outside. But God is doing a work on the inside. And that's what's going to last. And that's where the husband ought to be putting his focus. And that's in fact, ought to be the wife's perspective as well, is what's going on spiritually. And to focus on that.

Now, 1 Peter 3.7. Here's another interesting thing. He only has one verse. One verse to the husband. But, one of the things we've noted, this harmonizes perfectly with the Ephesians 5 passage. The husband is the one who initiates action. Husbands, love your wives. Right? Four kinds. Four loves, four kinds.

Here in 1 Peter 3.7, the husbands now are going to be initiating two things. So the husband loves by initiating. See that?

Live with your wife in an understanding way. So the husband is going to be the initiator in living with his wife in an understanding way. So, and of course, women are a little more complex. But, let's ask this question. What are the things that you need to understand to live with your wife in an understanding way? What are the things you need to understand in order to live with your wife in an understanding way? understanding Christ and the church. Essentially, you're right on.

I'm going to go a little bit bigger picture, and that is we understand what the Bible says about the relationship between husband and wife. And so that's the first thing. The husband, in order to live with her in an understanding way, needs to understand what does God's Word say about their marriage relationship, including the huge revelation from Paul that Christ and the Church is the model for husband and wife. So the husband first needs to understand in order to live in an understanding way, what's God's perspective out of God's Word. So that's part one.

What else? He needs to understand where she's at. Ah! Understand her. Now, I've got good news. Men, your job is not to understand all women. Your job is to understand Isn't that great? Yeah. Not all women. Just one woman. Her. And so you look at that. To live in an understanding way, we need to understand what God's Word says about the marriage relationship, which is why we're gathering here today. Right? And then the next part is to understand her. Now, here's the book on understanding women. And by the way, that's the Cliff Notes version. Right? And it's at your bookstore. Make sure you get it, guys. Right?

The reality is, what do we understand already from what we studied this morning about women? What do we understand from God's Word that's a huge insight? It's not impossible. Okay, one is it's not impossible. Okay? But what else? And you're correct. Pardon?

Yeah, we know to begin with what God's word reveals about her, including what question is she going around asking? Does he love me? And we have additional insights, not just the generic does he love me, but does he love me unconditionally? Does he love me in the four ways? So the man can begin zeroing in, okay, now, all right, I got that.

Now, how does that get personalized with this one woman that I need to understand? Because that's the good news, you only have to understand one woman, not all of them, right? So how does that get personalized to her? So from biblically, I've got a good place to start to understand her. What's that? Growth. Growth?

Because if you're starting out with like this unconditional foundation. Yes. Like we have, you know, our unconditional foundation in Christ, that like we have that spiritual growth to grow on that we just will build up. So you can build like with a companion love, a romantic love, you can build in like growing Okay, you know what direction the relationship needs to develop, right? We know that we need to have that foundation, right? And then can build on top of that.

Is that what you're saying? Yeah. You also know who her maker is. It's not entirely this, oh my goodness, now I have to make sure today to do the... You can just go straight to God and say, who is this woman? Ultimately, that's the advantage that the Christian husband has in this task. The Lord wants you to do this, and He is not just saying, okay, I'm going to cross my arms and just wait and see how you do. He has given us revelation as to here's the big framework. Here's what really counts. Here's what matters. And it tells you the kinds of things that you need to understand. Okay? Make sense?

The usual classic male humor is, who can understand a woman? And of course we have the encouragement, just one. When we did the wedding last May for Hassan and Juliet, I need to call them and find out if they had their baby yet. Interesting, when I was doing the premarital counseling about a year ago, we were going through this verse, and I said, well, here we joke about who can understand a woman, and they both laughed. They said, yeah, we laugh about that too.

But the reality is that there is an opportunity here because of what God's Word says. These are the things that count. This is the way the marriage relationship is to be. As a matter of fact, here are the things that matter to her. you have those things to begin with instead of throwing up your hands and being clueless. Now, one of the things that's important to realize, we've talked about a little bit before, we'll talk about it again.

Men and women think differently and therefore express themselves differently. Men speak Men speak, right? Women speak. Women speak. And you may think that that in our culture is English. It's not the same thing. They think differently and they process things differently. Here's one way the illustration can be made. And now gals listen because, you know, I may only get to say this once.

