The Real Reason Marriages Fail // Pastor Vlad

The message that I would like to call it today is uh fish love. How many of you love fish? Okay. Secondly, how many of you love fishing? Okay. Ladies and men, I love it. Okay. So, so you love fish and you love fishing. Work with me. In order to fish, I'm not a fisherman, but I like to eat fish. And I tried fishing when my grandpa took me about 26 years ago. I had a such a bad experience. I uh put a the worm was alive and it was very difficult to put him into the hook and it was very disgusting and I just just I don't know maybe I'm just a little touchy or something or too sensitive about this stuff. And so I put the worm on the hook and then as I was throwing the hook into the Columbia River it it went through the back of my pants, ripped bloodied all of my thing and then by the time I kept jerking it I kept actually hurting my own hip and and I pulled it out dropped it ran and I said I'll never fish again. So, I have trauma. Anybody offers some therapy, sign me up. I probably need healing for that still. But ever since then, I didn't touch fishing again. And so, but in case I understand how fishing works and walk, help me for those of you who are professional at this. The way fishing works is that you go to a place, it's not in your house because you're not fishing in bathtub. You're fishing somewhere in the river. You come in, you you find a hook, you find a a bait, you put on the hook. Now, you're not there to feed the fish. You're there to deceive the fish. Am I correct? Okay, walk with me. So, you put the bait on the fish. You're pretending to feed the fish. The fe the fish is very small. It's very small like you. It falls for it. It starts eating it. And you're not really feeding the fish because the moment the fish starts eating, you're actually pulling the bait. You're pulling the hook. And the hook hopefully you're hoping for that to get somewhere in its mouth. Now, keep in mind, you said you love the fish. You're deceiving the fish. You're putting the hook into its mouth while lying to it. THE FISH FALLS for it. And the fish is bleeding. You're out there rejoicing. Remember, you love the fish. And so, you're pulling the fish toward yourself. You finally caught the fish. Now, you're not there to hug the fish and comfort the fish and say, "I'm so sorry you're going through this. I'm so sorry you're bleeding. I'm so sorry you're hurting. Let me put you back nicely. No, you pull the the hook out of the fish's mouth. And then you take the FISH FROM IT'S ALREADY SUFFOCATING. It's bleeding. It got deceived. But your love for the fish is so great. You put it into an ice box. Remember, you love the fish. And so you took it from its place of environment, deceived it, lied to it, it's bleeding, it's hurting, and then your love keeps accelerating. You're putting it into an ice box. Now the fish is suffocating. It's freezing to death. But your love doesn't stop there because you're going home. And then in this ice box, you bring it home. You take the fish out of the ice box and your love for this fish even grows deeper and more abundant. Now you take the fish on the table and you cut it open. And no, not because you're trying to cure a cancer or remove a tumor or fix a problem. You actually remove all its guts out. You love fish. So the guts are removed. The fish is dead now. Not only the fish is dead, you your love doesn't even end there. You you go now and you put the fish on the frying pan. So you suffocated, deceived it, pulled it out of its environment, froze it, gut it, frying it. And once it's fried, you put it on your dinner plate, you eat it, and still have the audacity to say, "I love fish. Do you honest question? Do you do that with everyone you love? You you don't love fish. You love what fish makes you feel. You love what fish does when it ends up in your belly. You have no love for fish. Because if you would love fish, you wouldn't deceive it. If you would love fish, you wouldn't pull it out of its environment. If you would love fish, you wouldn't freeze it. You wouldn't gut it. You wouldn't fry it. And you for sure wouldn't eat it. Fish love. And that's the love that many people have in their marriage. And that's the love that many people start in their marriage is they go in with they're not in love with the person. They're in love with love. They are in love with what this person brings, their looks, their how attractive they are, how nice they are, how they compliment you, how they add value to you. And it's okay to have that in the beginning, but sooner or later, a year into marriage, six months into marriage, three months into marriage, the feeling of love wears out. All you are left is do you love them when they're no longer making you feel loved, loving, so forth and so on. And today we're going to talk about that. How to move from falling in love to being in love. How to move from falling in love to walking in love. How to move from the feelings of love to being the people of love. Yes, last Sunday I talked about Genesis chapter 1 and 2 and today I want to read a verse from Genesis as well where it says