marriage part 2 — Philippians 2

0:01 This next segment should go a little bit faster. But as you can see, we run into putting the pieces of a puzzle together. Do you see the graphic? It's supposed to make you think of that. I worked really hard to find that picture.

0:18 Discerning the needs of your spouse and meeting those needs. Now when you ask this question, which is a good question, You have to begin by taking a step back. You see, if you just focus on, well what needs do you have honey? Just tell me what they are and I'll figure it out. It's not gonna work.

0:43 The spouse doesn't want to just have an answer, they want to be heard, right? Have you not heard that before? It's true. Even for the men too, very much. So before we launch into practicality, I want to give you principle, okay?

1:03 Now, in order to be wise to someone's needs, it requires that you must, are you ready for this? Take your eyes off yourself. Oh boy, that's that was hard, wasn't it? We can't be self focused, we have to be selfless. There's actually a verse in the Bible that says this, title to the talks is it this way.

1:29 Look out not for your own interests but the interests of others. So, in our discussion, we can change that. Are you ready? Look out not for your own interest, you husband or wife, but look out for the interest of your spouse. And that passage comes from Philippians chapter two.

1:51 So I thought it would be good just to sort of review that passage and set the tone for our discussion. We need perspective. Now if you have your bibles turn to Philippians chapter two. Most of this I would have on the PowerPoint, but it's always good to have the text in front of you, mostly because it allows me to stall and catch my breath. No, just kidding.

2:18 Alright. I'm going to go to Philippians chapter two and I'm going to remember, we're going to develop perspective and I'm going to begin reading on verse three. Are you ready? Do nothing from selfish ambition or vainglory or empty conceit but with humility of mind, regarding one another is more important than yourself. There's that idea of selflessness.

2:44 Not merely looking out for your own interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this way of thinking or have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus who although he existed in the form of God did not consider it in equality or did not consider it wrong to be regarded as God. But he emptied himself and he took on the form of a bond servant. And being made in the likeness of men, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Now, the passage begins with this comment, a lowly mind.

3:35 Let that, let a humble mind govern you and he said, you should ask the question, well, what does that sound like? What does that mean? Well, he defines it for you. This is why looking word for word is so helpful. So, he says, in verse three, do nothing from selfish ambition.

3:52 Do know what that means? It means this idea of somehow I think I'm off, this is where I should be, sorry. Means this idea of scheming to get personal advantage. Now in the Greco Roman era of that day, the Koine Greek, that's the type of Greek that was used as opposed to, you know, classical Greek. This word was used to describe how a politician would work.

4:26 Now, I don't know about you but politics is in our news. Did you notice that? And especially this year, right? Now I have no desire to know your political persuasion and I don't want you to know mine. It does not matter.

4:42 But what we do all observe is that there are a lot of things that are done for optics, correct? Right? I mean it's a fact. It doesn't matter what party or view you have, everybody does things for optics. To how it looks, how it appears, what it feels like.

5:00 That's this word. It's you're doing stuff to give you a certain presentation, a certain sort of limelight so that people would conclude something about you which may or may not be true. Usually it's done to gain influence and support. Selfish ambition. Back when we were in Genesis, do you remember it said, and the fruit was able to make one wise.

5:49 Now what's this word vain glory or empty conceit? That LXX, you see that behind me? That's the abbreviation for the Septuagint. The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the old testament. Done, when was it done, when was it done?

6:09 I think it was done centuries before Christ. Now, it was the standard text that Jesus would quote from when he was alive. Paul was familiar with this text. In that text, the word for vainglory was used to describe the worship of idols. In other words, it was useless.

6:35 You see, god wrote in Isaiah. He said, I don't get it. You got this piece of wood and you you get a carpenter and he like chisels it all up and he makes us idle and then, all the little pieces out of that same piece of wood, he collects and he puts it in the fire and he cooks his hot dog. Now, the hot dog wasn't in the text. I threw that in for effect, okay?

6:59 And then while he's cooking his hot dog and marshmallows, he's looking at his idol but he's using the very stuff that made the idol to make him dinner. I don't get that. That's a big paraphrase. It'll be out in Steve's standard version later this fall. Now, I tell you that because that, see when I said it makes us that's vainglory.

