Marriage Conference Session 2 — Genesis 2

0:00 So just for review soccer, eight unconscious longings, desires And remember we use soccer, LS. We haven't spoken yet about LS so can you repeat or at least say the first six? S stands for Security. O stands for Order. C stands for?

0:44 Caring. C stands for? Connection. E stands for? Entertaining.

0:54 R stands for? Responsibility. Wow! Isn't that amazing? I'm so glad that you could remember all of that.

1:06 Okay, very good. I was trying to push it because I asked, I was trying to dismiss you to an early dinner. But brother Ray said, hey, hold on, you got one more session before dinner. So we gotta keep going, okay? And that's good.

1:22 I'm happy, the more the merrier time. I know I've been going a little bit fast, but I think as we consider what else is before us, Overall, you will find how helpful it is. And for session number three, when we come to dreaming together, I have notes here for everybody. At least you can take one each. And then I have a take home exercise, when you go home you can do that.

2:09 Hold hands remember and then talk about and do the exercise together. I hope that will be helpful. And if someone here is single, there's a separate exercise for you as well, and hopefully that will be helpful as well. Okay, so now let's move on to item number seven. L stands for loyalty.

2:38 Okay, and loyalty. Something moving, nothing moving. I think we need our tech specialist to come and help us. Okay, Here we are, loyalty, thank you. Loyalty has also got two components.

3:39 And when we consider loyalty, it's moving from me first to we first. And I mentioned about the two components, and the two components are faithfulness and priority. As part of faithfulness, there's a need to be truthful, trustworthy and totally committed. As part of priority, remember when we say our marriage vows, these days sometimes the couple comes up with their own vows. But if you look at more traditional vows, will see the expression forsaking all others.

4:44 That means the spouse will get priority over many things and people and things. How can this be? How is this manifested? Well, it is manifested as giving your spouse priority even if the job pulls you apart or hobbies or social media or video games, friends, things like that. And very often when these manifestations takes play...

5:34 Take place, that's when you have conflict. And when one person says my job requires me to be there, but then I have you at home. And then what happens? There's a... You know, it's a question of priority.

5:56 I know there are sometimes when you just cannot do anything else but attend to things at work. But there are times when we can say my spouse is priority. And if we really work at it then we will see or the spouse will see the genuine actions that are taken in order to give that spouse priority. Otherwise there is the complaint of my spouse is never at home. And there is very little.

7:16 Otherwise, he is forever missing, always busy at work or some hobby. And then there are people who are so addicted to social media. One person goes to bed and the other person is still on Facebook or whatever it is. And then very often I see this even in my immediate family: video games. One person goes to work and comes back, doesn't want to talk, it's all about video games for the next several hours.

7:56 What about the spouse? What about the children? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. Video games and sometimes that can extend late into the night. It's a question of priority.

8:13 And that's where you show your loyalty. I don't know you may be having great mother in laws. Sometimes dual affections can pull you in the direction of your mom. That can be for guys or for ladies, I don't know. But what the other person wants to know, the spouse, is your loyalty to that person first.

8:47 Sometimes that is not heard. You know, I have to take care of mom but you come first in my life. I love you. I am 100% committed to you. And because that is not said, one person gets left out, the focus is on the other person and what that other person says, that is followed and then the spouse feels left out.

9:17 See, it is under loyalty that all these things come under. And at other times it's me first, remember? Selfishness is the number one cause of many conflicts in marriage. It's I, me, myself. But when we come to the Bible in a little while you'll see how the Bible is talking about other centeredness.

9:51 And the whole idea of one flesh as we see in the Bible is all about moving from me first to we first. We first forsaking other things. At times, yes, we have to attend to other things. I am in favor of being balanced about these things. And yet at the same time if we express and show that, yes, it's we first and I am loyal, faithful, trustworthy, will not do anything to break your trust, you will find that there is a lot of peace in that home.

10:38 There's a lot of understanding in that home. There's a lot of togetherness of being one and that's the concept of one flesh that the Bible talks about. It's not just about physical oneness, it's about emotional oneness, it's about soul oneness. And as we will come to when we talk about how we in terms of dreaming together, it's also becoming one in the spirit. And therefore, even in Genesis in chapter two, and the two shall become one flesh, there's a process.

11:36 And in that process we find it is this move from I first to we first and that to place that marriage relationship at the highest priority only next to God is very, very important. And whenever that is not there or lacking, we find that it leads to a lot of conflict, argument and hurtful things are said and people go down that spiral. And at some point you reach a situation where it's very hard to reverse things. Perhaps I'll talk about that in the next session. So when there are conflicting loyalties, what happens?

13:24 And that comes from this whole area of unconscious dream, longing of husband's loyalty but in association with either faithfulness or priority. Now we come to item number eight, sexuality. Very often we find either there is overindulgence or neglect in this area. In this area too there are two components. There is the sexual me versus the spiritual me.

14:22 Let me just talk about that and then say certain things. In relation to sexual me there is, of course all of us, a body and a soul. And there is a human view and that is I can do what I want with my body or gender, which is what is happening in culture. I need maximum pleasure and fulfillment. I want the free expression of sex and sexual expression and very sometimes over indulgence.

