SPEAKER_02: Most of them are sitting with siblings, so thank you.
SPEAKER_02: You can put your hands down.
SPEAKER_02: So for you guys and gals, what I would like you to do today, don't think about marriage today, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Don't think about marriage.
SPEAKER_02: That's way off.
SPEAKER_02: Think about your brother and sister.
SPEAKER_02: Think about how you relate at home.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: I'd like you to hear the message today with that in view.
SPEAKER_02: For others of you who are here who aren't married, I would like to invite you to ask God to bring to mind someone, a brother or sister in the faith, someone close to you, with whom you're struggling to have unity with.
SPEAKER_02: And maybe it would be helpful today as you just kind of think about what we're saying to have that be the primary thing that's in your focus.
SPEAKER_02: So now we're going to move now to our first point, a new way of relating to each other.
SPEAKER_02: In the realm of astronomy, most of you will know this, that in ancient times, especially in ancient Greece, the scientists of that day had an earth-centered view of the universe, right?
SPEAKER_02: They believed that the earth was the center of all things, that the moon, the planets, the stars, and the sun all revolved around the earth itself.
SPEAKER_02: It's a very natural way to view things.
SPEAKER_02: But then there came others, and especially Copernicus, who in the 17th century made famous a new way of looking at the universe.
SPEAKER_02: This was a heliocentric way, a way in which the sun now, excuse me, is the center of at least the solar system, and that the moon and the planets revolve actually around the sun, even though it doesn't seem so.
SPEAKER_02: It is interesting that those who held to the Earth center view were just kind of following the natural way that things seemed.
SPEAKER_02: After all, if you live on this planet, you can't feel it moving.
SPEAKER_02: Not only that, if you look into the sky, you actually will see the moon and the stars and the sun go across the sky.
SPEAKER_02: It was just a natural conclusion.
SPEAKER_02: And so it is in another realm.
SPEAKER_02: In the realm of human relating, there is an old model that is just as natural as it can be.
SPEAKER_02: I call this model the numerounocentric model.
SPEAKER_02: It's a fancy way of saying that the universe revolves around me.
SPEAKER_02: That all of human life really is there to serve me and to revolve around what I desire in this life.
SPEAKER_02: This way of human relating, this model goes all the way back to the fall.
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't that way in the beginning, but the fall was so devastating to humanity.
SPEAKER_02: And really, I don't think we get this until you live long enough.
SPEAKER_02: You have to live decades, and even as a Christian, decades, to begin to get your hands around how devastating the fall was to humanity, and to you and me personally.
SPEAKER_02: But with that natural, devastating way of going, there was another theory, another truth, another reality that God put out there and has been putting out there all along.
SPEAKER_02: And that is that he is saving and making a new humanity and a new way of relating, no longer with us at the center, but with him at the center, with Christ Jesus, the Son of God at the very center of all things, and we around him.
SPEAKER_02: So with that as kind of a background here, I'd like us to look at some of the descriptions, and we can only kind of summarize this, of what God says in this passage about this new way of relating.
SPEAKER_02: He's going to draw a picture of it for us so we can see it, and he's going to do it with words.
SPEAKER_02: So if you'd follow with me, we're just going to look at, first of all, the first four descriptors that he gives beginning in verse 2, or really in verse 2.
SPEAKER_02: He says that we are to be of the same mind.
SPEAKER_02: He goes on to say that we're to have the same love, that we're to be in full accord with one another, even to the point of being singular-minded or one-souled, is actually the way it's put.
SPEAKER_02: It's probably more important for us to see that Paul chose to stack four things back to back than it is to kind of see the slight nuance differences between these four.
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of overlap between these four terms.
SPEAKER_02: But he piled these things up so that we would get a really good picture of how he intends his new humanity to relate to each other.
SPEAKER_02: And you might put it in this kind of a way.
SPEAKER_02: He wants us to be on the same page with each other.
SPEAKER_02: He wants us to be like two notes in a harmony.
SPEAKER_02: He wants us to be so bonded that we're like one souled.
SPEAKER_02: And in the marriage context, especially, he wants us to be yoked together in pooling in the same direction with a singular purpose and vision.
SPEAKER_02: He goes on to give a few more things related to this new kind of relating.
SPEAKER_02: He says in verse 3 to not do anything from rivalry, which could be selfish ambition or conceit.
SPEAKER_02: But in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
SPEAKER_02: Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of others.
