SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_00: We invite you to open up your scriptures to the New Testament book of Ephesians for our scripture reading this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The Ephesians chapter 5, verses 28 to the end of the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Beginning in verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
SPEAKER_00: He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall hold fat, he shall hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
SPEAKER_00: However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it is that time of year again.
SPEAKER_00: Ice and snow on the roads.
SPEAKER_00: And uh sometimes that catches us off guard, and maybe we didn't get our car ready for driving as quickly as we did.
SPEAKER_00: And as we all know, around here in North Dakota, the big problem is getting traction.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's a lot of things you can do to your car that will help your car, but they won't necessarily help you get traction, uh, help the rubber meet the road.
SPEAKER_00: But there are some things, there are some very important things that would be good for you to do and be mindful of if you want to get traction.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you want to pay attention to your tires and to the kind of tread that's on there.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you want to pay attention to weight if you have an old pickup truck.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you want to pay attention to maybe front-wheel drive, or uh if you really want to go all the way all-wheel drive or four-wheel drive, and those are things that really make a difference in traction, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, several weeks ago uh we began a mini-series on marriage, um, which I've entitled A Growing Marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And my goal is to highlight some key areas in Scripture that would provide some significant traction in our marriages.
SPEAKER_00: That's the goal here.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, some of you are probably already thinking, you know, traction in marriage is a funny thing.
SPEAKER_00: Um the goal is not for me to unveil some silver bullet that's going to fix all that's broken in our marriages.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, the goal is for us to help to help you personally and me personally to get new traction as one individual seeking to foster growth in your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, this series is for you as individuals.
SPEAKER_00: It's not for your wife, it's for you as individuals, and it's for you to think about where is God wanting me to get traction in my life and in my sanctification and in my marriage that's going to foster growth.
SPEAKER_00: And what are the kinds of things that are going to be like putting new tires on my car or shifting to all-wheel drive?
SPEAKER_00: Those are the things that we're especially interested in here.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the last time we were in this series, we looked at what I consider to be the foundation of this, and that would be journeying with God in dependence.
SPEAKER_00: Learning how to depend on God, learning what that means, is absolutely foundational to all of the Christian life, and it's certainly foundational to marriage and to how our marriages grow.
SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to move on and look at one of the key aspects of love that God would have us pursue in our marriages.
SPEAKER_00: When we think of marriage, we think of love, and love's a big category, but we're going to focus in on one word that was in our text this morning, and that word is cherish.
SPEAKER_00: Cherish.
SPEAKER_00: And what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: And how does it play out in our marriage?
SPEAKER_00: We're going to navigate our way through this by uh three movements here.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at, first of all, God's call to cherish, the call to cherish, the goal, the standard that he puts out there.
SPEAKER_00: Um then I want us to look at the enemies of cherish, the barriers, the hurdles.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then finally the road, the road to cherish.
SPEAKER_00: How do we really get traction in this one particular area?
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's interesting when I became a parent, um, I was interested in like where are the scripture passages about parenting?
SPEAKER_00: Like, like, where are the where are the books on that?
SPEAKER_00: Where are the the entire chapters devoted to parenting and found none?
SPEAKER_00: And it turns out there's just words here and there on parenting, and um parenting is such an overwhelming task, I would have expected there to be large books on that.
SPEAKER_00: Um the same thing holds true with marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Like, where are the books on marriage?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there is the Song of Solomon, and that focuses on a particular key aspect of marriage, but but really in terms of kind of a manual, isn't that what you would like to have?
SPEAKER_00: A manual for marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture has relatively little to say directly about marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that really the growth we need, the truth we need, the encouragement we need, whether it's parenting or marriage, is found all over Scripture and is found in our general Christian lives.
SPEAKER_00: And so there is a sense in which just truths about how to love in general are the important truths we need to learn how to love within our marriage or to learn how to love our children.
SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand, it's always good to pay attention when there are actually those specific passages that have a word about marriage, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um if you again, thinking of the parenting analogy, um if you get to the section that says, fathers, uh don't be angry with your children, harsh with them, um, so that you discourage them, you know, I think that's a word we really, really need to hear.
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason why that word was preserved for us.
SPEAKER_00: There's a propensity there that is super important for us to hear.
SPEAKER_00: And if it's just one thing, um, all the more.
SPEAKER_00: In the same vein, that you find this in terms of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Of all the things that Paul could have said about marriage, um, he has a passage here that focuses on just a few things.