15:07 And you know we live in this world and all around us culture has taken great steps to indoctrinate us in so many different ways in order to focus on the sexual me and that be through pornography, various ways in which the sex activity is expressed and all of that. One researcher said like this, very often even Christians, they get their teaching through social indoctrination either through magazines or through television. And that's so sad. So that's one side. Then there's the spiritual me and that is we have body, soul and spirit and this is not just the human view but God's view.

16:29 And the sad part is that this is not usually addressed in church. Very often when it comes to sexuality we have a list of do's and don'ts. Some people call it we have sex as a sight dish mentality and after a time of initial gratification and procreation there is general neglect in this area because our focus is on spiritual things. And you know what the problem is? A huge wall has been constructed between the sexual me and the spiritual me.

17:23 And people say that this wall needs to be brought down and to understand that yes in the expression of sexual me to bring about the truth that you find in scripture of the spiritual me and to talk about the interrelationships that the Bible talks about, then people will understand how important this is. And what do you find? This is manifested as unfulfilled person craving. For some people they look at sex with shame and dirty procreation and then after that nothing. Why is it such a snare?

19:30 It's boring. Tiredness, taking spouse for granted, don't keep up yourself, grooming is neglected, etc. It leads to marital infidelity and many forms of defilement and sin. Very often the infidelity is spoken of and very little is known of the background that led to it. And therefore it's very important for us to talk about these things and learn and understand and not neglect.

20:21 You know, when I teach students in the leadership class, we talk about maintaining sexual purity. There's a whole three hour lecture on boundaries in marriage. There are so many things that needs to be addressed. Where do we get our information? Maybe from television, from messages, things like that.

20:52 How can this be addressed? Now I'm not an expert in all these areas. I can recommend one resource because I know that this lady, Doctor. Julie Slattery, she's on the board of Moody Bible Institute. She has got a website, it's called Authentic Intimacy.

21:21 I don't know what goes on in your life, but if you go to that website, I think there's a lot of information you can get from a Christian perspective. Instead of drawing ideas from magazines and television shows and things like that, where there's all kinds of indoctrination about what takes place in culture or how things can be done apart from God. It's good to hear what people have to say. She's also got a podcast entitled Java with Julie. She's also got a website called Sexual Discipleship.

22:08 She says very often culture has discipled people into their way of thinking when it comes to sexuality. There is the need for us as Christians to also talk about discipleship in the area of sexuality. When it comes to expressions of sexuality, here's what is often said, treat others, each other with dignity and honor as co heirs of the grace of life together. We'll come to that in a little while when we look at the biblical aspect. When it comes to sexuality or sexual expression, don't stoop to anything that will demean or dishonor the other person.

24:44 This is what the Savior does and this is what the sexual act when you bring down the war between spiritual me and sexual me and look at the deep significance that Scripture offers, not what culture indoctrinates us. We begin to see, wow, this is loving sacrifice. You know why it is loving sacrifice? There's a statement that I read from Julie Slattery's writing, which I want to read, which I thought was very interesting. She says in one of her books, and women are by nature sexually incompatible.

25:49 When dating we thought how compatible we were. Look what she says and then continue, I quote, For men sex leads to feelings of love. For women feelings of love lead to sex. Men are aroused quickly and satisfied, women not so much. Men want direct stimulation in one place, women want to be touched everywhere and delaying direct stimulation.

26:24 Men want sex in order to relax, women must relax in order to enjoy sex. Men tend to be visually aroused. Women are aroused through emotional connection and physical sensation. As a result men and women are sexually incompatible by God's design. Did you ever think about that?

27:37 Doctor. Gary Thomas wrote a book, I think the title is, well, that's a recent book, very recent book. It's called Married Sex. Maybe we should read that. But it was co written by another lady, so Julie Slattery, this is all from her, from a lady's perspective mostly.

28:08 But earlier in a book he wrote that the world's perspective of marriage is to be happy but when you look at God's perspective, God wants you to be, yes, happy but also to become holy. So in that covenant relationship when there is that sexual expression, why does it lead to sanctification? It keeps you from unwanted other things from coming into that marriage relationship. It keeps one another satisfied. So it is loving sacrifice for the sake of the other person.

29:28 So come back. I'm not done yet. We talked about soccer LS, but if I leave you there, you've heard a lot, very helpful, useful information based on surveys of so many people and their experience and what leads to so much conflict, argument because of which couples tend to draw apart, marriage erodes and finally it leads to divorce. Perhaps, and I just want to say this probably as an introduction to that as well. All eight of these items do not need to be in a person's marriage or just one or two of them.

30:27 If it keeps coming up again and again, you will find that it leads to so much unhappiness, unfulfillment and it leads to erosion in marriage and sometimes can wreck a marriage. I don't want to leave you at a place where after talking about all these things to leave you with that negative image because now we have the positive side. We have God's perspective which we wanna talk about. And it is as you bring in that you will find, wow, this was what God intended and how it should be. And as we live out our lives in that way, you will find how your marriage on earth will be really and truly blessed.

31:24 God bless you, have a good dinner. See you after dinner.