Guys, guys brains are a bunch of little boxes. Okay. And in this box, they got the, you know, here's a football game or the soccer game. And then this other little box over here, that's what condition is the car in and this other little box over here is this is work. and then you got another little box and that's, you know, home and you got, you know, a wife and so you got a little different boxes, see? And the rule is the boxes never touch. Okay? That's the rules. Okay? The boxes never touch. You don't touch. You know, the boxes, they each have what they have and they don't touch. Okay?

That's the guy's rules. Okay. Now, to get the guy to switch from this box to the next one. That's the other chore, right? He's thinking about the football game, right? And so his mind's focused on that. And she asks for, you know, hey honey, can you do this and that and so on and pick this up afterwards? Yeah, honey. You know, yeah. He hasn't heard a thing, right? Why? Because his mind's still in this other box.

Now, it so happens that certain paths from one box to the next slip easily. The commercial comes on in a football game, something to drink, something to eat. And that happens fairly easily. It doesn't happen easily that he needs to fix this thing in the kitchen. That doesn't happen as easily. So the boxes have natural paths from one to the next that go more easily.

So this is the way the guy is thinking. You probably already know gals don't think that way. Here's how gals think. Everything is about the relationship. Yes, everything is about the relationship. When the guys go to the store, like we give the example of Conquer the Pants. The guys, I'm there to conquer the pants, they got the pants, they got out, yeah, got the pants. For the gal, it's quite different. She goes to the store and she's selecting among different products.

You know what she's thinking? How does that impact the relationship? That's what she's thinking. Yeah, if I pick this one versus that one, what's that going to do to my relationship? Yeah, that's how she's thinking. To her, it's all about the relationship. And if she happens to get some problem with the car, she's not so worried about the car as how's this going to impact my relationship.

So, gals are wired very differently that way, okay? So, one of the things when you look at the, you know, live with your wives in an understanding way, you know, this isn't like, you know, it's the movie My Fair Lady, you know, why can't a woman be like a man? Well, guess what? She isn't, right?

So now, The husband understanding the woman and understanding that she is made differently is exactly what God has in mind for the husband to do. He wants the husband to understand what the Bible says about the marriage relationship, and he wants the husband to understand her. She thinks differently.

And I can give you a generalization. It's all about the relationship, but what that doesn't tell you is She's different from all the other women. And what's different? And so there's the challenge. Now, do guys automatically understand what women are thinking? No. So guess what? Here's a guy, he thinks one way. Here's the gal, she thinks another way. He speaks, and it may be English, let's hope it is, But, and she's speaking English, but they don't speak the same language because it's coming from an entirely different way of thinking and a different set of values.

The husband and the wife both need to work on communicating with one another and getting past the, we think different, we speak differently, we assume different things. And guess who has a responsibility primarily in that relationship? The husband. He needs to take the initiative to communicate what's valuable, what's important, how does she think, how does she arrive at conclusions, etc. Now, As with someone weaker.

So does that mean that she doesn't arm wrestle quite as well as he does? I would suggest, nah, that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about something more than just I can arm wrestle her or I can lift more or bench press more. I think there's more to it than that.

So what's Peter getting at here? The rest of the verse makes it real clear that he's not setting a lower value on the woman. We'll talk about that in a minute here. But she is a woman. So what does he mean by weaker? What he's talking about is vulnerabilities that go along with her being a woman. And there are several of them. The woman is more vulnerable.

As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why we'll talk about you know, the usual thing that's assumed in our culture, hey we'll just do this living together thing. Guess who takes the greatest risk in the living together before marriage arrangement? The woman. The woman is the one who takes the greatest risk. That is one of the vulnerabilities.

But we'll talk about that some more. Here's a nice roller coaster, right? During the younger years of a woman's life, She's got a hormonal roller coaster that about every 28 days goes through full cycle. Okay. And it goes up and down. And at times that seems to work out fairly well. And at times it can be very difficult.

About 40% of gals go through, you know, something like PMS in any significant degree and about 5 or 10% of them really go through it. So anyway, that's pretty scary as the gals go up and down through this monthly cycle and they get torn through these hormonal variations.

That's not all. The monthly cycle, it all ends once she becomes pregnant, right? And then, whereas the monthly cycle, you know, you're doing this and you got the two hormones and they're going through slightly different phases. Once she becomes pregnant, that's all out the window. The hormones just go like skyrockets. And they're increasing. There's nothing cyclical about it. They're just going up and up and up throughout the pregnancy. Then when the kids are born, guess what?

