Marriage Q&A 2

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Questions of any kind related to probably marriage is best. But I suppose if it’s a theological question about head coverings in 1 Corinthians, that’s fine. If you do any research on feminism, they typically break it down into three waves. I think wave one would be considered like the woman’s suffocate movement, the right to vote. I forget what phase two was. And then the third wave would be like Gloria Steinem types, the Burn the Bra. What we’re more used to in the modern day feminism movement would be the third wave. Yeah, so first of all, I sort of put words into Jaco’s mouth about anger. He was a Navy SEAL. He’s good with anger and fighting.

I was just using him. Because if you ever go onto Twitter, I forget what his handle is. It might be at Jocko. Jocko Willink. Yeah, OK. So he’ll do these Q&A on Twitter, and he is master at one-word answers. So that’s what I was playing off with the Knower the Good. But yeah, the two parts of that answer would be, I do agree that there is such a thing as righteous anger.

And that’s why a few different times sprinkled throughout my notes, I said, selfish anger to, to distinguish it from righteous anger. And also, I’m anticipating there has probably never been a time when I needed to be righteously angry at my wife. So if I was going to be righteously angry, I’d have to be angry at myself for being unrighteously angry at her. So yeah, righteous anger is a thing when somebody else probably is being attacked, but not when it’s a personal offense. So I was trying to emphasize the fact that in most of our relationships in here, our spouse is not our enemy. So we wouldn’t have any need for the righteous anger with them.

But still acknowledging that there is a place to image God in what he is angry about, which is sin. But that doesn’t apply. I probably, I think I may have tried at some point in the past to argue that I was righteously angry about dinner or something, I don’t know. But for most of us, that’s not what we need to be thinking about. So usually when I’m at home, I don’t even really need to bother asking if it’s righteous anger or not. It’s probably not. Though still acknowledging that there’s time. So is that the answer? Are you guys angry at that answer? Or you wanna give a different? No. I have something to say. You can get on our website and I have a sermon there on Ephesians 4.26 that gives a little different flavor.

And there’s a question and answer that Sean asked after it. So that’s an interesting verse and I give some differing opinions on it. Yeah, to say that there is no such thing as righteous anger that the be angry and do not sin would mean actually don’t be angry And don’t sin But that’s different but that’s that’s why his message was addressing I would say you pray for faith first of all because The gospel and Instruction in Scripture from cover to cover is not intuitive so it is it is unbelievable with the natural man Natural men want to see results from doing two push-ups. And we know that if death brings life, we know that a victory comes through death, all these sorts of turned on their head principles that the gospel includes, that it is going to take faith for us to be obedient to what God has said.

And then another practical piece would be one of the things I think about when I’m being stupid is Jonathan how would you counsel somebody in your situation? And so you wouldn’t tell them yeah, just go ahead and give up because it doesn’t really matter You would tell them the way you deal with a pile of dirty dishes is One of the time and next thing you know the pilot dishes are smaller So same thing with you know whether debt you got in the debt one dollar at a time you get out one dollar at a time But if we can be, I mean, it sounds really simplistic, but if we can be principle driven, then we will find a lot of things to keep returning to.

That’s right, that’s what I’m going for. And that also helps you to keep the long view. So I would say all of those things. Pray for faith, because naturally we don’t have it. You know, like washing of the water with a word. Like a rock takes a lot of washings before it becomes round and smooth. Water if you’re washing it with water with a view to change it I mean there is an an an assumption of faithfulness in time That that’s a that’s it seems like implicit in in that passage. So these things just they don’t happen overnight Well, yeah, would you guys say the word that came to mind also going back to Shawn’s message to his want You have to really start with the right wants I I want a marriage that pleases God.

I’m more interested in what God wants, what God thinks than what I want, and I have to align my want with that, which then necessitates a humility on my part, letting go perhaps of a pride if I find my wife displeasing for some reason, perhaps enough time has gone by that I’ve given up. I have to surrender those things. I have to say, nope, I just need to continue to apply what I know to be true and right, and believe that God will reward that, God will bless that with the right effort. Obviously, being willing to extend forgiveness if that’s necessary. So it really is, it’s just a matter of having the heart in the right place and then is it Jaco that says get after it or get after it, just do the next right thing and believe by faith that God will reward that effort.