7:19 That's this word. And so what he's saying is, don't do anything through the self promotion idea, but don't do anything that has this delusional aspect of thinking something has value when it doesn't like you. That's what he's saying. All right, look at the next thing, Unless we lose our our way again. Lowly mind, let a lowly mind govern you.

7:42 I want you to think less of yourself. How? Well, like a slave would think. You see, a slave of that era existed only for the benefit of someone else. They would initiate thought to serve the person that owns them, right?

8:02 In fact, Roman, Romans almost they were high they they owned lots of slaves. In fact, if you're in the military, it's expected that you own slaves. So, every Roman citizen really knew what a slave was intended to be. Now many a slaves were very endeared to the family of a Roman and Roman society but some were not And it's said in history, ancient near eastern literature, that the majority of the crosses were for slaves. Crucifixion was devised by the Roman Empire as a way of torture, one of the most violent torturous deaths out there.

8:47 And yet, he says I want you to think with a lowly mind like a slave would think. That'll come up in the next few verses. And then how do they do that? They calculate others to have more value than them self. You see that?

9:02 You calculate others to have more value than yourself. Let me tell you a story. I was in medical school in 1983, last millennia, okay? And I was young and you know when you're young and you don't know what's going on and you're the lowest person in the food chain, you grovel, okay? You do all the, we call it scut work and so we're going to walk into the building.

9:28 I was paired with a senior partner and she was older than I was and so I went to the door and I opened the door. She goes, what are you doing? I go, I'm opening the door. Don't you think I can open the door myself? I said, yeah, just opened it for me and I walked in first.

9:51 But usually when we do that, we are saying, you have more value than me, please go ahead. Right, I should have said that. If I was a smart Christian I would have said that. But I was pretty much too thinking about myself, right? That's the idea.

10:07 When I pull out your chair for you, I'm saying please, you go first. You have more value than me. You have greater significance than me. That's how a slave would think. A lowly minded person thinks that the other person has higher intrinsic value than themselves.

10:24 That's how you're supposed to think. Now, look at this next one, alright? Now we're just gonna march through the text. It says, look out, let let each of you look out not for your own interest. Do you know the word look out is the word for scout?

10:38 So, you want to think back in the days of the wagon trains going across the prairie of The United States and you know, you've seen those all and they're like John Wayne movies. Does anybody know John Wayne besides me? Yeah, there you go and you know, they're all in this row and the scout would say, no, I'm going to go ahead a governor and I'm going to find out where to to camp tonight and he goes off in his little horse and this dust bunnies and he goes out and oh, we'll never see him again and then he finally comes back and he says, water and hole up about a mile ahead. That's where we're going to camp. You know, what did he do?

11:13 He went ahead of the group. He found what the group would need and he brings the group to the place where their needs would be met. Look out, scout out for the interests of others more than yourself. Now, when we talk about how do you meet the needs of a spouse, don't you think these attitudes would be really important? I mean, that that like paves the way, doesn't it?

11:40 Of course, it does. It it it paves the way in this sense that when you're not thinking of yourself, now you have all the emotional and physical and spiritual energies to think about your beloved. And that you won't react and act in a way that would have selfish ambition or empty conceit, self focus, but you will consider them to have greater value than you and when you do so, you will investigate that which would be to their benefit or their well-being over your well-being and benefit. You say, that's not gonna happen. Oh, actually it did and it does happen today.

12:35 He had no selfish agenda or empty conceit. He had a humble mind. People don't realize that about Jesus Christ but Jesus Christ was a humble person. How do I know that? Well, thank you for asking.

12:48 Alright? There was this thing in in John. It's in John chapter 13 and it's what we call affectionately the upper room. Why do we call it the upper room? Because it was in the upper room.

13:00 That's why we call it the upper room. Was upstairs, okay? And it's nothing theological. It's just that's where it was. And in that upper room, they had gathered to do the Passover.