She has an additional vulnerability. All of a sudden she is emotionally connected in a way us guys aren't. She's emotionally connected to those kids. And whatever ways those kids are vulnerable, she's vulnerable because of that connection. She has a vulnerability going out to those kids that's different because she carried them. They came from her. That's not all. There's other vulnerabilities. Then later on she goes through power surges and other things, right? And so what you find is that God has made a woman so that she is more vulnerable in various ways.

And that's what I think Peter's talking about, not just the man can out arm wrestle her or pick up more weight. He's talking about these vulnerabilities that she has emotionally. So the question is, what is a man supposed to do recognizing that she has those vulnerabilities and that she is a woman? What's a man supposed to do? Some men choose to laugh at her. You're just a stupid woman. Some men will put her down.

One of the things that Nancy and I have noticed is, here's this guy You know, marries the gal, she's just a gorgeous bride and just beautiful as can be. And all of a sudden she gets pregnant and all of a sudden he looks at her and he says, wow, what happened? You know, what happened to you? He doesn't get it. She at that moment also has an additional vulnerability. And that's that, you know, she's wondering, okay, now that I'm pregnant and I don't look at all like I used to and that, you know, my balance is now different, right? Does he still love me? Does he love me unconditionally?

What this says is show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of light. On the physical side, the man is male. She's a female. On the physical side, she is the one who goes through these monthly cycles and gets pregnant and all that. Are they different spiritually? No. And that's a key thing. God made them male and female on the physical side, and they're different intentionally, including the woman's vulnerability that she has. On the physical side, the woman has definitely got more vulnerabilities out there than the man does.

So what does the man do? No, you don't ridicule her. You don't say, man, I have no idea what happened to you. You just all of a sudden look like this big guppy. But instead, what do we do? We show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life. Show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life. So what do you do? You recognize, and this is part of understanding her, You recognize the vulnerabilities that she has as a woman, and you don't sit there and go, ha, ha, ha. You don't just kind of, oh, who can understand a woman? No. You show her honor. Why? Because she has the same position in Christ that you do. Does the same Christ live in her? Yes. Is she in Christ? Yes. Is she going to walk the streets of gold just like you? Yes. Spiritually, she is the same.

Honor that. So look at the two verbs that the man is supposed to carry out in this verse. One, live with her in an understanding way. Deliberately do the living. And then secondly, show her honor. Show her honor. So what is that? It's the same thing as Peter has been saying in the previous verses. Look at what's spiritual, guys. Be spiritually minded and recognize the spiritual position that she has, which is the same as yours. Show her honor as a joint heir, as a fellow heir of the grace of life. Be spiritually minded in your perspective. Not just saying, I'll love you as long as your shape stays about the same. and not I'll love you as long as you don't get too out of hand.

So what's a guy supposed to do with his wife? What is he supposed to do? We come back to, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, and does it matter whether you're male or female? No, it does not. You guys have, if you're a believer, have this treasure in earthen vessels, and so do the gals. Is your identification with Christ any different? No. When Paul wrote, you know, you're seated with Christ in the heavenlies, he didn't have a different verse for the men than for the women. It's the same one. You have a heavenly citizenship. Same as for the men and for the women.

So Peter tells the husband what to do and why. Live with your wives deliberately. Take the initiative. A man takes the initiative. Live with her deliberately, taking the initiative in an understanding way, and then show her honor. Take the initiative. A man takes the initiative to live with her in an understanding way, to show her honor, to express the four kinds of love.

She is a fellow heir of the grace of life, though her earthly role is going to be different. Her heavenly position is not. The husband, last line there, the husband is to view his wife spiritually. Now let's talk about what this looks like. How is that? Okay, we've talked about here's how the husband understands what God's Word says about the marriage relationship. But how does he understand her? We've talked some about what that means. How does he understand her specifically? Uh oh. Come on guys, he gave you the answers. How does a husband understand his wife specifically?

