Marriage Conference 2017 - 02 - The Hidden Person of the Heart

0:00 Happy Valentine's. What we have here is dark chocolate nuggets with antioxidants that are good for your health... Your heart. And the first one, somebody forgot to mention last session, so we'll do it now. Christ died on the cross for our sins.

0:31 He loved us with his arms open wide. He loved us. Can you say the words, I love you? Repeat it after me. I love you.

0:41 Oh, you said that with me. Repeat after me. I'll say it, and then you say it. Sorry about the heavy handed thing. It's...

0:47 I'm a I'm a... I just like to be in control. Okay. Let's say it together. I love you.

0:56 Now, husbands, turn to your wives, put your arm around her if it's not already there, look into her eyes, and with the most heart depth felt meaning, you say the words, I love you. Okay. Now, do it again and don't do that nervous laugh. Say it like you mean it. I know.

1:20 I love you. Okay. That's the first dark chocolate nugget with antioxidants that's good for your heart. Okay, husbands, you said that. Let's do a headcount.

1:37 Did we lose anybody? Did anybody die? I I I'm so I'm really concerned about this because, you know, if I said that, I would die. I couldn't say that. Well, we did, and we're all still here.

1:52 I wonder. Well, well, first of all, wives, was that a nice sound? Yes. Yeah. Hear that, guys?

2:03 Forced. Of course. It was forced. Forced. Oh, it was forced.

2:18 I don't think it was Tim that forced it. I'm thinking possibly. I don't wanna draw attention to you, sir. But... I'm doing the work on her phone.

2:29 I'm too honest. Yeah. Our wives love to hear the words, I love you. We've all laughed at the joke. I told her I loved her when we got married thirty nine years ago.

2:47 If it changes, I'll let her know. No. My daughter has taught me to say I love you. As a teenager, and it never occurred to me. Daddy, I love you.

3:00 She just says it way a lot. And God encouraged me to say that to her. And now that she's a distance, I can text it to her. I can Facebook it to her. I can email and say, I love you, dad.

3:16 It's it's good for me to say that. Wives, can you say the words, I love you? Say it with me. I love you. Oh, that is really nice.

3:33 Talk about being forced. How would you like that one, Turn to your husband. Put your hands on his shoulders. Look him right in the eye. Make sure he's got, make sure he's looking at you eye to eye and you say, I love you.

3:52 Fellas, was that a nice sound? Is that a nice sound to these ears? But here's the second dark chocolate nugget with antioxidants that's good for your heart. It's a three word nugget. Again, they're all three words.

4:41 Now here's how we're gonna be sure we remember this. It's no good to say it here and go home and forget it. Right? Okay, ladies. You're gonna say it.

4:52 Okay? I'm I'm prepping you for this. You're gonna be the first ones to say it. Your husband backed his big, stupid, oversized truck over your treasured flower pot. Okay?

5:13 Are the emotions coming to the surface? I want you to turn... Let's all stand up for this. I'll stand up. And and and there's some motions.

5:27 Okay? Ladies, look at me. I want you to turn to your husband, cross your arms like a drill sergeant. Your back is straight. Your chin is square, and say it like a drill sergeant.

5:39 I forgive you. Yeah. Some of you got the eye thing down perfectly. Yeah. Right here.

5:58 Settle in my eyes. I don't need these. Okay. Now, guys, would you like to have a chance at this? Okay.

6:10 Now, guys, you turn to your wife, and your wife has just spent the afternoon trying to make you a homemade pizza to... Because she loves you. She wants to give you this, and she's trying to express love. She wants to do something just because it just... This...

6:27 I love you. You're chewing on a piece of pizza that is leatherized. It... That means it tastes like leather, and it chews like leather. Okay?

6:44 So you're chewing on this chunk of pizza, and she's saying... She's sobbing. She's in tears. Okay. She's she's just broken up because she realizes it's not how she wanted it to be.

6:57 You cross your arms, stiffen your back, square jaw, and like a drill sergeant. Oh, no. No. No. That's the other way around.

7:07 I'm sorry. Wait a minute. What's happening here? Weather pizza. She needs to say sorry.

7:16 She needs to say... But you already did. No. The truck driver was supposed to say I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry.

7:32 Guys, turn to your wives, make up a story, cross your arms, and rubble out like a sergeant. I'm sorry. That was pretty easy. Alright. Have a seat.

7:53 Now real quick like Real quick like. Turn to one another and take turns. Put your arm around your husband or your wife and like a grandmother to her grandchild, get down, look into the eyes, and say I'm sorry. Doesn't matter who goes first. Guys, ladies, you both do it.