13:09 Now the Passover was kind of a big event, annual big event that happened in the spring. And and so at that event you would have this elaborate, today they called it the Seder meal and if it was same today back then, it was quite elaborate with various steps, various prayers, various symbolic things, all commemorating the time when God delivered them out of Egypt and they were required to take a lamb or a goat and roast it overnight or in the middle of the night with your shoes on, your clothes ready to go, your staff in your hand, and you would eat part of that with bitter herbs and and that was a reminder of how god took the children of Israel graphically and if you will violently out of Egypt and and and that one event was the crowning event to deliver two to 5,000,000 people out of the grass of slavery, right? So, they're supposed to remember that as a national holiday every year and this particular year when Jesus was on the Earth, everybody's sitting around. Now, by the time Jesus came, it became much more of a social event, sort of a political event, who's who, who's going where, and it wasn't really, it lost the meaning of its original intent.

14:16 Jesus is there, he has his men set down for the Passover. Do you know what it says about the men? One of them had been, was gonna betray Jesus so it says that the devil had entered into Judas Iscariot. Is that me? Oh, phew.

14:29 That's all feel embarrassing if my phone goes off. I'm I'm expecting a call actually. There's a brother that's in the hospital that was calling me. Alright. So anyway, you're you're there in the upper room and and and it's supposed to be very very somber, very serious and while they're there, then it says the devil entered into one of them to betray Jesus.

14:48 So, you got, you know, you got the guy in the back corner going, Now, the other guys, the other 11 are sitting around. They just finished their meal. So, that was a roast lamb dinner and they're all kind of, you know, using their toothpick. Hey, which one of you guys thinks we're going to be the greatest, I think it's going to be me. They're arguing about who's the greatest When the greatest is in the room.

15:14 Not good. No bueno, right? And then, while they're doing that, Jesus says, hey, you guys. I'm going to be crucified by the morning and you guys are going to be scattered and all of them and their full stomach bellies go, not me, man. We're with you to the end.

15:37 You die, I die And so you got all of this sort of like nasty self centered thinking, nobody washed each other's feet because that was the social custom but they just all overlooked it and here Jesus gets up and he goes and starts washing the feet. The greatest in the room is the lowest in position. By the way, usually a slave would do that. And usually a slave would do it with a total loss of dignity and Jesus did it that way. It says in that text that he took off his clothes and wrapped a towel around his body and then he took that towel and he used it to dry their feet.

17:00 Is that not true? It's funny. I got a call once. It was a couple and they weren't they were fighting bad. And one of them called me and said, I think my spouse is narcissistic.

17:14 Do you know what that means? I quickly googled it. No I didn't. You know, the God of Narcissus looks in the the the water, sees his reflection, he's so enamored with himself. That guy?

17:27 Alright, so one spouse calls me and says, I think my spouse is narcissistic. Five minutes later, the other spouse calls me. Guess what they said? I think my spouse is narcissistic. Both of them, right?

17:41 God himself, gotta get rid of it or somebody's gonna get hurt. In that case it really hurt them. So I point this out because it's a great, how do we say, show stopper of the theme. How do I see the needs of my spouse and meet them? Now let's just finish about Jesus because I think it's really precious.

18:00 Okay? Jesus did not have this attitude. Alright? He did he... I want you to read with me in verse six.

18:09 Existed in the form of God. Okay? Now and he did not regard it equality with god to thing to be grasped. What that means is, Jesus man, the man, was actually also 100% god. The word form is the idea that whatever you come up with as a definition of God, Jesus was that.

18:35 So we do it this way. We we say I I I'm going to have the concept of what our vision is for our company and we write it all out. Well, those terms you put in that paragraph, that's what our company is, right? Well, Jesus is, this is the same word. We have this idea of what, okay, god is is good, god is intelligent, god is powerful, god is this and of course, we don't have enough words to describe god but whatever it is you can do, that's Jesus.

19:09 God, the form of God. Now the form of God also means that he has the characteristics of all knowing, all powerful, all present, holy, righteous, all that stuff. And so it was not a stretch for Jesus to defend his throne. Now it says that, a thing we've got did not consider it wrong to grasp at being god to to claim that equality. Wasn't robbery.