SPEAKER_00: And so now we're gonna turn our attention to look at what he says and kind of narrow our scope here.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, let's look at the at the his call to cherish, the call to cherish.
SPEAKER_00: Um this section that I've read from in Ephesians is from a general, a whole general section that gives a lot of encouragement about the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: But more narrowly, it's a section about husbands and wives, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um, husbands do this, wives do this.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a whole passage, and I read just a portion of that.
SPEAKER_00: So we're actually in one of those passages that deals with um with marriages and some words about that.
SPEAKER_00: And what's said here is that husbands are to cherish and nurture their wives as their own bodies, and wives are to respect their husbands, and that in a special way the former of these is grounded upon the fact that when we become married, we're one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: There's a new level of unity that happens in our relationship that's not true for you and your friend.
SPEAKER_00: There's a kind of union that you have when you become married that's described as one flesh, and there's an appropriateness with how you deal with your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: It should be worth pointing out that it's not that men don't have to respect their wives, and wives don't have to love, cherish, and nurture their husbands.
SPEAKER_00: It's that likely these are propensities that are put out there that are chosen to focus on.
SPEAKER_00: But husbands and wife are both one flesh.
SPEAKER_00: They're one flesh to each other.
SPEAKER_00: And so if the one flesh relationship is enough to ground why husbands should cherish their wives, it should also hold as to why wives should cherish their husbands in the same way.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want us to see that there's a there's a grounding here that's good for husband and wife, uh, a call for us to in fact cherish our spouses.
SPEAKER_00: When we got married, most of us took a vow before the Lord and a church full of witnesses, perhaps, to cherish our spouse, to love and to cherish.
SPEAKER_00: And we took this vow before we really knew what was involved in it, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: I once read a book where the author said it's kind of a cruel trick.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we didn't know how hard marriage was going to be, and yet we make all these robust vows at the front end of them.
SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, well, that's uh that's that ends up being a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what does it mean to cherish?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to cherish?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Gary Thomas, you might know this this author, he's a pastor and one of the foremost voices in evangelicalism today on marriage.
SPEAKER_00: He's written numerous books and radio programs and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: And he wrote a whole book on cherish, and he says that cherish is the one word that changes everything in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: That was his evaluation.
SPEAKER_00: Cherish is the one word that changes everything in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you were to look at the Greek word that's translated cherish here, you'd you'd note that it it has connotations of imparting warmth.
SPEAKER_00: It means to comfort and to care for with tenderness of heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's used in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 of a gentle mother who tenderly cares for her own children.
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to get a picture of this, go to the nursery sometime at check-in and uh see these moms.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking of newborns here, these new babies, and just how mothers, there's just a way they have uh about them, and the kinds of cherishing and cuddling and protection that happens there.
SPEAKER_00: There's a deep heart of nurture built into moms for their own children.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not encouraging you to be around moms with adolescents to look for that trait, but um you can certainly see it in young children.
SPEAKER_00: Um I want you to think with me for a moment of an object, an object, not a person, but an object that you cherish.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a vehicle with two or four wheels.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a tool.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a musical instrument, an electronic device, an heirloom or a keepsake.
SPEAKER_00: Think with me for a moment about kind of what words would you put on how you feel about that object.
SPEAKER_00: Well, again, Gary Thomas put these kinds of words on, the kind of these are kind of emotional words that really put out there how we feel about somebody that we cherish.
SPEAKER_00: Um we boast boldly and loudly about them.
SPEAKER_00: We think about with praise.
SPEAKER_00: We celebrate the best, we enjoy them a lot.
SPEAKER_00: We delight in them and have passion for them.
SPEAKER_00: When I was thinking about uh the kind of objects that I have cherished over the years, it it just happened yesterday I was doing some work in my house and um I was using uh an impact driver, a cordless screwdriver, and I was just struck.
SPEAKER_00: Like my favorite tool of all time, I've had a lot of tools, and this is my absolute favorite tool, is this little uh DeWalt impact driver.
SPEAKER_00: It just like fits in your hand, and it's powerful enough to drive a six-inch screw straight through a two by four.
SPEAKER_00: And it's bright yellow, it's just beautiful, and I just like a work of art.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just sitting there admiring, it's like a man, I even got my wife.
SPEAKER_00: I said, honey, this is just an amazing machine, and I love this, I just love this tool.