8:32 Okay. Again, did we lose any men today with... I'm saying I'm sorry. Guys, you still with us? Almost.

8:41 Okay. Well, we're all in process. Alright. Let's turn our attention over here. I just ran through here real quick what husbands want in marriage.

8:51 Okay, wives. This is a time to, you know, get a cup of coffee, wake up, stir, you know, and look this way. You need glasses on, put the glasses on, all that stuff. Okay? Here's what men are saying they want in marriage, companionship.

9:06 Not in any particular order. Right? Oh, no. No. Okay.

9:11 No. No. Let's... Okay. We had some people come in, and I already did a pulse on this, but maybe I need to do it again.

9:27 Do we have anybody here that's not married? Everybody's... Okay. That gives me a little bit more freedom. Yes?

9:38 That one's in order. This one? Yeah. It's got to be. Okay.

9:52 Okay? We do like you, ladies. We do want you to be with us. I I... I'll be working on the car, and I'm just tickled when Judas comes out and sits there.

10:05 She's probably bored stiff, but I like that. She's just there. No. When are we gonna talk about this? Sex.

10:19 Right now, seems like it could be. Not... Okay. Men? Any amens here?

10:25 Wow. That was loud. Woah. Sex doesn't appear on that side though. My wife told me that.

10:50 This is funny but this is true. I'll raise my hand and testify to that. We're different. That's why we have exercises. I think this is good, enjoyable for Judy, but she's like, can I say the word tolerating?

11:15 For her to do that is expressing love for me. She's willing to do... She's sacrificing as it might perhaps. I could... Maybe I have to word it that way.

11:25 We're different. But we don't talk about this, and it's busting up our marriages. And this weekend isn't just about us, about you. Yes. We want your marriage to go out if you're healthier than when it walked in, and that's a great goal.

11:49 We hope to do something with that. We hope God gets a piece of that. But that's not the that's not the goal line. That's not the points. That's not the win.

11:59 It's not enough for you to just walk out here and have a great, glorious marriage the rest of your lives. Yeah. Oh, that would be nice. The mission at its essence is reproductivity. We want you to go out of here.

12:16 I want to challenge you. You've been invested and you've been growing with Christ in your marriage over the number of years you've been married. Our mission is to go out and find other couples that we can spend some time with. Have them over for coffee, for lunch, go do something together, Build a relationship with them and invest in their lives. Take what you learn here.

12:38 Take what you've learned from your experience, your walk with God, your walk with each other, and invest that in them. You've got years on some of these couples. Why make them stumble blindly through all this? Help them out. Get em ahead.

12:53 Give em a leap, a head start. That's where this, that's what the mission is about. That's where god's heart is at. But we don't talk about sex. We can't preach about it.

13:07 I think. I'm not sure. We may not be able to use that word but I think we need to talk about this in our churches and where we gather together in Sunday school rooms or Bible studies or something. We need to free our Genesis, when God created man and woman, they were in the garden, and they were both Naked. Naked and unashamed.

13:40 We've lost that. We have difficulty talking about that with one another. Between a husband and a wife, we have difficulty. So, yeah, in a group like this, like, know, fast trip out of town if you say anything about that. I know.

13:58 What are you going do? Fire me? Ladies, if you don't know now, this is at the top of the guy's list. But we'll we'll we'll give it some time. Okay?

14:15 Relax. Chill. Maybe it's not. I don't know. You ask your man.

14:22 We want friendship. We want trust. We want honesty. We want good communication, laughter, sex, peace and quiet. We're going to hit this one It's this hour we're going to touch on that one.

14:44 Respect. Well, I think that's biblical too. That's right in that passage. Your chairs are swiveling your swivel around. Spiritual encouragement.

14:55 Yeah, we're the head of the house. That doesn't mean you can't help us. We don't know everything. You see things differently than we see them. Respect.

15:05 I think we mentioned that. Support. This only showed up once. I'm not sure that's an accurate representation. Respect, intimacy, that's the big word for the three letter word.

15:27 Bedroom activity. Is that safe? Understanding. I saw in there a lot about we want a friend. We want a relationship.

15:47 We get kind of loud and barky and commanding. We, you know, we gotta work on that. But we we really do want to have a friend. We want you as our friend. Okay.

16:24 You know what the bright side of that is? I don't have to... You don't have to listen to him. He's not your husband. But Tim, is it?

16:35 Tim is your husband. So let's work through this passage and see if we can warm up to it. I'm I'm just guessing that we're a little frigid. K. Gonna try a technological challenge here.

16:51 Let's see if we can make this work. That screen's black. Right? Is it black now? Oh, that's good.