SPEAKER_02: In order to have the kind of harmony that he's talking about here, we have to come to grips with the old order, the old way of relating that is so prominent within us, in which we are the center of all things.
SPEAKER_02: We have to become aware over time, in greater degrees, just how self-centered we really are.
SPEAKER_02: And we have to be ready to honor others in a way that's similar to how the Trinity honors one another.
SPEAKER_02: Father honors the Son, the Son honors the Father, the Father and the Son honor the Spirit, and the Spirit honors the Father and the Son.
SPEAKER_02: And God has called us into that kind of dynamic within our relationships in the church and especially within our relationships within marriage.
SPEAKER_02: Well, let me just ask you, how does this description of the new way of relating match the reality, the day-to-day reality in your marriage?
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes okay, many times not okay.
SPEAKER_02: We know that marriage is one of the most difficult relationships on the planet.
SPEAKER_02: It's almost an impossible relationship.
SPEAKER_02: You have two sinners spinning in their own orbit, and you move them into one to become one and to become unified in purpose and outlook.
SPEAKER_02: And you are up close more than you are with anyone else.
SPEAKER_02: Your spouse sees you more closely than anyone else, likely, around you.
SPEAKER_02: But one of the things I want to say just at this point is we need more than a command.
SPEAKER_02: We need more than a command to enter into this new way.
SPEAKER_02: We need power.
SPEAKER_02: We need power to be able to do this.
SPEAKER_02: And so this brings us to our second movement today is the power we need to relate in this new way.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think Paul is giving us a whole scheme of sanctification here or of Christian growth, but he is saying some important things that we need to catch.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that we need to catch is that something has to be in place or be being in place in order for us to be engaging this new way of relating well.
SPEAKER_02: Follow with me if you look at verse one.
SPEAKER_02: In verse one, there is four realities that are given here.
SPEAKER_02: Four realities that are said in such a way that they are going to impact what God wants us to do with each other.
SPEAKER_02: These four come first.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't start there.
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to have you think about the tension of the others, others first.
SPEAKER_02: But what you find in these four verses are ways in which God has loved and blessed his people.
SPEAKER_02: Ways in which God has loved and blessed his people.
SPEAKER_02: If there is any encouragement, he says, in Christ, any encouragement, think of what you were when you were outside of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Think of what it was when you were lost, and the blessing and love of God that awakened you and initiated a salvation, a deliverance, a repentance, a turning to Christ to have life and light.
SPEAKER_02: Think of that.
SPEAKER_02: Moreover, he says, think of the comfort that you have from God's love.
SPEAKER_02: What kind of comfort is there from being loved by the center of the universe, being loved and known by your Creator?
SPEAKER_02: He goes on to say, think of what it's like to be a fellow sharer in the Holy Spirit, that you have been gifted with God Himself to live within you powerfully and to initiate, not passively, but to be moving and empowering and initiating in your heart.
SPEAKER_02: And finally, he says, think, think of the tender mercies and sympathies of the Lord for you.
SPEAKER_02: Think about how you experience them in this life, in all of the brokenness and tragedies and traumas of life, in the devastations of the fall.
SPEAKER_02: Have you tasted the tender mercies of the Lord?
SPEAKER_02: You're going to need, we're going to need two things to be able to engage this new kind of relating.
SPEAKER_02: We're going to need the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: The flesh counts for nothing.
SPEAKER_02: The flesh counts for nothing, God said.
SPEAKER_02: It's the Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: The Spirit who moves and gives us a new desire and is giving us a new heart more and more all along.
SPEAKER_02: And is giving growth within us.
SPEAKER_02: But we're also going to need a growing knowledge and sense and experience of God's love for us.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to think of a recipe for a moment.
SPEAKER_02: Many of you like to think about what to make for dinner, and you go online and you mess around with some recipes, and up comes the picture.
SPEAKER_02: Beautiful dinner, man.
SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you.
SPEAKER_02: It's like, wow, I wish that was on my table now.
SPEAKER_02: And you're looking at it and you're reading it, and it sounds good at one level, right?
SPEAKER_02: You're processing it on paper, but you're not smelling that.
SPEAKER_02: No aroma coming off your screen, I assure you.
SPEAKER_02: And you're certainly not tasting it.
SPEAKER_02: The love of God is one of the powerful movers of the human heart.
SPEAKER_02: We have to experience the love of God and know it to be able to move out and love other people.