SPEAKER_00: Um so it's it's interesting how there are objects that we can really uh you know boast about and think about and enjoy a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Um this in fact is what we're called to do in our marriages with a person.
SPEAKER_00: This is the call of God, and it's one aspect of love and a critical aspect of love within a marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Um to cherish one another.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to move on to a second movement and talk about the enemies of cherish.
SPEAKER_00: The enemies of cherish.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you've been married more than a few years, you know that cherishing is not something that is unattested or that um won't be challenged in your own heart.
SPEAKER_00: There are many challenges that will come with this, and there are barriers that over the years we can build in our hearts towards one another.
SPEAKER_00: Um these are the quagmires that we get into.
SPEAKER_00: These are the enemies that work against our cherishing our spouse.
SPEAKER_00: And there are many of them, but I've highlighted a few of them just from my own experience and from my own pastoral experience over a couple of decades of visiting with people.
SPEAKER_00: Um, here are four of them that are worth kind of putting on the table for us, and we're going to do something with these a little later.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is uh comparison.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, how comparing others is an enemy to our challenging, to our cherishing our own spouse, the unique spouse that God has given us.
SPEAKER_00: We compare other people, other women, other men, and their strengths that they have that come within our orbit of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy to bring those in and to think, wow, I sure wish my spouse had those kinds of strengths or had those kinds of virtues or whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, um you know how this goes, how this ruining power of comparison works.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I once knew a cellist who had a perfectly fine cello.
SPEAKER_00: It was good, good to go, uh, until they played a really fine instrument with like an$800 bow, you know, and it was it.
SPEAKER_00: It was like there's no going back at one level.
SPEAKER_00: That the old cello just didn't do anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I had my own example of this several years ago when I had a conference in the Green Bay area, and I had rented, decided to rent a car, uh, and I went in for one of the economy models, and it was here in town, and it turns out it's the night before, and they didn't have my car.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, I'm I'm you know, sorry we don't have any any vehicle for you.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna we're gonna do our best to get it.
SPEAKER_00: Turns out at the last moment they called me to come in.
SPEAKER_00: And when I got there, they were very apologetic and said, Listen, we can't give you the car you ask for.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the only one we have is this Dodge Challenger.
SPEAKER_00: This red brand new Dodge Challenger completely loaded.
SPEAKER_00: And if you know what a car guy I am, my jaw was literally on the floor.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I thought, wow Lord, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: That I I see that that's that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Um and we got to drive this eight hours to and from Green Bay.
SPEAKER_00: I have to tell you, this is no kidding.
SPEAKER_00: When I got back and got in my car now, I drive a minivan.
SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of kids.
SPEAKER_00: I drive a minivan.
SPEAKER_00: Um and I could not believe the feelings of discontentment that just rose up in me.
SPEAKER_00: Like I hit the gas and this thing didn't go anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And it was I was so discontented with this minivan, it wasn't even funny.
SPEAKER_00: And um, but you know, later I got to thinking about this minivan, and uh it wasn't like I was just putting a good face on this, but it's like, you know, this minivan was tailored for my life right now.
SPEAKER_00: It perfectly fits me.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I hauled deep freezes in this minivan.
SPEAKER_00: I've got seven kids.
SPEAKER_00: I can or I've got six kids, but I can haul seven kids, one of them and their friends.
SPEAKER_00: And and we I can haul a sheet of plywood.
SPEAKER_00: And I went fishing all summer and was able to just throw my stuff in, even the fish I was able to throw in there, and it's just fine.
SPEAKER_00: This thing has all-wheel drive.
SPEAKER_00: I try driving a challenger in the winter if it doesn't have all-wheel drive.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this thing has amazing traction, it does everything I needed to do, it's completely faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm super thankful for it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but for a while there I lost perspective.
SPEAKER_00: And you can do that in your marriage too.
SPEAKER_00: You can lose perspective on why God gave you the wife, the husband that He gave you.
SPEAKER_00: And don't ever think that He didn't give you your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: In a man's heart, we direct, you know, we make our plans, but the Lord directs the steps.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you chose poorly, the Lord was behind ultimately in some mysterious kind of sovereign way, he was behind the spouse that you had or have.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a reason, there are divine reasons why you ended up with that spouse.
SPEAKER_00: So comparison is a really, really harmful road to go on.