17:01 We just skipped a chunk but I think we're going to get back to it. Again, flipping over to first Peter chapter three one through six. Several verses here about wives. Wives, be submissive. Okay, change the word not subject, submissive, same meaning to your own husbands.

17:24 First question to some is why? And the text goes on to say, what is the reason? What does the text say is the reason to submit to your husband? Yeah. Good.

17:43 Yeah. Yeah. So right there. We are. And when we're looking at scripture, we don't have to make up words.

17:48 We just read it. The so that is a reason phrase. Why do I need to do this? Because so that husbands might turn to god. One word, turn.

18:10 Very, very powerful term, turn. Wives, I don't know I don't know I don't know you folks. I could easily get to love you more than I do now. It's been enjoyable time here. And if there's none here, wonderful.

18:31 Praise God. But it's not all about us, is it? You are going to go home and invest in people in your circle of influence. You may run into a couple where the husband is running from God, sinning, needs to stop and turn to Jesus as a savior. This is addressing that husband who needs Christ as savior of his life.

19:06 But that's not all, is it? There's husbands who have Christ as savior of their life who are running from god, living in sin, what do they need to do? Stop and turn to God. This verse is about that husband. This verse is about both husbands, the unsaved and the saved.

19:37 It doesn't matter. Well, you wouldn't counsel an unbeliever and believer to get married in the first place, but you engage people wherever they're at. If the wife in this case happens to be saved and the husband is not saved, this is this is the counsel that you would give to them right here. Be submissive to your husband so that you might turn, he might turn to god. Okay.

20:24 Okay, is that confusing? I could try a little harder to muddy it. Two parts... Two major parts is how does your husband turn to God? It's by your behavior.

20:39 That's what the text says. By your behavior, which is described by the word chaste and respectful. Do we see respect on this wall? Yes. Okay.

20:50 So there is an inroad. For you or for the person, the lady that you're investing in, respect is a big deal. It's up here. That's a top shelf item. It's wrapped in gold, it's cased in gold, this is precious.

21:08 Now it's not only by your behavior, that's one that's one way to turn the heart. There's another strategy for turning his heart toward god and what is that? Decoration? Yeah, this is where I get shot. The ladies pull their and I just ceased to exist.

21:44 The the biblical word is adornment and I haven't used or heard that word in six months to ten years. That's not true, that might mean it's not a reoccurring word in our vocabulary. And so I thought, no. And we might hear it, and then we just go, phew, yep, know that. So I looked up a dormant, and guess what I found?

22:12 Decoration. Ladies, you're just a Christmas tree with decorations. Yeah, will that get me in trouble? Yeah, it lasts in line if you get anything at all. But I think this helps us to think about decoration or maybe I should have used the word presentation.

22:30 Would that be better? Your how you present yourself. And you can do this again a couple ways. There's two sub strategies to this is the external presentation which involves the hair, the jewelry, and the dress. Okay?

22:54 We're all married here, so put the tomatoes down, forget the seat belt, it's okay. Oh, no. Put the seat belts on. Fellas, how many of you enjoy looking at your wife when she has spent time on her hair, the jewelry, and the dress and she has presented herself to you for your eyes only. Yeah.

23:21 Now, our hands are going up. Are we talking about that? Intimate C word Wives, you want to turn your hearts toward god, you have it. You have what we want. Now that's not the only thing.

23:50 It has some good company here. I mean, has company that we need to address. There's what we just talked about the external. Now, I would like to say internal because that just is logical but that word's not here which hasn't stopped me before, right? But the text says because it's really, this is really good here.

24:47 Christ said, what's in the heart is what comes out. This is what we're talking about. It's this inner beauty And the text describes this interperson, inner person, hidden person with these words. It's gentle. Ladies, no more throat punches.

25:06 You got to back off on that. The plates that go across the kitchen. Gentle, gentle. Quiet. What was that one back there?

25:26 Peace and quiet. I'm not making any accusations. I'm I'm saying the Bible says and the men have voiced. You want to turn your husband's heart toward god? There's an effective way of doing that.

25:55 It probably is not the natural way that comes immediately to mind. It probably takes some self control To do the right thing. This third one, the text goes on to talk about holy women of the past. Powerful word her holy. A holy, we, it's represented here in various forms.

26:22 But a holy lady, When you hear the word holy, what comes to your mind? Anybody? Several of you. Pure. Pure.

26:36 Sinless. Sinless. Yeah. Pure is without flaw, sin, impurity. Sinless.

26:43 Separated, set apart. Devoted. Devoted. Devoted. Mhmm.

26:51 Okay. Right. Good. I'm glad you mentioned separated. I've heard this definition, and it's a true, it's true.