19:38 See, what what he means by that is if you're on the throne, you are in your rights to defend anybody that wants to try to take you over And if you're actually not on the throne and somebody else is, it's within your rights to go and dethrone that guy because that's your throne. That's what it means. Now, the Romans would be very sensitive to this because it was less than a hundred years prior that the decisive battle of a civil war in the Roman Empire happened with Brutus and Mark Brutus and Mark Antony. And what happened there was one lost and they took the empire. So, to a Roman listener, they're going, of course, an emperor would do that.

20:18 Of course, a deified man would do that but not Jesus. Although he could. See that? That's really interesting, isn't it? Now, what did he do?

20:30 Well look, he took the form of a slave. I put it there. That's that next line, verse eight. Now when I say slave, there are several words in the New Testament for slave, but in English we would do it this way. There's the butler slave, you know.

20:43 He's dignified. He's got a nice suit and he talks with a British accent. Okay? Right? Maybe.

20:55 And and and that's kind of respectable. But then you got the guy that's not respectable. You know, the guy that cleans the septic system, no offense to anybody, they... But you know, not considered that stature. That's the word doulos in the Bible.

21:15 How do I know that? Thank you for asking Denzel, thank you. And what it is, it's from Jesus' own words. And he tells a story and he says, hey, which of you have a doulos? And he goes out into the field and he works all day and he he does all the work in the field and he comes home at night and and and does the master say, thank you, thank you, thank you.

21:35 You've been such a great little slave. Let me get you dinner, then I'll draw your bath and I'll get you ready for bed. How about that? Jesus says, I don't think so but rather the slave says, the slave says, let me get your dinner and let me get you your bath and let me get you ready for bed and then after I've done that, then I'll eat and I'll take care of myself. And then he says this, and what does the slave say to himself?

21:58 That he is a worthy slave? Oh no, no. He says, I am an unworthy doulos for I've only done what I should have done. Should've done. You like work two shifts, man.

22:14 You're out in the field and now you're home taking care of that lazy master. What do you mean? Only done what you should've. That master should've got off his little tushy and helped you, right? That's kind of how we think.

22:25 But Jesus is saying the doulos never thinks that way. He thinks my life exists for your comfort. And Jesus took that kind of form. So, when he got up from the table and he washed those feet, it wasn't like a social experiment. It wasn't like he was saying, no, this is how you do it bud, alright?

22:46 He was really doing it because that's how we lived it. He thought that way. He and he embodied that. He was fully that. See, see my mother was Japanese, right?

22:55 The old school Japanese, she that she would she would cook the dinner and eat in the kitchen with the kids and and when I was growing up, that's what she did and we would have a big 24 place setting and she'd said, Steven, she can't really talk English. Steven, you come over and you visit with everybody and I'll and I'll make the dinner and I and we'd have a blank spot right there. She would never come. I'd say, mom, come on and eat. She goes, oh, I'll be there and never came.

23:23 I couldn't figure this out. I said, what's what's up? And my dad told me, Steve, she's Japanese. I go, I know. He goes, no, you don't know.

23:37 This is how it's done in Japan. This is the old school way and Japanese women did it this way and she was born in Japan, she was raised Japanese and she'll die Japanese and this is her normal way to think. You can't change it. I've tried. I go, oh.

23:57 And that's what Jesus is saying. I was born like a slave. I lived a slave's life and I'll die like a slave. This is taking the form of a bond servant. You can see how astonishing a Roman mind would think of Roman general, the retired military lived in Philippi.

24:14 You think, yeah, we'll have slaves and he should take the throne and he should, he did what? And he watched the who And he cooked breakfast in the Sea Of Galilee and he had no sleep and everybody clamored on him? What kind of... He is acting like a slave. Exactly.

24:31 Now, I tell you this because when we go back to our theme, how do I look at my spouse and see their needs and meet them? Can you can you agree with me that maybe this attitude of Jesus Christ would be really helpful right about now? Yes. You see, what you're doing is you're taking your Christianity of who Jesus is and how he did life and how he did death and resurrection and you're transporting it in to your marriage. Especially when you're in your 50s and 60s and you kind of got in your ways and you would kind of got into the habit of maybe saying, you can get it yourself, right?