in Genesis 2 verse 24 therefore so when Adam finally met his wife we read 25 verse last week where both of them were naked men and his wife and were not ashamed and we talked about you should see the nakedness only of the person you're married to not of the person that you like or date but the verse 24 it says therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. If marriage would have a teaching, it has it all the way in the beginning of the Bible and I believe it applies to us less to Adam. The reason why is because Adam didn't have a mom and dad. Have you noticed when it talks about Adam and Eve and then says therefore it inserts a lesson before the world goes bad. God inserts a marriage principles for how he would want this world to be. It's so powerful because Jesus in the New Testament when he was asked about divorce, he says in the beginning it was not. So that means this is God's blueprint for how marriage is supposed to be. This is not talking about Adam because Adam it didn't apply to Adam to have leave his mother and his father. He didn't have a mother and his father. It applies to you and I. Marriage has three main principles. It's the principle of priority. Man shall leave. A woman should leave as well. She shouldn't bring her mother-in-law with her to the marriage. Man should cleave. This doesn't mean that only men need to pursue a woman. A woman needs to also pursue a man. A man needs to cleave to his wife. I find that interesting because the Bible doesn't say a man needs to cleave to his girlfriend. And can I submit to you, guys are better chasing girls than chasing their spouses. We as men are better to chase. Why? Because we are driven by a goal. And when you are single and you're ready to mingle and you see somebody that you like it, it's really, let's be honest, it's it's a trophy. It's a goal. It's it's something we chase. We're like, ESPECIALLY WHEN SHE'S HARD TO GET. YOU'RE LIKE, "GIRL, I got you." And you see this as a challenge. You're like, "I will change. I will learn tongues. I will learn Hebrew. But girl, you're going to marry me. And the guys are moved by the challenge and we we finally get her to love us. We finally pursue her. WE FINALLY CHANGE to be with her. But the Bible doesn't say the man should leave his father and cleave to his girlfriend. Cleaving to his wife. Meaning it takes a real man to pursue HIS WIFE. ANY BOY CAN pursue a girl, but a man pursues his wife. And that's a challenge because once we get her, once we marry her, we move on to other challenges. But to continuously pursue her is really the Genesis 2 mandate. Now, it's not only the man who need to pursue. But what I find interesting is the emphasis from the Genesis 2 is heavily placed on men. Men are initiators. That doesn't mean that men are the only ones, but a lot of weight and responsibility for the health and the well-being of marriage does lay on guys. This does not mean that women don't play a role, but a lot of men have a lot maturity to step up to start the marriage and to keep the marriage. And all the women said, >> "Oh, come on. That was weak. All the women said >> come on. But the third part of the marriage. So the first one is leave. It's a law of priority. The second one is cleave. That's a law of pursuit. And the third law of marriage is become one flesh. And this is the law of a process. It's a law of becoming. It's a law of a process. It's interesting that the word one flesh, the word one is the same word that is used in Deuteronomy. It says that the Lord your God Israel, the Lord is one. EOD. This means God is one. That means that from the beginning, God is inviting a man and a woman to become one just like he is one. Now, we believe in the trinity. We believe in one God in three persons. Some people find that confusing. Some people find make fun of that. Personally, personally, one of the reasons I'm a Christian is because of the Trinity. How can I follow a God who doesn't know anything about relationships, yet my life is wrapped in relationships, yet this God that I follow has no relationships. Imagine that. Like these gods the people follow that they came up with, you know, these gods are so distant. They have nothing. They have nothing to offer to me on how to relate to my spouse. The God I follow has been relationally connected for eternity with three persons who are equal yet they submit to each other, LOVE EACH OTHER AND THIS GOD makes me in his image and likeness and SAYS WHAT I HAVE THERE YOU CAN BUILD HERE. Therefore your marriage is either made in heaven or made in hell. It will either imitate the trinity where different persons love each other, honor each other, submit to each other, prefer to each other OR OR YOUR MARRIAGE will be made in hell where it's Jezebel and Ahab, an aggressive dominant person and passive dormant. We choose which marriage is that going to be. And my friend, I believe in this room, our marriages will be made in heaven. We will imitate our heavenly father. We will imitate the son and the holy spirit. We will be one just like they are one because we are learning from the best. We are learning from our father. We