27:02 It's a right, it's an accurate definition. But we don't take that word far enough. We just think it's set apart. I want us to think about why was it set apart. It was set apart for holy pure use.

27:20 This is a vessel set apart to be used in the tabernacle, to be used in the temple for the in in a role of worshiping god. So, it's not just something simply set apart but ask ourselves, why is it set apart which gets us back to the holy pure sinlessness. So, we expect our wives to be sinless. Okay with that guys? Can you work with that?

27:45 Woah. I'm getting some eyes here. Sorry, didn't mean to do that. But this holy invitation is not just to wives. We're in Peter here.

28:01 First chapter Oh, you know where I'm going. Be holy as. Yeah. And the verse in front of that was in all your behavior. So, it's not just a positional righteousness which we get through the cross.

28:20 It's been brought down to a practice righteousness day by day to be pure, pure, holy, sinless in our behavior. What you talking about? Are you kidding me? Who's doing that? Come on.

28:39 It's a command. A comparison, be holy just as I, god the father, is holy. Any questions? No wiggle room. Be holy.

28:53 Oh, well, I think I'll go over to Galatians. Oh, you won't get any help there. I'll go to ropers. No help there. The New Testament just keeps pounding on.

29:01 Well, the Old Testament as well but pounding on this holiness, holy, holy, righteous, pure, sinless. You're dead to sin. You don't have to obey sin. Remember, it's not just to wise. I'm talking to all of us here.

29:20 Anybody who claims to be a follower of Christ is in this category. So what do we do? We're running from God, living in sin, enjoying it. Holy life. What do we need to do?

29:38 Stop and turn. Around the Lord's Supper, Paul tells us to examine ourselves to see if there's any sin in our lives that we are aware of and to bring anything that we are not aware of to the surface. If we've done that business, if we've gone on our face before the Lord, said, Lord, I'm sorry. I wish I had not done that. Forgive me.

30:14 I want to be pure and whole again. At that moment, are we holy? You've just confessed all your known sins Everything you know about, you've done business with god, you said, I'm I'm sorry and here is my plan to avoid that next time. Let's go that far even, okay? At that moment, are you holy?

30:45 Are you sinless? Are you godly? Are you righteous in that moment? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to. Yes.

30:55 Kind of wash most of it off. Evolve. Yes. All is the right word. So, in that moment, are you holy, golly, righteous, pure?

31:12 Yeah, this is tough. I'm leaning on you pretty hard here and so it takes time for us to process this because we have issues with it. But the commands are all over the place in here in in the in the New Testament especially. So, my personal goal is say, okay, in this moment, I am holy. How long can I make that moment last?

31:40 That I can keep pure before god and and putting out sinful thoughts, lustful thoughts, envy, things. How long can I make that moment? And then, so here's a moment and it's this long. Okay, failure. Like flat tire flopping along.

32:00 Okay? Repent, finally get, oh, yeah, I forgot you, god. I'm supposed to be holy. Let me confess again, pure moment makes it about this long. So my goal is to make my moments longer and to make the moments closer together.

32:23 I think that's a good plan for holy. Am I ever going to be perfect long term? I know what the Bible says, but I got my doubts. And this is the best form I can come up with. And then I'm learning to to know who God is and become more like him.

32:45 I'm trying to become more like an infinite God. Am I ever going to cross a finish line? No. I'm finite. But each time I make a circle, I come around at a little higher elevation.

32:57 Come around again, a little higher elevation. Come around again, a little higher elevation. I may have a problem with the same issue, but I'm seeing it differently. I'm maturing in God, and the more I know about Him, the more I realize, oh, I thought I had this down, but look at this. How could I have missed that?

33:13 Well, was too immature to see it. That's our journey. Okay. Let's finish off with this. His needs.

33:54 Second and third. The longer it takes, the longer it'll take you to get to the meal. We'll try to get these printed out for you. I'm sorry I cut you off and move move things along. But great discussion starter.

34:26 Okay? In fact, I'll leave this up here, you can do what you but talk this through. Who's in the driver's seat? Who knows what is the top one here? Husbands or wives, who knows what's the top one?

34:47 All right, husbands. I'll say it for you. You know what's the top one. It's interesting over break, couples that have been married for decades said, You know, I thought I knew my wife pretty well. And in some cases, they had all but the top one or one was out of place.

35:09 But great. That's not a bad thing. We just fine tune. We talk about, oh, okay. I I was operating out of ignorance.

35:19 That's okay. That's a win. Maybe we got the whole thing upside down. That's okay. It's a win.

35:23 We're talking about it. It's out in the open. You have permission to talk about these things. It's important to your marriage.