25:15 Now, we go back and we have the of perspective of Jesus Jesus Christ Christ and it changes how we do business. Does it sound like what the bible calls sanctification? You bet it is. If you don't know what sanctification means, it means that we set ourselves apart unto God and actually our behavior and our thinking becomes more like the perfect man Jesus Christ because that's exactly what God intended to happen. We begin to think and act differently.

25:48 That's what's happening. And when you're in this phase of life, this is the most perfect moment to reconnect with Jesus the Christ who lived this way all the time. And by the way, still thinks this way in heaven. Now, it goes on to say that he went to the point of death, even the death of the cross he was a slave. You can have animals as slaves but he chose to be a man as a slave and then took a lowly place and then and then allowed himself.

26:21 He he wasn't murdered as as some say. He allowed himself to be treated with an unjust trial and put in an unjust situation on purpose so that he could pay for our sin. He did it all voluntarily and then when his moment of death came, he didn't just kinda, he said, father, I commend my spirit into your hands. It was a total voluntary decision of when he would take his last breath and that's what he did. Alright?

27:17 I was shocked. What do you mean I'm selfish? I I I serve this, I do that and and we sort of run through the reasons why that's untrue until you met the lady with the big hair and she just announced what you knew was true. I'm I'm I'm pretty sure each one of us will go through something like that. But now what about practice?

27:40 All right, how do we do it? Well, first of all, think you should observe. Part of being a regular human being is you watch things, you take note of things. It says in Proverbs, I want you to know the state of your flocks and attend to your herds. Please don't get me wrong, do not call your spouse an ox or a herd, okay, or a goat or something like that.

28:00 I'm just saying that the principle is that you actually got your eye on what you're supposed to care for and you don't do it haphazardly, you don't do it negligently, and you don't do it part time. It's a full time occupation that should be part and parcel of caring for another person being selfless. So yes, attentiveness is involved. Time investment is involved. You see, when I left medicine, I I threw myself into the study of God's word and the preaching and teaching and let me tell you, that's very noble.

28:38 It's very no... Not maybe not, you don't think it's noble but it's a good work, okay? But I was missing my wife. So I would go up to my little... I have an office upstairs.

28:50 I go up to my little tower of tyranny and sit up there and hammer out and study biblical languages and read and study and you know, just stuff that you know, all that stuff And I'd come back down and I felt like I was a stranger to my wife. And so I I made at that point, I made a decision, I'm going to study you, learn you like I did when I was 20 years old. When I was 20 I wanted to know everything about you. I used to ask her, sorry, I'll use you, you're looking at me. What are you thinking about?

29:30 I just asked her that. She would go, nothing? I go, I love nothing. Tell me more about it. Right?

29:41 Once in a while she would say to me, felt like I had to have an answer so I made something up. Those are our best conversations, said. Time investment. You know what I started to do? Dater.

29:55 Okay, now this will come up a little bit later but that's one of the things that I try to do. I'll mention that in a minute. Dying to self, fundamental attitude. I began to think about her spiritual needs, her emotional needs and her physical needs. And I'm gonna tell you just from that last slide about her emotional needs, about her emotional needs.

30:20 Her mother passed away ten years ago. Her mom and dad moved in with us and we took care of them And within three months her mother passed. She was diabetic, she had sepsis and passed away quickly. I didn't know this for a year. But she said to me later on she said, I lost my best friend.

30:48 I wanted to say, I thought that was me. I just kept my mouth shut. And then she said this, I couldn't understand why God would take away my best friend and I began to have doubts about God. You know when I learned that? Two years later.

31:10 What kind of idiot does that? Right? I wasn't practicing Philippians two. My antennas were not up. I was not attentive.

31:18 I was not observing and I missed the boat on one of the most critical emotional moments of my wife's life. I almost I it's like I took a vow. I'd never let that happen again. So, it takes dying to self and it takes time investment and it takes attentiveness. Now how do we do this?

31:52 But I would go to the card aisle, okay, and I get one of those little thinking of you cards, you know, with the dog on it or something. And then I write this really great note. I mean, it's like I could be a hallmark author. And then, I'd mail it. I couldn't wait for her to get it.