are learning from the god that created us in his image and likeness. Amen. >> When it comes to marriage being one. When two people marry, they become one. The trouble starts deciding which one. The husband of course believes that the wife needs to be him. And the wife when when I got married, I knew we're going to be one. And my simple solution was that my wife will be like me. So we will be like me. My wife of course had her own idea that when we get married we will be one. We will be like her. And of course the trouble starts is when you are trying to become one because each one of you is trying to change the other person into be more like you. But success of marriage comes not in finding the right person, but it's in your ability for both partners to adjust to the real person they realize they married. Marriage is like three lane highway. You're not trying to convince your spouse to get behind you and drive on your lane. You also are not trying to move on their lane. You're actually both are trying to find the middle lane where you are leaving yours, they are leaving theirs. And now you're driving in the middle lane. You're becoming a little bit more like them. They're becoming a little bit more like you. And by the time you're done, 50, 60 years, you're so like each other. You're one. But first few stages, first few months, first few years, even first few decades, you know, the opposites, they attract when you're dating. It's very attractive when you are dating and you realize the person you're dating is completely opposite of you. You're fun, outgoing, and they're just a bookworm, want to be stuck in the basement, and all they want to do is just read, read, read, read. And it's exciting until you get married. And then you start calling them with names because opposites attract and then opposites attack. And then marriage goes through the natural five-stage transition. The first one is fascination. You're fascinated. Oh my goodness. You are so and I'm not like that. It's fascinating. Then comes you get married. You go from fascination to irritation. I can't stand you. You're driving me crazy. Why can't you why why can't you stop? Don't do that. Do more of this. And then you realize, man, they're just keep driving me crazy. You go from irritation to toleration. You just learn to tolerate them. You're like, you know what? It's not that bad. I'll suffer through. After toleration, you realize, you know what? They're actually not that bad. You learn to appreciation. You appreciate the good things. You start seeing the good things. And after appreciation, you move to the best stage of celebration. You're not just appreciating, not tolerating, you're not just irritating. You're actually celebrating the good parts. And you're learning to wear four rings of the marriage. You know, you got the first one, the engagement ring. That that was a nice one. Everybody saw it online. Then there was a second one. It's in your wedding photos. And then about after 6 months of the wedding, you get the suffer ring. That the third ring. Mhm. Yeah. That one. You don't post about that one. And then after finally you got that one down and you got one more ring. It's called endure ring. and you wear that one as well and then you find joy. You know, uh a guy came to to his lawyer and um and said he wanted to get divorced. After five years of marriage, Amber and Ed were having problems and they argued bitterly. And so Ed decided to get a divorce. He went to the lawyer uh to the divorce attorney and in this first session, the lawyer asked Ed, "What was the first thing that attracted you to this woman?" And Ed responded, "Her fourth rightness, straightforwardness, and her frankness. She's just straightforward frank." The lawyer asked him, "So why then are you telling me that you want to end this relationship after 5 years?" And he said, "Her forthrightness, her straightforwardness, and her frankness." The guy said, "I married her for her looks, but not the one she's been giving me lately. To become one is going to be the lifelong challenge to leave, to cleave, and to become. And really to become one will require three things. It'll require commitment. It will require communication. And it will require conflict resolution. Let me say that again. Commitment is you make a commitment till death do its part. I'm not sure if it's true or not, but there's a story circulating. And they asked Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, if she ever thought of divorcing Billy. She said, "Divorce? No. Murder?" Multiple times. Commitment meaning you make a commitment till death do us part. Your commitment is not well, we'll see. The moment your commitment is kind of iffy and then the word divorce gets thrown around anytime you can't win an argument, you're opening a door to breaking this relationship. And so commitment has to be I always tell people that if you make a permanent commitment to your spouse then all your problems are temporary. If your commitment is temporary all your problems are permanent. Make a commitment to become one. It gives you a safe place. This doesn't mean the person can