Yeah, I mean, in the message and book that I mentioned, decluttering your marriage, The illustration is, if you have, the illustration that Wilson uses, if you have let your garage get cluttered for a couple decades, what do you do? Start with a piece that’s right in front of you that you can see that’s on top. So you don’t even at that point really need a big plan. You don’t need a Gantt chart or a project management software to figure out how to do it. Nor should you wade to the far back to the bottom to see what’s been there, you know, that whole time. Just start with what’s immediately right in front of you and deal with that and then as you have time, keep going.

So we are in it for as long as we both shall live. So as long as God gives us days, He’ll give us grace and we keep going. I have found, I mean, and again, it’s sort of funny and it’s sort of just true that we actually have to obey. I mean, that’s the thing I don’t wanna do. I know, I just, I know too much at this point that I am responsible for, that I have to obey. So, you know, that’s why we like that message by George Grant, you know, do the next right thing. Sort of the same idea with the, just pick off that thing that needs to be dealt with and do that, obediently do that right. And think about the blessing that that brings.

I have been thinking about blessing for a year or so. And it’s just one of those words. And actually, all of us use the word blessing a number of times in our messages today. It’s fantastic. What does blessing mean? Well, on one hand, it doesn’t really matter, but we gotta want that more than anything else. And it doesn’t always come in the form that we thought. So being tired and my wife being happy is a better blessing than I saved a couple trips through the house from my weary legs, you know, and she is irritated. Or the amount of energy that I give towards our conversation. So I’m going to be expending the energy.

The question is whether it’s going to be a three-minute conversation that I’m ready and energetic for or a three hour conversation where I’m trying to dig out of my failure to be ready at the beginning. So like, my, my joy is what, how am I going to spend the energy? But yeah, the simplicity, you know, that’s the thing with Jaco’s one word answers is, and I don’t know if he’s a Christian, he there’s nothing Christian in the book that we read. Again, if his name was something else, Because actually, extreme ownership is co-authored by Jocko and a guy named Lafe. Well, if my wife had said, well, what would Lafe say? I’d be like, that doesn’t mean anything to me. But Jocko is just kind of off the edge and off as a name to be funny, thought provoking. But there’s a simplicity there of, you know, I don’t want to do the hard thing. What should I do?

Do the hard thing. Yeah. I can’t do burpees. What should I do? Burpees. So at least I think maybe for guys, for the ladies, maybe there’s a different answer to if I feel like a failure, don’t do burpees. But the guys, at least the simplicity of that is helpful. And like we are all, Dave mentioned this in his message, we are talking about this in a Christian context, in a worshiping context. So God doesn’t make it one of the conditions that we come in to worship him and get his blessing because we’ve got everything right. So that’s what grace is about. That’s why Jesus died for sake of grace and his love to us and that supernatural giving to us, his generosity to us.

So we keep worshiping and we read what he says and we tell him what we need and we thank him for what he’s given And like he keeps blessing that sort of simple, consistent obedience. And again, we’re doing it in a Christian context because we’re forgiven. I can’t tell you, maybe it’s something that other guys can tell you. I’m not sure I don’t know what the Hebrew in there, what that word actually literally means. You may know more than I do.

The connotation of Lord, I mean, I what I was reacting to is I actually know of Christian friends who believe it’s proper to refer to, you know, you know, keen husband, keen father. It sounds it it it irritates me only because I think more of Jesus, the servant, who emptied himself. And and so I just just my thing. I just feel like to require some kind of honorific title like King or Lord seems counterintuitive to me to the idea of the servant, the head servant of the family leading. And somebody was mentioning to me during one of the break times that even that idea of that servant leader as a husband doesn’t mean like he’s then sitting around waiting for everybody else to tell him what to do.