SPEAKER_02: And the way he's put this here, he's put it in terms that we actually have begun to smell the aroma and taste the goodness and love of the Lord for us.
SPEAKER_02: You know, what else is it that is going to help you lay aside your desires in a marriage relationship?
SPEAKER_02: Die to your own ego and serve your spouse.
SPEAKER_02: What is it going to take for that to happen?
SPEAKER_02: You're going to have to have a sense that you already have all you need.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, in a way, you don't even need the love of your spouse to love them well in this relationship.
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to have it.
SPEAKER_02: Because you're already secure in the love of God.
SPEAKER_02: He delights in you in Christ because you're in his son.
SPEAKER_02: And you are a son or a daughter of the living God.
SPEAKER_02: And therefore, you can spend yourself to the very bottom of your ability.
SPEAKER_02: Because you're on a solid rock.
SPEAKER_02: You don't need something back to be okay.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why we have to fight for the gospel every day.
SPEAKER_02: We can't just drift along and think that the love of the Lord for us will just take care of itself.
SPEAKER_02: We do go to Scripture.
SPEAKER_02: We do go to prayer and sit with God and we engage Him.
SPEAKER_02: And the Holy Spirit works in our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: Every time you sense Abba, Father, coming out of you.
SPEAKER_02: That is God's Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: We're told in Romans 8.
SPEAKER_02: God's Spirit working in you and through you powerfully, assuring you of God's love for you in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Every day, fight for the gospel, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_02: Let it be among the first words that leave your lips in the morning.
SPEAKER_02: That you can thank the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: You can thank the Lord for who you are in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And you can ask him to help you receive that and believe it and stand on it.
SPEAKER_02: Well, finally, I want to move to what being awake looks like.
SPEAKER_02: What being awake looks like.
SPEAKER_02: You know, it is really important when you read Scripture that you take the time to sit before the Lord and ask Him and ponder in your own heart how to put skin on the commands of God.
SPEAKER_02: How to put skin on them.
SPEAKER_02: Get them practical.
SPEAKER_02: It's not enough to just read these big phrases and let them roll right over us.
SPEAKER_02: We have to put skin on them in real circumstances to get our minds wrapped around, hmm, how is it that I can apply this in my own life?
SPEAKER_02: Where is God calling me to put this into practice in my own marriage?
SPEAKER_02: So for this part of our movement today, I'd like us to look at verses three and four.
SPEAKER_02: I've just singled these out and I'm going to treat them as a unity here, these two sentences.
SPEAKER_02: Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
SPEAKER_02: Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
SPEAKER_02: I've always struggled with these verses.
SPEAKER_02: They are like pesky, intrusive sentences to me in my flesh.
SPEAKER_02: They ask a lot of us, don't they?
SPEAKER_02: They really ask an awful lot of us.
SPEAKER_02: And to engage these this call of God on our life, we're going to have to be awake.
SPEAKER_02: We're going to have to be awake to see how this really plays out in our life.
SPEAKER_02: So the first thing that is said here, the way it's written, is we're told something not to do.
SPEAKER_02: Don't do this.
SPEAKER_02: We're actually to do nothing.
SPEAKER_02: It is a big, broad, it's as broad as it is in English, in the Greek.
SPEAKER_02: Do nothing from selfish ambition.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing.
SPEAKER_02: Do nothing from the old way of relating.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to ask us, how would you know?
SPEAKER_02: How would you know if you are acting out of selfish ambition or rivalry?
SPEAKER_02: How would you know that?
SPEAKER_02: How would you know if you're actually protecting yourself and what you're doing?
SPEAKER_02: How would you know if you're actually pushing for something that's your agenda at the expense of your spouses?
SPEAKER_02: How would you know if you're actually trying?
SPEAKER_02: To honor yourself in what we're doing here, then honor your spouse.
SPEAKER_02: How would you know if you're actually hiding yourself?
SPEAKER_02: It means you're going to have to be awake to your motives to some degree.
SPEAKER_02: You're going to have to have some awareness and some alertness to what's going on in your motives, why you're doing what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02: The interesting thing about this is that God has made us in such a way that we actually need one another to do this well.
SPEAKER_02: We actually, that's a part of living in community and the one anothers we talk about.
SPEAKER_02: We actually need each other's sight to see when we're acting out of selfish motives and selfish ambitions.