do whatever. And this doesn't mean that there's no justifiable reason for divorce but it does mean you got to be committed. You have to learn to communicate. And I'm not talking about communicate that you're able to articulate your words really well. I'm talking about communi communication. You have to look at how God created communication. He gave you one mouth and two ears. Which means in marriage, the way communication works is this. Twice as much listening as talking. Every marriage that falls apart, nobody uses their ears. They're only using their mouth. People just talk talk and nobody's listening. The only one who's listening is their neighbors. They're not listening. And if they are listening, they're waiting for the person to finish so they can really tell them what was really on their mind. But nobody actually listens. Nobody actually asks you, "Hey, tell me how you feel. Why did you do that? What is really, really going on?" Without getting defensive, without justifying and jumping and interrupting, actually listen. If you ever try to actually listen and then you speak from your heart, you speak from your soul, you speak from your own feelings, what begins to happen? You will have a heart-to-he heart conversation. Your relationship will be solid because communication is the is the oxygen of a godly relationship. And usually we just we just yell at each other. We accuse each other. We assume things about each other. We get angry with each other. We uh don't talk to each other. Have you heard heard that uh story where a person decided to u they had an argument and they decided to give each other a silent treatment. So right before going to sleep the husband says wake me up at 5. So they went to sleep and the wife writes a note wake up at 5 and leaves it next to him. So he wakes up at 7 misses it and he says why did you wake me up? She says I did look at the note communication but some people that's how they communicate. And the third one is the conflict resolution. In the conflict resolution, every marriage has conflict. And if you want to become one, not only you have to have commitment, not only you have to learn to communicate in a way that you actually listen instead of content blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, but you actually listen to what they say. And not just what they say, it's what they're not saying. Ask questions. Let them share their heart and seek to understand, not to be understood first. Seek to understand. When one person breaks that cycle of curse of only talking but never listening. The other person starts opening up. The other person starts trusting. You start hearing their heart and a lot of these other extra fluff stuff starts falling off because you actually hear their heart and you realize in their heart they're good people. Now there are not good people. But the one you married I believe by the grace of God is a good person. The other one was not. But this one is. So I'm just going to go here on on faith that this is the right person. But the conflict resolution, this is a huge one because there's two ways to fight in marriage. There is the boxing fighting. You know when you see boxers fight and then there's a street fighting. Have you ever seen like videos of street fighting? Any of you ever been in a street fight? I was one time in a street fight. In a street fight, there is no rules. In a street fight, you only have one goal. Knock that person out with anything you have. A pen works, rock works, a backpack works, a Pepsi cap cup works, everything. Because in a street fight, it's anger, it's violence, and the goal is I want to win so you lose. And so many people have a conflict resolution. Their marriage looks more like a gangster style street fight. The other godly fighting is like boxing. In boxing, you have a referee. In boxing, you have places you cannot hit. In boxing, you put on gloves. You don't go with your bare fist and you put some rings there. No, you you have some gloves, some cushion. So, when you land them in the face, you know, it hurts, but u they'll be okay. Why? Because there's some cushion. And also, there's a timer. There's the times you can't fight. And when they fall, the referee comes and says, "No, you you can't do that anymore." And after YOU FINISH FIGHTING, YOU HAVE TO HUG IT OUT. AND THAT'S HOW GODLY MARRIAGES FIGHT. MEANING, THERE ARE PLACES WE DON'T TOUCH. WE don't bring the past into the present. There are things we don't say. We don't say always, never. We don't throw the word divorce. AND WE DON'T BRING YOUR MOM INTO THIS. AND THE HUSBAND DOESN'T TELL HIS WIFE, "IF YOU COULD ONLY COME DOWN." NOT ONE WIFE IN THE WORLD EVER CAME DOWN BECAUSE THE HUSBAND TOLD her to come down during a conflict. Just doesn't work. Meaning we fight like boxers instead of like street gangsters. We disagree. We lay things on the table, but we respect each other. We respect each other's opinion and we resolve conflict. We don't win conflict. Anytime your goal is to win an argument, you're going to lose your spouse. But if your goal is to settle an argument, you will become one. Amen. If I would say