How does that go about happening? know your spiritual frontiers? Yeah, in other words, one of the things you're going to do is talk to her. You're going to observe, and you're also going to talk to her, right? And what are you going to do as you try to talk to her? Are you going to coach her? Are you going to lecture her? What are you going to do that is going to give you more understanding of her. In other words, this is talking to her about things so as to gain understanding of her. Now, there is an implied responsibility on the woman's part. What is it? To share? Yeah, to share about her perspective on things because let me tell you guys are really lousy mind readers. It's a very rare exception that it's otherwise. In general guys are lousy mind readers. Occasionally I'll hear some gal say, well if he doesn't know I most certainly won't tell him. And the reality is that if you don't tell him, he's never going to know. Guys are really lousy mind readers.

Not only do they think differently, but we're also talking about understanding her personally, her personally, and there's no way for him to know other than observing, but to have her share what she's thinking, even if it doesn't yet make sense to her.

It's just a separate box. It sure is. Yes, it sure is. And what happens is the world just says who can understand a woman and they throw up their hands. But the biblical imperative for the man is to take the initiative to live with her in an understanding way. And we do have the guidance from God's word. We do have the guidance from the Holy Spirit. But the other part is to talk to her, to learn her heart. To understand what she is, what does she value? How does she think? And how does she process things?

And to inquire so that you can carry out this living with her in an understanding way. How do I take the truth of God's word and carry that out specifically in this woman's life? You see that? How do I take the truth of God's word and carry it out specifically? It's a cooperative relationship between husband and wife in which the husband must take the initiative to understand her. And it might come across like, OK, let me think. Does this mean that you value this? Does this mean that you think this way? Does this mean that you're assuming this? And try to get some feedback on that in order to get some clarification.

But actually to focus on specifically understanding her in order to carry this out. It might have to do with things external, you know, this is the way she likes the curtains, right? And it might have to do with things internal. She really values this. She really considers this to be important. So what's happening inside her heart and what's happening in the world around, they're all a part of her thinking.

Right? Make sense? And so in the same way we talked about communicating about, you know, here's what love looks like. Here's what respect looks like. It's also a matter of learning to communicate with one another and understand one another and developing those tools. Here's an instance that Nancy and I've come across.

There was a husband and wife, you know, in which the husband was an airline pilot. And so between the husband and wife, they developed some language that they used to communicate because the wife had a tendency when she told a story to just go on and on and on and on with endless details. And so they developed, they talked about this tendency and they developed this lingo. Since he was an airline pilot, he would tell her when her story got way too detailed, land the plane. Okay? Land the plane. Okay? And so she would, oh, okay, I need to cut out all the details and get to the point, right?

So sometimes these tools of communication are what needs to be developed so that they can communicate with one another. Nancy and I had another couple come to us for counseling from out of state, so unlikely you've met them. But they went and spent several days with us And the husband had a hard time understanding why the wife seemed like she was grieving all the time. Well, it turned out that this couple had 14 kids, but except for the two that were their own, the others all came out of tragic situations. Fetal alcohol syndrome, both parents killed while the kids were small, things like that. And so the wife was always having to deal with this constant grieving that these kids that she loved were going through because of the tragedies that these kids had come out of. And so the husband just couldn't understand, why are you always grieving? Only he didn't really even see it that way. He just said, it seems like you're sad all the time. And so he was frustrated. Why are you always sad? And he didn't get it.

And so he talked to them about her trying to use some sort of a word picture that would help him to understand. And finally, because they were really doing tug of war over this. Finally, she came up with it. She said, remember when your brother died in that plane crash? And he said, yeah. Do you remember how you felt? Yeah. Yeah, I remember I felt pretty sad for a while.

She said, because of the kids that I'm dealing with and I'm close to them all the time, I don't get away from it. Because I'm dealing with them all the time, I feel like you felt when your brother died all the time with all these kids. And Nancy and I, Because she had developed a way to get across what she was thinking and what she was going through in a way that he could understand. And so this is where the communication effort may need to go in order for the couple to carry out this.

She actually has a part in helping him to understand so that he can carry out what scripture spells out for him to live with his wife in an understanding way. the last part, so that your prayers will not be hindered. At first we might think, well, that's because God's going to say, hey, you know, your prayers are just going to bounce off the floorboards of heaven, right?