32:16 If you're really smart, you'll draw up a coupon that says, plus one tonight, restaurant of your choice. Husbands, why aren't you writing this down? This is like, this is like great stuff, man. Andy, I'm looking at you buddy. Alright.

32:39 I mean and we make it fun and and lively and crazy and and we just go do stuff, know. We we would watch a movie and we... I'll I'll tell you what she likes. Alright. This is what she Steak, movie, ice cream, even if it's minus 50.

32:56 Alright, and this is how she, how do I, I studied her. She'll go to ice, we'll get out the movie theater, it's minus 50. That's what she says. I I can mimic her so well. And then I say, are you really cold?

33:08 Yeah, I'm freezing. Turn off the heat, okay. I said, what would you like now? Ice cream. It's 50 below.

33:17 I love ice cream. Okay. See, we began to do that and I just started to learn her all over again. And you know what? I found out, I began to meet her needs.

33:32 Because you know what? I didn't say, do you want to go out for ice cream? I just take her. I just go there. Baskin Robbins or Dairy Queen or you want to go to Andy's tonight?

33:41 Right? See, it's a dumb example but this is what it was. Now, men, if you're going to if you're to date your wife, don't act like it's the last thing you want to do on the day. Act like it's the first thing you could ever do in the day. Who wants to go out with somebody who doesn't want to go out?

34:00 Raise your hand. Alright, special events. Now this one was kind, this is very practical so I know I'm getting away from the scriptures now. Unique activities. Alright, you know you know what?

34:12 Unique activities we like to do and maybe you can't afford it but we'd like to go on a cruise together. That's a big one, right? We tried it to our thirty fifth anniversary and my father died so we had to nix that. The next year was COVID, didn't hurt, the next, you know, but 40, we're heading for 40, that's our goal, we're going on a cruise, right? But my daughter told me about this really cool idea.

34:32 You see that shopping for other person? Her and her husband went to like, I guess it was Walmart or Target or something. And they had an hour, just themselves. And they each in that hour had to go buy something for the other person for their Christmas gift that they know they would like and they had to find it in that store in that hour. Go.

34:55 It was really cool. It was like the mad race, know. No, not this. Oh, not this. And they had a price limit, know.

35:03 I guess it was like $50 or something. And then on Christmas day, when they opened their gifts in front of us, they're like giggling like two little teenagers. So we asked them what they're giggling about. They told us a story and I said to Janet, we are so doing that. Okay, all right.

35:21 Now I know it sounds kind of crazy. Who cares that you're crazy, okay? Who cares? Somebody gonna laugh at you? You don't care about that, right?

35:29 You're gonna laugh together. All right, projects. This is really important. Projects. Part of our projects are counseling together.

35:39 And I alluded to it last session, but I'll never forget we got together and we're talking to this couple. And as you can probably tell I would do most of the talking. But I try to say, I said no, since when she has something to say and I said no honey, I think I think you wanted to add to that. And she added, what she added, she said what I said in like a quarter of the time and it was smarter, wiser. And I just went, okay, alright, we should close in prayer.

36:09 We're done tonight. Right? And I I just learned so much about her by doing that that kind of project together. We have other physical projects in the house and we want to work on them together. These are things that allow me to study her and meet her needs and I understand her physical limitations because I see that she can't lift that or can't do that or this scoliosis that she's had for thirty five years is now limiting her ability to bend or or I'm just I'm just learning that her emotional side where the house is in such disarray.

36:42 It screams at her from every room that it's as if making fun of her that you can't keep your house and so I learn, okay, well, you know what? I can I can I can pick up? I can I can do that? Of course, I told the kids, hey, make sure you pick up, you know. Delegate, it's a favorite word of mine.

37:24 All right, now if you have ADD don't be offended, I'm not trying to make fun of you. I'm just saying I don't have a good attention span, okay? And so when I would sit with her in the evenings, were supposed to like relax together, literally I'm going. She would, of course she would see it. And she'd say it's killing you, didn't you?