the godly Christian marriage is shaped by our spiritual walk with God in three ways. Number one, our commitment to God and to our marriage has to be greater or outrank our commitment to our spouse. The worldly marriage I would say or secular marriage or marriage that doesn't have Jesus in the center. The commitment is to each other. Godly marriage the commitment is first to God then to marriage and then to each other. Why is that important? And I know this is not romantic for those of you who are young and like I want him to be committed to me. Actually, you don't want him to be committed to you first. Why? Because you're going to have mood swings. Why? Because you're going to have bad days. Why? Because sometimes you would be a difficult person to live with. You want someone to have a commitment to someone higher. So in case you misbehave or they misbehave, somebody higher can tell them, "Get off. Stop doing this." Because you cannot be that higher person. You'll be you're the one that have a problem with. You need somebody that is higher than you that will be able to put restraints on their behavior and say, "No, this is not right." And that's why a good godly marriage is the one where I am committed to God more than I'm committed to my spouse. I'm committed to my marriage more than I'm committed to my spouse. You may say, why would you want to be committed to the marriage than to the spouse? This is why marriage was not our idea. It was God's idea. Marriage is supposed to be a place that reflects God. And marriage is supposed to be where I have a companion. Genesis chapter 2. It's not good for man to be alone. Marriage is a place where he gave them both dominion. We share dominion. Marriage is a place for procreation. Marriage is a place. It is God's divine institution. It's what he created for us. So I am committed to God. Secondly, I'm create committed to the sacred thing he created. Marriage is not, oh, we just don't like each other. There's more to us than we. It's this called marriage that he created and I got to honor it. That's why same thing my love for the church. My love for the church has very little to do with the hypocrites in church. Oh, I got hurt by the church. To me, yeah, that's real. But Jesus died for the church. He's building the church. He's coming back for the church. I love church. >> Has the church has hypocrites? YEAH. SO IS YOUR WORKPLACE. YOU GO THERE ON Monday anyway. SO IS THE COFFEE SHOP. SO IS WALMART. SO IS TARGET. AND SO IS THE NEW NORDSTROM RACK THAT WILL OPEN ON NOVEMBER 6TH. How do I know that? Because I'm a married man. So my love for the church HAS VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH HOW I got treated. IT HAS A LOT MORE TO DO WITH I love God. I love what God created. He created the church. And then thirdly, I love church people. But if everything is about church people, then of course I'm going to leave the church when I get hurt. If everything is about my spouse, yeah, if they don't, you know, like me or if they don't treat me well or or if I fall out of love, yeah, I'm out. But if my commitment is to God, my commitment is to marriage. Thirdly, my commitment is to my spouse. Now, I do want to just insert something here because I don't want to be narrow in what I talk about marriage. There's three types of marriages. There's the marriages that have normal differences. There's the marriages that have difficulties. And there are marriages that are destructive. So, not all marriages. So, when I'm talking about today, I'm mainly speaking to marriages that have differences and difficulties. Destructive marriages need a different treatment and teaching. So, there are people who are in destructive marriages. Destructive marriage looks like this. you're actually living with a perpetual abuser, with a person that violently hurts you and your children. In those cases, you can't stay with them or be committed. You have to run for your life and call 911. It's not a difficult marriage. It's a destructive marriage. Think of this. Let's just say you have a leak in the faucet and your kitchen has water in the kitchen. That's different than when your house is on fire. When your house is on fire, you run for your life. When you have a leaking toilet, you don't run for your life. You call a plumber and you fix the toilet. So, a lot of people in our culture though, what they have today is some secular therapy, not all, but some. You come in and you describe your issues, you describe your problems, and they're real. You're hurt, you're upset, they're you're not seeing eye to eye. The secular therapy framework doesn't have God, commitment, marriage, all of that. What they have in their framework is you is the center of their framework and your happiness is the most important thing. So they will advise you run for the hills and in some cases they'll give you an advice to run for the hills from a difficult marriage and differences in marriage. When in reality biblical framework is we don't run for the hills, we fix the leak. But if it's a destructive marriage, of course we we run away. We we run. We don't stay there. When the fire