If you don't live this way. But if you think about it, the man who does not have the insights that are in this verse is not thinking with a proper spiritual mindset, and his prayers just aren't going to be worth anything. The man who does not understand, do you know? She is a joint heir of the grace of life who doesn't understand that she spiritually is the same as him. His prayer life is not going to be anything worth listening to anyway. So it isn't a matter of God being resistant to hearing. He's just not going to be praying anything worthwhile because it comes from a perspective that's warped and shallow and distorted.

So these things to remember, the guiding relationship, the relationship between husband and wife is Christ is the church. The four kinds of love. which is a framework starting with her submitting, ending with her respecting him and the man expressing the four kinds of love. Remember this, that the husband is always asking himself, does she respect me? The wife always asking herself, does he love me? The foundation principle, the unconditional love is foundations and the unconditionally being subject to and respecting of the wife or the husband.

Companionship love and romantic love are built on top of that so that they have a good solid foundation. Not just trying to slip these emotions and sentiments into the relationship without a foundation. Remember, it's faith in the facts, the feelings go on top, along with experiences, traditions, relationships. Found the feelings on faith in the facts. Think about the marriage relationship, how God founded it when the earth was young, before there was sin and established it then. And how the eternal romance of Christ and the church on into eternity will be the fulfillment of the marriage relationship.

I've talked with Nancy about, you know, when we walk through heaven's gates, I don't think it'll be a matter of, you know, just being up in heaven is really cool. I mean, I really enjoy it, but you know, I just kind of miss my relationship with Nancy.

I don't think it's going to be that way. I think what's going to happen is we're going to see it fulfilled. Ah, that's what this is for. Our relationship here on earth pointed to that. And not only that, But it won't be a matter of, oh boy, this is really cool, but I miss my relationship with Nancy. Instead it will be a matter of this will be so amazing and phenomenal on into eternity that it won't diminish and make the relationship we had feel something missed. It will simply be overshadowing that relationship because this is the fulfillment of and so much greater. So extreme marriage is something that is completely outside of what this world understands and comprehends.

All the principles we've talked about here, the world doesn't talk about them. You hear guys talking, and I can imagine, you know, I used to go to a place where they'd play racquetball and it'd be, you know, a gym and see guys, you know, after they've been weightlifting and all these other sports activities, you know. They don't talk about those other kinds of love. They don't talk about that. And of course, understanding your wife, who can possibly do that? This is phenomenal. This is extreme marriage. This is remarkable, unlike anything this world has. Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Inspirations? exasperations. Yes? I'm going to take the long way around the barn but bear with me for a couple of minutes.

I think it's appropriate to teach this this way given that we're all believers and that we're married or thinking about marriage or will be married. But what's interesting to me is the perspective going through these same passages where one or the other person may not be a believer or is actively walking in the flesh To me it seems clear that we're to love our wives as Christ loved the church. Christ gave himself up for us when we were yet sinners, so it seems like that responsibility is still firmly intact, no difference whatsoever. If your wife is actively sinning, you're still loving. The other side of it is a little puzzling, though, in that if the man's an unbeliever, or actively sinning, walking in the flesh, how do you respect that? The man, how do you submit? And clearly, submit doesn't mean go along with him in his sin, because you're still submissive to God, which is more important.

Yeah. Right? So can you talk about that a little bit? Sure. The question is, I think, addressed in both the Ephesians 5 and the 1 Peter 3 passages. And that is this. Both of them are unconditional. But remember in the Ephesians 5 passage, as to the Lord is the wife's basis.

So what relationship does she have to the Lord? Is she submitting to the Lord? She's submitting to the Lord. Is she responding to the Lord's love for her? Yes. So her relationship there still continues. And so her relationship to the Lord is not cut off because he isn't carrying out his part. As a matter of fact, her relationship with the Lord is how her relationship with her husband gets established. It's as to the Lord. So that's the starting point.

I think there's one other, and that is that she is not respecting what he does or doesn't do. What she is respecting is the position that he has. So if the gal is looking at it just in terms of what do I see? She might look at it and say there's nothing to respect to there. There's nothing that I want to respect. And that may be the case. But the position that he has been given is one for which respect is due. So she will submit to and show respect for the position that God has given him. Where does she draw the line and say that's enough?

And that is where are the places where scripture would say, okay, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to follow through on that. And so there may be places where biblically she looks at it and, you know, he wants me to do this. I'm not going there myself because scripture says that's not where I should be going.