37:47 I said, oh no. Five more minutes and you can go, thank you, you, thank you. Right? Okay. She told me this last night.

37:57 She said, you finally learned to relax with me in the evenings. I said, I have. Am I gonna get brownie points for that? Not anymore. But it's true.

38:10 I learned to sit and just enjoy the company of my spouse. You know when you go out and watch a beautiful sunset, do you talk a lot? You just kind both look at wow, isn't that beautiful? You don't really say anything, you just admire. I wanted to do that with my spouse.

38:31 You see, I'm obviously speaking from the man's world to the woman's world because that's my perspective, but it can go both ways. And the point is being able to enjoy each other's company is phenomenal. That is what you want to reinvest in. So how do you go about seeing the needs of your spouse and meeting them? I would suggest this is some of the practicality that would happen, all right?

38:54 How do you meet some of these? These are now be done almost in a second. Listening, listening. I've seen some couples, the only reason that they are quiet in a conversation is to wait their turn to speak next. They didn't hear a word the spouse said.

39:09 They just great body posture, head nod, not listening to save their life. Soon as that other person got done, it's like a political bait. They'd say whatever they wanted, right? Listening, be quick to hear, slow to speak. And when it says slow to speak, doesn't mean like, I'll speak slower for you.

39:29 It means like, keep your mouth shut and listen first, okay? Now, communication. I I I can't, I have a whole section on communication in another marriage series. But communication is how you are designed. God is a communicative God.

39:49 My goodness, he gives the title, the word to describe Jesus Christ. What... That's a communication word, word. And so I think communication is key. You don't have to solve all the problems, but you want to listen to all the problems.

40:08 Men, I worked with a partner once, her name was Sheila. Sheila was a talker and really great doctor. She's a Christian. And one day she's just and I'm like looking at x rays trying to move patients and she goes, are you listening to me? I go, oh, I've learned to listen for key words and when I hear those words then I start listening.

40:33 She goes, oh my husband does that too. I went home and told my wife that, she said don't you ever do that to me. See what I'm saying? All right, we're almost done. Understanding, part of the reason why you're listening is to enter into the moment of understanding where you can really grasp what the other person is saying.

41:23 Sometimes you got to seek help. I don't mean somebody just as dumb as you, mean somebody smarter than you, somebody wiser than you, right? I didn't mean that to be funny. I guess it was. But sometimes you got to talk this out.

41:39 We did. We talked to other other couples. And then finally, pray together. Ask God's help on being... Seeing each other's needs and meeting them together.

41:51 One of the great phenomenons of prayer is not only is it emotionally cathartic or helpful but you learn so much about the other person when they pray to god and you get to eavesdrop. I'll never forget. She was praying to the lord one day. Do you know what she was praying? She goes, oh god, if you want us to leave medicine and serve you in the capacity of preaching and teaching, I'm willing and I opened my eyes I, she she was praying and I just looked at her and I go, I'm the problem.

42:27 I'm the one that's not willing. That was really a a moment of epiphany. I thought it was always her. It was me. And she's willing to go.

42:34 You learn so much about your spouse when you pray. Alright, those are just some practical suggestions that will allow you to see the needs, but I can't really list all the needs. I can't really say, oh, this is what a wife has, this is what a husband has, you wanna look the... Because it's too different, everybody's different. But I need to teach you the principle, the perspective and suggest some practices that might assist you in this phase of your life.

43:03 Also helps the young marriages too by the way. Okay? Any other, we should stop right? You said 20 till and I'm five over. Let's pray.

43:12 Do you want me to thank for the food? Yes, I don't need to make someone else but yes. Okay, thank you. Father, out of all the descriptions that you have in the Bible, you call your son the counselor. We think that's somebody that looks like us but really it's the Lord Jesus.

43:37 And we'd like to ask you to impart to us your counsel as we think about our spouses both at early in our marriages and later in our marriages because all these principles are the same no matter what timing we are in our marriages. We ask you to give us your counsel, your wisdom, your knowledge, your understanding, your insight and that you would allow us through your spirit to enrich the marriages that you've given us. We know it's a gift. We'd like to enjoy the gift to the maximum level possible. In Jesus name, amen.