came close to my house, I didn't stay there. And I said, Lord, I'm believing you to protect the house. Yeah, I'm believing for you to protect the house when I run from it. I said, Lord, protect it, but I'm protecting my family. So when you are in a place that is a dangerous to your health, that is dangerous to you and your kids, you don't stay there say, Lord, I just want to save my husband. You can pray for God to save him in jail. You can pray for God to save that person from a distance, but you can't stay there and just call it, "Well, that's what a loving wife, a loving husband will do." The same way as it's not going to be a wise thing to see the flames come to your living room and you're standing there with the child and say, "Well, that's what a committed person to this house would do." My friend, that's not wise and that is not real love. I just want to insert that so that the rest of the things that I'm sharing for those of you who are in a burning house, don't take it as, "Oh, it's my reason to stay." when in reality you need to run for safety. But with that said, it's very important that a lot of us who are experiencing difficulties and experience differences in our marriages, we don't treat our marriage and exaggerate our pain and our level of unhappiness to say, "Oh, that's my sign. That's my sign. I got to run." Really? You got to replace a light bulb, not sell the house. That's what some people need. They just need to change the filters and what they do is they change houses. We made divorce so easy. Just irreconcilable differences. Why are you getting divorced? Just irreconcilable differences. Like what were you thinking 10 years ago that you're going to be the same? Like that's a female and that's a male. You're going to have differences. What did you think you signed up for? The second version of you? Of course not. We will have differences and we will have difficulties. And we are committed to God. We are committed to the marriage because God created it and then we're committed to each other. Now, you may say, "Well, Vlad, what about divorce?" I don't have time in this message to deal with that, but I have a whole video that's about 40 minutes long that deals with it on YouTube. If that's what where you're at or that's where you're interested, just go on YouTube and check it out and that will help you to bring some clarity on that topic. The second thing that I want to share with you and that is this. Jesus is Jesus said in Matthew chapter 19 verse 7 and 8 he said this. They said to him why did Moses command a to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away? And he said to them Moses because of the hardness of your hearts permitted you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it was not so. Number two a hardened heart is what breaks a marriage. many cases a soft heart is what builds a great one. Jesus in here yes he mentioned about divorce but I want to highlight this part. The message is not about divorce. The message is about the root cause of why marriages fail. He says the hardness of your hearts Moses permitted you to divorce. Just because Moses permitted he Jesus says this doesn't mean that it was God's perfect will. So let's not build you know our life around what Moses permitted. Let's build our life about Genesis 2. What God the Father sees it as a perfect will for his children. The health of your marriage rises and falls on the softness of your heart. You will either soften your heart or you will have two hardened hearts. And whether that hardened heart results in a divorce, it does result in a very miserable relationship. Hardened hearts are the cause why marriages fall apart. Hardened heart, you're born with it. When you become a Christian, according to Ezekiel, God takes away the heart of flesh. The heart of stone, gives us the heart of flesh. So that's why if you're here today and you have not had a new heart, I do want to tell you something. According to the scripture diagnosis, it's going to be difficult to build a marriage with a hardened heart. You need to be saved. I am not talking about praying a sinner's prayer. I need I'm talking about repenting and surrendering your life. So your commitment is to God, to marriage, and then to your spouse. That your hardened, prideful, arrogant heart is broken into million pieces. And God gives you a soft heart that is tender to him and tender to people around you, including your spouse. But let's just say you're a Christian. You're like, "Yeah, I got saved, but God gave me a new heart. Now my heart is hardened." How is that possible? Very simple. I'm going to give you five steps how you can get your nice heart hardened again. One is when your offense toward your spouse goes unforgiven. It's this kind of a small thing. Yeah, it's not worth the fight. So, you bury it alive instead of dealing with it. The second thing then this buried offense becomes a criticism. A criticism is when you stop addressing the behavior of your spouse and you actually start attacking your spouse and you always add two words, always and never. You always do this. you never do this and you're not