And so she may all the way up to that point, submit to and respect, then come to a place and say, I'm not crossing this line. And here's why, because my respect for you is as to the Lord. My submitting to you is as to the Lord, and so I can't violate my relationship with the Lord. And so I think that's where it ends. If it's something where it's not a spiritual or moral issue, that is critical, she can go right along with whatever it is, but there may be a place where she has to draw the line and say, no, I'm not doing that.

Yes. Could it possibly be like, I can picture it like if your husband is walking in the flesh and you're, you know, having a difficult time with it and like trying to respect that position, it's like, okay, like, you know, you're not agreeing with like what he's doing, but like, okay, I just kind of like have a scenario that like, all right, so as like a husband, like you'll have like, or as a wife, like, you know, maybe that expectation is to like, when he gets off from work to have like a meal prepared, like you'll still continue out to do that, like daily thing. Like, all right, I'll have the meal prepared, like I'm respecting him, showing him, taking care of him and like taking care of the children as well. Yes.

But if like he confronts you with something that he's doing, like in that relationship, like, do you have like the right to, not like the right, but like, should you be doing some correction in the way by like talk, communicating, or just solely through action? I think the thing is, it will in most places not be a matter of correction, but it will be a matter of saying, I can't go there. That correction issue is perhaps a little bit more complex if the other, let's say the spouse is a Christian, Then there is a series of things to go through that have to do with what's called church discipline, and there may be a part in carrying that out. But let's say that he is either an unbeliever, one, or two, he's a believer and maybe even the church has gone all the way to say, you know, we have to treat you like an unbeliever because you're resistant to any attempts to bring you back in line.

And she so may be in the marriage and have to deal with this guy who's determined to head off the wrong track. She's not in a position of correction anymore. It's beyond that. The sequence from scripture has been followed all the way, but she will be in a place of submitting and respecting up to the point where she says, I can't do that. Yes.

So I think in that regard I think those answers sometimes come moment by moment by moment. I don't think we get a script because everybody is so vastly different because that's how God makes. Yeah, you'll come up with different circumstances and obviously whatever answers we come up with here might be different over in Uganda, entirely different issues. But that relationship, and even going through this, that is the relationship between the Lord and whoever that woman is.

Yes. And she can never forget that He loves her with that sacrificial love. That's right. So even though yes is great to be loving me in these four ways? Absolutely. Is that where I'm going to look for the love? Absolutely not. Yes, and that's the key thing. While she was asking the question, does He love me in these four ways?

The reality is that doesn't mean that she is saying, well, I'm going to kiss off whatever my relationship with the Lord is and just rely on this man. She ultimately carries out her relationship with her husband, starting with, and as the priority relationship, her relationship with the Lord. As to the Lord. Her relationship with the Lord is the primary, even though she looks at, this is the most important person on the planet to me. But her relationship with the Lord is ahead of that. As to the Lord. The relationship with the Lord is the standard by which her relationship to her husband is carried out.

It's also helpful to understand where boundaries are, where the biblical boundaries for government are, where the biblical boundaries for family are, where they are for elders. If you understand where those are, and then under the heading of grace, understand that unless it's specifically stated in scripture, that that is a sin to do that. You have liberty also. So with those two principles, you can kind of understand, has he crossed the line or has he not? Yes.

In other words, we have domains of authority, don't we? Here, we live in the state of Colorado, where we have a domain of authority for the state of Colorado. We have domains of authority, you know, within the United States. So there's government authorities. There is domains of authority then in the family.

And thinking in terms of those biblical principles, then it is a matter of saying, no, I can't do this, or nope, shouldn't do that, you know. And so there are lines that, you know, we'll have to say, no, I'm not going there. We can't cross it. Well, it's helpful to know where those are so that if they cross them, it's okay, because in some things that I was raised in, there were people that you were to obey your husband no matter what.

Yes. And it's like, well, what if he's going to go do something that's specifically stated in Scripture as wrong? Yes. Do you submit to him and go along with him? And once I understood those boundaries, and they're violating one of them, then you are okay to say no. Yeah. And so it is a matter of recognizing, here's a place, that's a line I can't cross. I can't go there. Yeah. Those are important things to think through. And sometimes it will be difficult. You know, you run the moral issues. It's interesting.