He still has to lead, but that way he leads is by example of serving others. So that’s the only point I was trying to make. I don’t see anywhere in scriptures where we’re told particular titles to use. So does that make sense or not? Yeah. It does sound funny to our modern era, but if somebody felt like they want to use that term and it was used in the right sense, and it didn’t cause a puffed up pride in the husband. I don’t have any problem with using the term. So. I have a question for Jim. So how do you know if your expectations are completely unrealistic and out of whack? That’s the only thing you wanted to ask him?

Your. For starters. Well, one, your spouse will let you know. If you still don’t agree with that, then I mean, I would say, you know, go get counsel, get other people and say, this is what I’m, my expectation is this unreasonable, is this crazy? Safety and a multitude of counselors. You know, if 10 people look at you and say you’re whacked out, probably ought to tweak your expectation. Of course, scripture is, yeah, if somebody can point to scripture that you’re whacked out too, that helps. So I think of like the crushed and beaten down wife and the domineering husband, it’s who thinks everything’s fantastic and their relationship’s amazing.

It’s not going to just come up. I mean, that’s dysfunctional. That’s bad. So then you would hope that there are other observing godly people from the outside to be able to tell them, hey, something ain’t right here. Yeah, and it can be tough, especially in that example, if the husband is very domineering and if he’s, in essence, threatening the wife, and you better not talk to anybody else. I don’t believe a husband has the right or the authority to demand something like that. I and these other guys could disagree if they want, but my advice would be is if a wife really believes her husband is being overbearing, being sinfully overbearing, and he’s trying to keep a lid on it and shut it down, she may just have to respectfully say, yeah, I love you, but I need to bring this to the attention of the elders, this is not right.

So a husband can’t pull rank or something and protect his own sin by demanding that the wife submit and keep her mouth shut. Yeah, because no human authority is absolute. So, and that’s one of the great things about being Calvinist is thinking that Jesus is Lord. No man is Lord in the ultimate sense like that. So there, we always have an appeal to him at least, and potentially to other authorities that he has established.

So no one authority in any given sphere gets to claim ultimate authority and absolute authority and no other authority in any other sphere gets to mention it. So hence the elders have a responsibility in the church sphere and the police have responsibility and authority in the criminal sphere and you know husbands have a certain kind of authority and responsibility in the house sphere. So those are all that they they’re not all sealed off from one another. So yeah, if somebody’s having problems, they ought to get help with that. It’s not about the nail. Have you have you seen that video clip? So later, later on, like when you’re online, just search, it’s not about the nail. And that that will not really help answer your question, but it’s at least funny. Yeah, learning. So even in the first period of 37 where you’re living with your wife in an understanding way, it would be different trying to answer that question to somebody who’s been married for a week, compared to somebody who’s been

married for a year to 10 years and even longer. So presumably if he’s studying his wife he’s learned more about what she is saying even if she’s not saying it. You know like for example the example I gave with my wife of you know she regularly figures out the answer on her own when she is asking me the questions. She just needs somebody to talk to verbally about it and then it’s it’s more obvious. So I don’t know what we would have done prior to the invention of text messaging because like doesn’t matter where I am she can process outside of her head and lots of times figure out what she needs because she’s communicated it. What I do know is even if I don’t know the exact right questions to ask, she gets the vibe of whether I am annoyed or feeling like she’s a hindrance because she keeps asking and not being satisfied by what I’m saying back. So like in our case, and and I don’t know how it would be for other people, but in our case, I want to just be done with the conversation.

And when I am giving off that vibe, and it makes her feel like she’s not worth my time, well then it doesn’t, then there is a new issue. And the other one is gonna get fuzzy, it’s gonna get less able to be understood what it actually is. So, I mean, in times where there’s not big difficulties, you know, you can come up with strategies. So like, remember a couple of days ago when we were having this thing and we couldn’t figure out what you were really needing to know, you know? I was thinking maybe we should have you write it down and then come back to it a couple hours later and then see if it’s still a thing.