SPEAKER_00: A second enemy of cherishing is maybe one of the most common for older marriages, are our past hurts that I'm just gonna call baggage, uh, emotional baggage, past hurts.
SPEAKER_00: Um you know, we do harm each other personally, deeply, we have injustice, we we betray each other, we have all kinds of ways in our learning how to love that we really do harm one another.
SPEAKER_00: And many times these are not dealt with well when they happen.
SPEAKER_00: And even if they're dealt with some, they're not dealt with deep enough.
SPEAKER_00: And there's bitterness that sets in.
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe there's a deep difficulty of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the Lord is trying to going to use these kinds of hurts to um to really nurture and instruct us about what forgiveness is and how hard it is and um what it what it cost him to forgive us.
SPEAKER_00: So past hurts and baggage are huge barriers to cherishing.
SPEAKER_00: Um a third area is uh self-centeredness.
SPEAKER_00: Self-centeredness.
SPEAKER_00: Believe it or not, we are all addicts of self.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how that hits you, but we're addicts of self.
SPEAKER_00: Even as born-again Christians, we still have the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: We're addicts of self.
SPEAKER_00: And we're just wired to serve ourselves in all kinds of ways that we're not even aware of.
SPEAKER_00: We're especially wired to to give back maybe what you give.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, to give what you what you get.
SPEAKER_00: This is an easy kind of you can kind of see this with like the company you keep, you know, how bad company corrupts good character, or you see it with your children.
SPEAKER_00: You you can see some children break.
SPEAKER_00: Bring down other children.
SPEAKER_00: You can see that even in a even in a marriage where if you feel like you're not being cherished very deeply, then there's something in your self-addiction that justifies you not cherishing your spouse and to kind of give them the same level that you feel they give you.
SPEAKER_00: We think of this saying that Jesus said that, you know, what good is it to love those who love you back?
SPEAKER_00: Even sinners do that.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good word for us on that.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, this one may be the one of the more common ways, uh, settling for good enough.
SPEAKER_00: Just passivity in your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You have a polite, friendly coexistence, but it's not a good marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You're not intimately close at really deep levels, and you're not even pursuing it.
SPEAKER_00: You've just grown passive and content to just kind of keep it on the down low with each other.
SPEAKER_00: There's kind of a word for this.
SPEAKER_00: Um I I'm thinking of this phrase of a symbiotic relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And if you search this on Google and push images, you'll get these images that you've seen many times, but one in particular, I know you've seen it.
SPEAKER_00: There's this crocodile, and he's got his jaw open with like chainsaw teeth there.
SPEAKER_00: And what's inside the croc?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know it.
SPEAKER_00: A bird.
SPEAKER_00: A bird is in there.
SPEAKER_00: So there's the classic symbiotic relationship where this croc would could easily benefit from the meal of this bird.
SPEAKER_00: But he's not going to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Because this bird gives him a service.
SPEAKER_00: And this bird eats things out of his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's kind of gross, but he he he does things in there that are beneficial to the croc.
SPEAKER_00: And the bird is willing to take this risk and go in there because uh he gets a meal out of it, and he survives on that, and he was made for that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00: If I were to have an artist, if we could do this, if I had to have an artist kind of make a portrait of your marriage, like make a portrait of my marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And the artist came back with this crocodile with the bird in it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how would you feel about that?
SPEAKER_00: None of us would feel good about that.
SPEAKER_00: We know that the word of God calls us higher.
SPEAKER_00: And we it never does any good for us to kind of lower the standard.
SPEAKER_00: Let the standard be high.
SPEAKER_00: It is high.
SPEAKER_00: It's way up there.
SPEAKER_00: And God is inviting us in Christ to rise higher and to pursue that.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter where our performance is, He's calling up to that, to beauty and to glory.
SPEAKER_00: And there's something in us that desires that.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit works this kind of desire in us to pursue that.
SPEAKER_00: So the question then is, as we kind of move to a third movement here, is how do we deal with something that's very high like this, when in fact maybe our own track record is not very good in this, or maybe we've just gotten in some ruts where we've grown comfortable in the kind of symbiotic direction.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk now a little bit about the road to cherish.
SPEAKER_00: And I know I've changed grammar here from cherish is normally a verb.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's becoming a little bit of an adjective and noun in the fluidity of language, and so I'm using it as a noun here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the road to cherish.
SPEAKER_00: Um the first thing I want to say about this is a I really want to ask a question.