SPEAKER_02: It's not easy to see.
SPEAKER_02: You will swear, I mean that in a good sense, that you're actually awake and not standing in front of an office desk drawer.
SPEAKER_02: But then he gives the other side don't do this, but do this, do this.
SPEAKER_02: And he gives various ways of saying to become a student of humility and to put your spouse's honor and interest above your own.
SPEAKER_02: To give them a priority.
SPEAKER_02: Give them a priority.
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of ways that we could think about how this actually plays out in our marriages, but I've listed just a couple.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to think with me about seeing and about listening.
SPEAKER_02: Seeing and listening.
SPEAKER_02: What do we need to see?
SPEAKER_02: What do we need to see to be a student of humility and to put our spouses' honor and interest above our own?
SPEAKER_02: What do we need to see?
SPEAKER_02: Great question to wrestle with.
SPEAKER_02: You need to see them.
SPEAKER_02: You need to be able to see who they are and what they desire.
SPEAKER_02: And how they're doing.
SPEAKER_02: And what's going on with them?
SPEAKER_02: You need to see you.
SPEAKER_02: You need to be able to see more of who you are.
SPEAKER_02: And and what you're doing in the moment.
SPEAKER_02: And then there's listening.
SPEAKER_02: There's listening.
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
SPEAKER_02: Seems like men have a problem with listening.
SPEAKER_02: It's not just men that have a problem with listening.
SPEAKER_02: Because there's listening and then there's listening.
SPEAKER_02: We can be listening while at the exact same time we're formulating.
SPEAKER_02: We're in a process of me too.
SPEAKER_02: We're in a process of justifying.
SPEAKER_02: We're in a process of blaming someone else.
SPEAKER_02: So what they're saying is just bouncing right off of us.
SPEAKER_02: Does that line up with the kind of humility that counts others more significant than yourselves here?
SPEAKER_02: We need to have a kind of listening that actually cares, that cares for our spouse, that can see behind where they are and where that's coming from.
SPEAKER_02: We need to have a kind of listening that is curious, genuinely curious about what's going on with them and how they're doing and how our relationship is getting along.
SPEAKER_02: Well, as I kind of bring this to a close, I'm gonna raise another question.
SPEAKER_02: What's a good sign that we're sleepwalking too much?
SPEAKER_02: One good sign may well be that your spouse has a low sense of feeling seen.
SPEAKER_02: Have a low sense of feeling seen.
SPEAKER_02: They have a low sense of feeling heard.
SPEAKER_02: When they talk with you about things that are important, you're focused on your own things, be they important or otherwise.
SPEAKER_02: Your spouse may have a low sense of feeling respected, in feeling honored and valued in this relationship.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe they feel like a second-class citizen.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe they feel like you, like walk like it's all about you.
SPEAKER_02: And they never really get to They never get to be themselves without feeling a sense of condemnation from you.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe your spouse has a low sense of feeling safe to trust you with their heart.
SPEAKER_02: They put a little out there, but no more.
SPEAKER_02: These are all good signs that we're sleepwalking too much.
SPEAKER_02: And we all sleepwalk, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_02: We all sleepwalk.
SPEAKER_02: But as I bring this to a conclusion, I want you to have some takeaways, okay?
SPEAKER_02: I want you to have some takeaways.
SPEAKER_02: The first takeaway, I think, is a takeaway we always want from this pulpit.
SPEAKER_02: Or anywhere the word of God is open.
SPEAKER_02: We want you to say yes to God.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to say yes to God.
SPEAKER_02: That as you've heard these things and what God calls us to, you can affirm before Him and to Him.
SPEAKER_02: These are really good things.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: May it be more and more in me.
SPEAKER_02: But secondly, you can take away that you can't do this on your own.
SPEAKER_02: The takeaway here isn't that you will go out this week and knock this passage down.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, all your Christian life, you're going to be trying to get your hands around this more and more.
SPEAKER_02: The more you learn how self-centered you are and I am, the more.
SPEAKER_02: The more we'll see.
SPEAKER_02: The more we'll see how we need the Lord to give us that power and strength and movement to engage what He's called us to do.
SPEAKER_02: This passage has a thrilling and fruitful vision for marriage.
SPEAKER_02: Fight for your spouses in profound ways.
SPEAKER_02: It is so worth it.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
SPEAKER_02: And what you've learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
SPEAKER_02: You're dismissed.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for coming today.