addressing the behavior and how you felt or experienced the behavior of your person. You're addressing the person and right away assuming they always do this, they never do this, you never do this thing, you never do this thing. But see, there's buried offense and it becomes this critical framework by which you deal with the person. And of course, this other person sees you attacking them. You always, you never, they're not going to walk around say, "Oh, yeah, you're right. I'm just a total hedon." No, they go in like, "Well, well, you also never you also always well that's that's not true. That's not And so now you're not talking. You're just yelling. You're not talking. You're just arguing. You're not listening. They have buried things underneath. You have buried things underneath. And the more you let that continue, the soft, tender heart now becomes cold and hardened. Criticism grows into contempt. Contempt is eye rolling, sarcasm, mockery, and looking down on the person and treating them like they're just stupid. They have no idea what they're doing. They're just and and that comes out because offense became criticism and became contempt, which is the worst thing that could happen. And then wounded people become defensive and then everything ends in stonewalling. One person mentioned, "There's four horsemen of apocalypse in marriage. Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling." This week, I had the opportunity to watch an interview between a pastor that was disqualified from ministry because of adultery. He had a very famous church, and everybody would know the church if I mention it. And probably half of you would know who the pastor is. I won't mention his name. There no need for that. Um, he walked away from ministry, almost lost his marriage. The Lord restored his marriage. He shares his testimony publicly, though he's not back in ministry. He interviewed a uh lawyer who is a divorce lawyer or the divorce lawyer had a conversation with him. And the pastor asked him, he said, "I want you as a divorce lawyer, tell me the common reasons that lead people to a divorce." And to be honest with you, I was shocked with how those common things are something that we all practice a lot of times in our marriages. But first, he said this. He says, "Marriage doesn't fall apart quickly." He says, "Marriage falls apart very slowly and all at once." That caught my attention. Very slowly. Meaning you contribute to the destruction of your marriage slowly. And when it fails, it happens quickly. But in reality, no marriage fell apart quickly. You contributed it slowly for years and sometimes decades. And he said three things that people do to contribute it to the failing of the marriage. The first one he says which caught me by surprise. He says when you stop as a husband seeing your wife like not that you don't see her in the room. But you know men when we're dating we like see her them her. We see her and then you get married you don't see her anymore and we don't notice. You know when the wife has to ask for compliments. said, "How do I look in the dress?" That means you didn't see her already. That's too late. And sometimes like, "Oh, yeah, you look fine. You're not see you're contributing now to this thing. This means that in this relationship, she's not being pursued." And that really convicted me because I always think very beautiful thoughts about my wife. When I see her, I see her. I like her. I like her a lot. I think she's very beautiful. But from my brain to my mouth, there's such a long gap. I will literally talk to her about everything. We we'll talk about credit score, a mortgage loan. But when I see her and I enjoy how she looked now, I will give the look like, "Wow, it won't come out of my mouth." Now, what's interesting though is I talk for a living. Yet in my marriage to say to my wife, you look fabulous. It is harder than probably for me to communicate to somebody in Hebrew. It's harder. It's not easy. Another thing that I've noticed, and I'm just confessing my faults here because I started to repent when I heard that information. When I was dating her, it was so much easier to be very verbal in how I saw her. Like I would describe like Song of Solomon. Every detail of her, her toes, her eyebrows, her ears, the shape of her chin, everything. I would go regularly to butter her up. But in reality, I was a trickster, too, because I wanted this girl. And now that I GOT HER, I ENJOY HER. BUT I'M NOT going to lie to you. It is not easy to say what I see. It happened yesterday. She put on a beautiful uh dress and we we went to Yellow Cafe. It's a Saturday morning and I remember my wife and I noticed her when she came out. I was like, "Wow." I didn't say wow. I keep my mouth shut. So, we're sitting and Sammy recognized she wore that dress because he he looked at her like this and my wife looks at me and she said, "DO YOU LIKE MY DRESS?" And I KNOW WHEN THE WOMAN SAYS THAT, YOU'RE TWO HOURS LATE. AND SO WHATEVER I SAY AFTERWARDS, IT DOESN'T EVEN COUNT LIKE HALF OF A PERCENT OF WHAT THIS WHAT. And I honestly I just said, I'm so sorry. I said, I saw you. I just