When I was in Uganda, the questions came up, things like this. You know, what would happen is you'd have one of the people is a believer and the other is an unbeliever. And the cultural tradition was in order to inspire the spirits to help you name the baby, you'd have to cut the heads off of chickens. And so one of the questions I got was, you know, what if one of them wants to cut the heads off a chicken and the other one doesn't?

Now we might look at that and say, oh, that's funny. But the reality is we get in some pretty difficult, you know, moral circumstances and spiritual questions. You know, how much do I put up with? Where do I say, that's a line I can't cross. Sometimes it's pretty clear and other times it can be difficult to sort out. Other thoughts, questions? Yeah? I just kind of have more of an inspiring thought. Going through this, us young people, it's really amazing to see how distorted this view of marriage is because it's completely opposite, like, you know, if you're, they're just polar opposites, like the gods of you and the world of you, because it's backwards.

Yeah, it is. The bonded love, if you think like, oh, we're bonded, like by being physically intimate, then that's going to mean, because like the world will tell you, okay, once you physically bond to him, he's going to start producing these chemicals in his brain that are going to make him care for you. So then he's gonna start showing you the caring love, which if he's caring for you, he's talking with you, he's communicating with you, so that's sanctifying you. And then if he's talking, if he's spending and devoting that time and giving it all for you, then that's sacrificial love.

And it just is like a complete 180, where it's the polar opposite. And I come to find so many times, especially in a college setting, how opposite it is. have even a lot of good Christian relationships can fall into that because it's like so pushed on locally and like worldly and it's really hard to like want to decipher it all but Yeah, oftentimes the thinking of gals is, and it's wrong, the thinking of gals is, if I will, you know, go for more physical intimacy, then the rest of it will follow.

That's not the way it works. Yeah, well that's because we're creatures of feeling. Yes, and that's, yeah, and of course a lot of it is kind of wishful thinking. The reality is, for many guys, that is the pressure that they will apply. but that doesn't mean that the rest of it will follow. That's why we say you know as a relationship is developing before marriage the way to start is to work on the first three kinds of love and then if those work then marriage and then physical intimacy will make sense. Well those are the first three are the ones that really matter to the so I can have the last three. That's right. I should deserve the first three first. That's right.

And so women in our culture often get sold on the idea that if I do the physical intimacy thing, the rest of it will come. No, it doesn't. That's not the way it works. What happens is she goes ahead and falls to that, and she's physically intimate, and the guy says, well I've got everything I wanted, and the rest of it never comes. He doesn't have to sacrifice a thing, he doesn't have to care about her spiritually, and as a matter of fact, as long as she's willing to go along with that, why care about anything else? So would it be fair to say that for especially single women, because of this severe pressure on a woman and a culture, and it's just messed up. But that is where the body of Christ comes in and can just embrace her for lack of another word right now.

I mean that's where she needs to be and not be isolated and not be swept away by what our culture and what the world, because it's becoming more of a unified culture in that message, you know, so that there are people around that she knows, oh yeah, I'm left here. Yeah. Yeah, if you think about it, you know, is not us living sacrificially for one another in the body of Christ, what we're called to? Yeah. So this is that love, but in a more personal and exemplary way. How about spiritual concern and care? I mean, that's my job, right? Spiritual care and concern for people.

As a matter of fact, one of the things Nancy and I have talked about, pastors are at great hazards. Something like a third of all pastors, according to recent surveys, a third of all pastors are over the line physically somewhere in their congregations. either an ongoing or an occasional incident of physical intimacy with somebody in the congregation, or at least the hugs are getting a little too long, you know? Something of that sort. And so, yeah, it's a problem, because what's happening is here I am talking to people, and of course a lot of people I'm talking to are ladies, and I'm talking about the most spiritually intimate thing that there is. I'm going to the heart. And that's a hazard. That's a hazard. That's one reason why if a woman's involved, Nancy's there. It's because that hazard is great.

I am touching in a place where a lot of women are saying, boy, I long to be itched there. And so ultimately, where is that to be satisfied? Her husband needs to be the one who is touching her intimately and talking to her about spiritual things that are more personal to each couple. So I can give you general principles, but the husband is the one who is to be talking about spiritual and personal things as the general pattern.