SPEAKER_00: Is this an area that God wants you to focus on right now?
SPEAKER_00: That might seem like an odd question.
SPEAKER_00: I was really helped several years ago when a pastor asked that question in a seminar.
SPEAKER_00: And my instinct was, of course, he wants me to focus on everything, every week, what the sermon is, he wants me to focus on that.
SPEAKER_00: But it I want you to think about the impracticality of that.
SPEAKER_00: Every week, just in this room alone, if you come here every week, you hear a sermon, and a general sermon has a number of ways that we hold up the word of God, the call of God on our lives, and often contrast that with the actual ways that we struggle with that, and invite us to come higher, right?
SPEAKER_00: Come higher.
SPEAKER_00: And um how are you doing with that?
SPEAKER_00: Like, how much time can you focus on the weekly sermon?
SPEAKER_00: And add to that, if you listen to Christian radio and you read Christian books and you read scripture on your own, and you're in a life group or a Sunday school class, add those kinds of avenues to where you hear the Word of God and it's coming at you.
SPEAKER_00: You can't possibly focus deeply on all the areas that you're hearing.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean you just put them to the side, but you can't really pursue them deeply and begin to really get some traction in those areas if you don't have focused time on them.
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really worthwhile to think about: can I let God lead me?
SPEAKER_00: Will he lead me?
SPEAKER_00: Has he promised to be a leading God and to shepherd my soul as to the areas of rebellion and self-centeredness that he especially wants me to deal with right now?
SPEAKER_00: That in fact he's created a whole life circumstance for that.
SPEAKER_00: You've seen this a hundred times.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you haven't put it together.
SPEAKER_00: You've seen it when pain comes into lives, dreams get shattered.
SPEAKER_00: What happens?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God is orchestrating all kinds of things, and that becomes like a petri dish for amazing growth, oftentimes.
SPEAKER_00: It's when God gets our attention.
SPEAKER_00: And it's there are things that He's bringing to our mind, but can we trust Him to do that?
SPEAKER_00: If we don't do that, I think the temptation will be that in the long haul, for us to become numb and maybe even give up.
SPEAKER_00: One pastor of a movement, he's a really old-seasoned pastor, and he said, you know what I'm worried about in churches?
SPEAKER_00: Are the middle-aged men.
SPEAKER_00: There are scores of middle-aged men in our churches who have just given up.
SPEAKER_00: They've heard week after week the command to obey, to get it in line, to rise up, to follow after, to stop doing this and do this and do this and do this.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying those are poorly given, but that's how they hear it.
SPEAKER_00: And it just never goes anywhere in there.
SPEAKER_00: They just have day after day, week after week, it piles up, and there can be just a kind of numbness in them.
SPEAKER_00: That, okay, uh, what's the use?
SPEAKER_00: One more sermon.
SPEAKER_00: One more sermon on controlling the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's just what I need today.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard a thousand of them, and I've never made any traction in that hardly at all.
SPEAKER_00: So, what's the point?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you get the spirit, I'm saying that's that's what numbness begins to look like, and even moving into bitterness.
SPEAKER_00: Is God leading you to deal with this?
SPEAKER_00: You can ask him.
SPEAKER_00: So, the road to cherish, the first thing I think it's important to know about this, it's right in our text actually, in is built into the word itself.
SPEAKER_00: That cherish is a heart category.
SPEAKER_00: It is not fundamentally a behavior category.
SPEAKER_00: Although behavior has a lot to do and is an important component of cherishing, it is a heart category.
SPEAKER_00: When you cherish something, you cherish it in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You have a deep down affection and tender love for it.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have that there, you won't get it simply by doing certain things on the outside, although that might help.
SPEAKER_00: There's a piece of that that can help, but you won't get it merely by doing certain things.
SPEAKER_00: True cherishing has to come from the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm gonna give you an example of this in this series I mentioned that um Gary Thomas taught.
SPEAKER_00: He gave an example of how when he was working on his book Cherish, he was in a hotel room with his wife, and his wife said, Uh, you know, Gary, I had a question for you.
SPEAKER_00: Um, do you remember your dreams?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I don't know, not many.
SPEAKER_00: I just remember the bad ones.
SPEAKER_00: She said, Aha.
SPEAKER_00: Something like this.
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, I think you have a vitamin B deficiency.