Again, come to agreement on how you’re both gonna approach those things, and if you’re doing that in a way that says, because I wanna get it figured out. Like, whether you need me to give you an answer, so even saying, okay, do you need me to care, or do you need me to fix?

I mean, but again, you can ask those questions even in an annoyed way that make it unhelpful. But yeah, so you’re learning and seeing how she’s talking and what’s happening for her or ladies with him. Like again, in our relationship, it takes me six to eight months to finally change my mind to agree with something if I’m wrong about it that she has said. about six to eight months.

So she has learned that she should stop expecting to try to get me to change my mind on certain things immediately. So she’ll say, I wanna put this on your radar. Because she knows if she can get it into my radar, she’s got the gears turning, and now she’s just gotta flip the months on the calendar until I’m finally ready. Obviously can’t do that with every issue, but she’s learned that I’m a slow processor. So she can give me more time and not make it super urgent sounding. I’m likely to do better.

Well, personal sin would be if you, if it would truly, if you believe you would enter into sin in following his leadership, and obviously you would hopefully be able to back that up with scripture, there’s probably areas where in some way it’ll violate your conscience, but you have to make sure you’re just not using, I just don’t like your idea, I just disagree, it’s really gotta be, no, I really believe this would be, I’d have to confess this to God if I did this. Then you need to put your foot down. You just can’t follow him in that regard.

If he’s asking you to sign the tax refund that you know he’s cheated on. And you’re filing jointly, you’re both signing it. You say, I just can’t sign that. Well, you’re my wife’s submit. No, I’m not gonna do that. That’d be an example of not following his leadership into personal sin. If you guys aren’t communicating well enough that you’re in that big a problem, you need to back away up and start talking about managing your finances or something. And it depends on what the nature, like the name of a child. That’s a totally opinion, right? So you can go to the Bible, you can come talk to an elder, but it’s opinion.

So, you know, Gail and I, we had, my son Christopher Joel is Christopher Joel because I defer to her as opposed to Joel Christopher. And we both talked, we discussed what we liked. I think in those cases, in situations like that, both sides look for an opportunity just to defer, just out of grace, one side or the other. It’s like, when we picked Esther for her name, my daughter, all I could think of was old women. And today I can’t think of another name but Esther for her. So in those kinds of discussions, it’s like, I think the principle of just deferment, kindness, giving preference to one another with honor might apply.

If it’s other things like the schooling, I think the example you gave, that’s where again I kind of lean on that principle of the safety and the multitude of counselors, get other people you respect into the discussion, hear different viewpoints, ideas, that might then nudge one or the other. And then if it does come down to where you just really can’t agree, after you sought to counsel, done your best, in situations like that where there’s not clear right answer, then I think there really is. The wife would then ultimately probably need to submit to the husband’s leadership and he will have to own if that was a bad decision.

But again, I would really strongly. There’s two times in 37 years of marriage, I’ve told Gail, this is what I think you need to do. One of those times I asked her permission first if I could tell her what she needed to do. Because she was waffling and she didn’t know what to do. So I says, do you want me to tell you what to do? And she says, yes, please. So I told her what to do. So I think the husband pulling rank or whatever and saying, I’m the head of the house. Do it this way. I really do believe that should be a pretty rare occasion. I think more often than not, it should be that mutual. Two people guided by the Holy Spirit, seeking godly counsel, giving preference to one another with honor.

You throw all that into the hopper, and then hopefully you guys can then begin to agree more more on what your decisions are. And some decisions you have a little bit of time. And I know one of the things that I’ve failed at before is wanting the decision to be easy and not require any additional work from me. Oh yeah, that’s how everything in life works. So like, no, on education, we’ll read a book. Or you know, okay, we’re going to agree to read a page of baby names out of this book every day until we come up with one. You know, so make, and that gets to be fun. So for every page of baby names that we read, we highlight some ones that we like and we eat, you know, Twinkies, because we did it together.

Again, lots of the decisions require work, and that work brings blessing, but we’ve kind of been propagandized that hard things come easy when they rarely do. So, I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of the work. I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of the work. I’m gonna go ahead and do a quick review of the work.