Pastor Vern, I have a comment, a concern, you can address it. We have our sons here today listening to this because this is the age they need to hear it. Washington and Jefferson and all the founding fathers were young men in charge of their own lives and other men's lives by the time they were 18 to 19 years of age. And yet in these Christian churches, and Holly Hills is the smallest church we attend, the youth groups are huge. And the messages that the young men are getting there to bring entertainment and to have a safe environment to interact is the wrong message. And we're losing so many of our men, our young men, and I do call them men because they are, at 16 to 19 years of age, they're men already, to this world view of how they view themselves, how they view their relationships or their responsibilities.

You know, buying them a car instead of them working to earn a car. to that respect, and it's coming down from the Christian community. It's not just all world. Yeah, and I think what it amounts to is in the church bodies we need to do like we're trying to do here, and we previously had a single seminar, to try to get people understanding what are the biblical principles that apply so that they're going into marriage and everything that precedes it from a biblical standpoint. It's just rare. It's not common.

Brian and Julia White, whose picture that you see here, Nancy and I were talking with them. They got married at a church and all that happened is that they gave them a secular compatibility test and then told them, well, you're good to go. See you at the wedding. There was nothing in the way of conveying these biblical truths. And so they step into the marriage, and then it's a matter of the things we've been talking about here catching up to that after the fact. And I have to say in great part that that's what Nancy and I had. We didn't have a whole lot of background, so it's been a matter of discovering and digging these things out.

God's ideal is that we're equipping people at the stage that they're at for what they need. And laying out here the biblical principles, the truths that you need. If we say that the secret to everything is faith in the facts and build everything else on top of that, we better give them the facts to have faith in, right? And so that's what we're intending to do here. That's a really good point. And the reality is most of the church gotten that, which is why Christian marriage statistics are no different from the world.

So, a young man and a young woman who are interested in eventually continuing their life together should talk about the three loves before they get married? Yes, most definitely. That is, if you look at it, if the litmus test of should this relationship continue If the litmus test is ideally, he understands what those first three kinds of love are.

And he is at least learning to express those to her and her heart saying, yeah, this works well. And other people are looking at it and they're saying, you know, he really does know how to express those first three kinds of love to her. And you can tell. And she's responding to it well.

And then, yeah, it needs to be taught. It needs to be understood and not have people just kind of stumbling along and figuring out later. A lot of what Nancy and I will sit down and teach with couples when we counsel is stuff that we look at and we say, boy, I sure wish somebody had told me this a long time ago.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. But you ask a good question. It is important to understand these things. That's why we're covering them. And you know, I'm not making any of this stuff up. This is right out of God's Word. Okay? Yeah? I think it's important. I didn't have any of like, okay, these are the three things or even four things or however many things, like the particular things they look for in a, like a male who loves God. I just, you know, my concern was just like, all right, like, does he love God? Or does he actually really love God?

And it's good to understand. It's good to come to things like this to see like, okay, this is what I should be looking for in a guy at this age and like hold true to those until because there's going to be a lot of worldly people who are going to tell you otherwise. Oh, you'll get all kinds of advice. Yeah.

How critical to realize these are specifically the kinds of love that I need to see this guy initiating, being an initiator on. Is he being an initiator on understanding me? and living with me in an understanding way to the extent that that makes sense where our relationship is at now. We even know of one pastor who told a young man, yeah, you need to be physically attractive to this gal. He didn't talk about first being an initiator, reaching out in a sacrificial way or even being concerned in a sanctifying way.

But yeah, you need to be physically attracted to her. That was his first concern. Yeah, and the relationship blew apart. And it didn't. Yeah. It did not proceed to marriage. I know what relationship she's talking about. So yeah, and it blew apart. It didn't proceed to marriage. Yeah, it didn't proceed to marriage. Because the girl recognized that he didn't love her. Yeah, she did not have a yes answer to the question in her mind, does he love me? Right? Because he didn't understand he was to be the initiator of love and not going around asking the question primarily, does she turn me on? Right? Yeah. Okay? Feel free to stick around afterwards, but we'll call it quits.

Let me pray. Lord, we thank you that you've revealed these precious and deep and marvelous truths in your word. And by your Holy Spirit, you work in our hearts to make application of this truth. And we just pray that we would take these and in our relationships that we have or will develop, that we would begin to carry those things out, that we would, as appropriate, be observing that in others, learning, Lord, as a work of your Holy Spirit. And we just pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.