SPEAKER_00: He went on to point out that his wife is kind of a kind of a granola type with holistic medicine and organic food and um really traffics in that world and studies deeply in that world.
SPEAKER_00: And he said when he heard that, he just uh you know basically scoffed at her.
SPEAKER_00: And then it kind of hit him.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing a chapter on cherishing, and he just felt kind of mockery toward his wife.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, what would you expect?
SPEAKER_00: Give yourself permission to be human, Gary.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you are a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: But it he went on to say something that is that would be kind of how we might think about this.
SPEAKER_00: He went on to say, I wished I would have said something different.
SPEAKER_00: I wished I would have said something.
SPEAKER_00: I wished I would have said, oh honey, thank you for you know studying that.
SPEAKER_00: I I so appreciate your devotion to our the health of me and our family.
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, that maybe not hit me really high right now about vitamin B, but I super appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's things along those lines.
SPEAKER_00: But especially talking to men here, isn't it true that when we hear things like that, we like to think, ah, I'm gonna learn how to say those kinds of things in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna learn how to say those in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Um, what's not said is, you know, keep me out of trouble and I can do good as a husband and I can cherish my wife by saying the right kinds of things in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: I actually remember a time when I just was so frustrated, I just like even yelled out into myself.
SPEAKER_00: I just screamed and thought, for the umpteenth time, I had just said something to my wife, and I had kept telling myself, if I could only think ahead of time to say the right thing that would not that would keep me out of trouble, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just wasn't able to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And you know why I wasn't able to do it?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not what was in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: So what got me in trouble was what's in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's what gets me in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: It just leaks out, and no amount of study, of preparation, of memorization will ever help you with that.
SPEAKER_00: Nor is it the call of God because we're called to cherish from the heart, from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: It's a tall, tall order.
SPEAKER_00: And so that leads us to another step here of true cherishing requires a tutor.
SPEAKER_00: It requires a tutor.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot learn to cherish on our own.
SPEAKER_00: But if we're a believer, we have a ready tutor living within us.
SPEAKER_00: We have a shepherd and savior who reigns in heaven, we have a father who has good works prepared in advance for us to do.
SPEAKER_00: And this is going to require a dependence upon this divine tutor for us to really begin to get traction.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I think we have to know that what we typically would want to do is we want to jump in and just start doing.
SPEAKER_00: We want to do the checklist.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in between hours, I lead a Sunday school group on marriage, and we're actually going through Gary's material on cherishing.
SPEAKER_00: And we have some video that we watch, and then we then we talk about this.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just so struck me in between these hours, since the last hour, you know, Gary gave this session, and he was giving five things.
SPEAKER_00: Five things you need to do to cherish.
SPEAKER_00: And like every one of them was like, whoa, whoa whoa, you know, wow.
SPEAKER_00: My mind was just whimming at the end of this.
SPEAKER_00: Like, um, okay, that's but there was something in me, there is something in me that wants to just dig in and start trying to do those.
SPEAKER_00: Just make a list and start trying to do things.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm gonna get up in the morning and I'm gonna say, I'm gonna make my wife a breakfast, and I'm gonna fix a drink for her, and I'm gonna say the right words for her, and I'm gonna try to do this, and so I'm just gonna get in and start doing.
SPEAKER_00: You know what this can actually end up being?
SPEAKER_00: It can be hiding from God.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you want to learn how to cherish, you've got to go somewhere first that you don't want to go.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to bring you to a place where you begin to see what is really in your flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Because what's keeping you from cherishing is a heart of rebellion that He is trying to sanctify, and that He is helping you put to death by engaging it little by little, as slow as it actually goes.
SPEAKER_00: It's a painful process.
SPEAKER_00: We're not even aware that we're doing this.
SPEAKER_00: You know, before we become Christians, we're we're we know we're alienated from God and from others.
SPEAKER_00: But do we know that we're alienated from ourselves as well?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it interesting that the Savior who comes is oftentimes pictured in very symbolic ways of bringing good news to whom?
SPEAKER_00: The blind, the deaf, the lame.
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
SPEAKER_00: What is it about the blind and the deaf and the lame that's so important that Jesus is always dealing with them?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have a whole story that's built right around this, where Jesus walks into a whole group of blind and deaf and lame people and asks somebody, Do you want to be healed?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe those are pictures of human nature.
SPEAKER_00: And there's something so deep about us that we are, in fact, that kind of way.
SPEAKER_00: We're alienated from ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We don't really know how blind we are and how deaf we are and how lame we are, powerless we are.
SPEAKER_00: And even as we become Christians, that's a slow maturing process that God works in us, that he begins to give us sight and begins to give us hearing.
SPEAKER_00: It's something he does, but it's something that we need to engage him for.
SPEAKER_00: And so the road to cherishing begins with the road of open honesty.
SPEAKER_00: It's not much difference than the road to controlling your tongue or the road to learning how to love anyone.
SPEAKER_00: It begins with the road, with the way of just an open honesty with God in your prayer life, of coming before Him the best you're able to, without pretense, and to say, Lord, I'm ready to be a student of what it means to cherish.
SPEAKER_00: I want to learn how to cherish my spouse.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know what's in the way now.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know why it doesn't just flow out of me.
SPEAKER_00: Would you be my teacher?
SPEAKER_00: Would you begin to unearth in me and show me?
SPEAKER_00: Where's my bitterness that's hidden from me?
SPEAKER_00: Where am I comparing my spouse that I haven't seen?
SPEAKER_00: Where do I have undealt with baggage that's just sitting there being a quagmire that I can't lift my boots out of?
SPEAKER_00: Where's their unforgiveness?
SPEAKER_00: Where's there a failing to honor?
SPEAKER_00: Where is there a failing to protect?
SPEAKER_00: You know, Lord, would you teach me the categories with my spouse in my life?
SPEAKER_00: Would you shepherd me?
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound refreshing to you?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you won't be disappointed.
SPEAKER_00: And God will show you those kinds of things, often in a conflict, often in a disappointing situation where you go away and feel hurt.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can bring yourself to say, Lord, what should I have seen in that?
SPEAKER_00: What should I have seen in that?
SPEAKER_00: God is amazingly faithful at giving sight to the blind for those who want to get well.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to kind of bring this to a conclusion, hopefully with an encouraging word on top of what we've said.
SPEAKER_00: You have the Holy Spirit living in you if you're in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God Himself is in you with His desires and His power to transform.
SPEAKER_00: And He is willing, and He is able, and He is inviting you to come and to depend on Him and to begin to do the hard work and the courageous work of opening yourself to Him, being willing to confess what He shows you, being willing to just sit in that and being willing to ask Him, like, what's the way forward with that?
SPEAKER_00: How can I push into that particular thing you brought to me and really get more traction in that vein?
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine if you did this for about six months?
SPEAKER_00: What this would look like.
SPEAKER_00: If this was just like back here, front burner, side burner, spinning.
SPEAKER_00: Like what difference that would make in your marriage for you.
SPEAKER_00: But I do think that to do this, there's something crucial you have to have in place.
SPEAKER_00: You have to have the gospel in place.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to have firmly grounded and trusting in that God loves you in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That your standing with him is in Christ, that your righteousness is on his performance, not on your performance, that his delight in you is because Christ was righteous, and now you're trusting in him, and you have his righteousness imputed to you.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can face the worst truth about your flesh and your sinful nature and not be sunk.
SPEAKER_00: If that's not encouraging to you, I don't know what is.
SPEAKER_00: You can face the worst about you in God's presence and not be sunk.
SPEAKER_00: But you have to have the gospel in place.
SPEAKER_00: Where you have backdoor works coming in saying, Oh, you can't open like that to God.
SPEAKER_00: He's so disappointed in you.
SPEAKER_00: He's so, you are such a failure as a husband, as a wife.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, don't go there.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the scriptures are calling, is calling us out into the open, and that's freedom.
SPEAKER_00: That's freedom.
SPEAKER_00: May we leave here today.
SPEAKER_00: With a fresh commitment to pursue that kind of freedom and openness and honesty in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You join me as I close us in prayer and as the web comes up to lead us in a closing song.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Father, there's we have to confess, Lord, that there's something beautiful and wonderful about your scriptures and the call you have on our life.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, how we long to be perfected and to have a new song that comes from the very depth of us with no competing allegiances of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, Lord, we struggle in this life and the flesh is so powerful, the will is so weak, and we're so easily discouraged, and we ask that your spirit would initiate today in this room, in the hearts and minds of your children, fresh works.
SPEAKER_00: Fresh works that you would come and powerfully move, and that you would create faith and trust and hope in the hearts of your children, and that we would be expectant and steadfast.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ's name we ask it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.