I said, I need to get better. So from now on, I've been saying this thing to my wife regularly. I said, I see you. And she at first, she's like, okay. I said, I see you. like I see you. And then when I explain the backstory, she's like, "Oh, okay. Keep seeing me." When you stop seeing her, you're contributing already to the misery. Start seeing her. And ladies, wives also see your husband. He wants to be seen. The second thing this divorce attorney said is when you frame every conflict through criticism. So it's always a criticism. Let's say a husband you want to be physical with your wife and instead of saying through a means like hey I really missed you. I've been thinking about you a lot and man I can't wait for us to you know do stuff. We got kids. That's all I'm going to say. That's one way of saying it. And your wife will feel a desire. But here here is how to take a very same feeling and emotion to frame it in a criticism. Man, we never have sex, which is an exaggeration because word never means never. If you had it once, the word doesn't work. But you exaggerate this thing. And you know, you you're so busy with the kids, you're never available for this. Which only will cause the wife says, "Well, if you will help with the kids a little bit once in a while, you know, you'll get it." So now you both yelling at each other. WHAT YOU REALLY wanted is to sleep with her. YOU COULD HAVE SAID IT LIKE THAT. BUT INSTEAD, WHAT WE DO IS WE FRAME everything through a criticism and attack on them. We don't consider so many other things. And and we do that as guys, ladies do that, wives do that to the husbands. And so the moment everything is through the criticism, you're contributing to the misery of your marriage. And the third thing is we keep score. And this score usually comes out when we begin to have deep conversations. Like you know, I just want to let you know I do this. I provide for the family. I work really, really hard. But you know, like what you're doing over there, you're staying with the kids. Yeah. But you know, like what I do, you wouldn't be able to do this without me. Like I do this stuff with the kids. like what you're doing over there that that's that's not important. And so what we begin to do is we compare what I bring to the marriage, what you bring to the marriage, you know, like I came into this marriage with this like you you didn't bring anything. The moment you're bringing the scorekeeping, you're pretty much hammering down your marriage. You're not building it up. The Bible says love does not keep a record. That means you're sowing. That means you're blessing. The moment you have to keep talking about how much you're contributing, you're simply contributing to the to the to the destruction of this marriage, not to the building of this marriage. And I'll be honest with you, I'm so good at doing these three things. I could get a PhD in it because it comes so naturally to a human hardened heart with time. And we have to relearn, unlearn those behaviors. Which brings me to point number three. Great marriages are not the ones that fall in love. Great marriages are the ones who walk in love. Which brings me back to the fish. Love. To fall in love is not hard. You got chemicals. You got hormone. You're young. To fall in love, it carries you. You love the feeling of love. You love the feeling of chase. You love the feeling of infatuation. You love the feeling of misst that that's it's all good. That's part of that process. But all of that wears out. And then you end up at this place where you're like, you're looking at this person and you're realizing, do I love this person or I love I love the feeling of love. I loved what they made me feel as well. They've really added value to me, but they're not adding that value anymore. Do I love them? I believe there are three kinds of loves or three kinds of levels of love. The first one is I love you because you love me. It's a very reactionary reactionary love. Jesus said about this. He says even sinners love those who love them. So Jesus says if all you're doing in love is you're reacting back to the energy that this person gives you, you're no different than a sinner. If this level of love is a love of I call it we're going to call it an electrical conduit. An electrical conduit mindlessly without even thinking receives power transmits it. And so many people are in this level of love is this. Well, you mistreat me. Well, I I'll give you your own medicine. Well, I'll I'll tell you what's up. Well, you will see the wrath of me because all you're doing is you're mindlessly transferring the very energy you got. But the biblical love doesn't it's not I love you because you love me. The biblical love has a filter. Think of a water filter. Water filter takes the toxins and the bad stuff and it filters it. It only gives you the pure water and it doesn't transmit the toxins. God doesn't want you to love them as they love you because you will be simply mindless conduit wire. Jesus says sinners do that. So if the level of your love in marriage is well you mistreat me I'm going to mistreat you. Jesus qualified you AS A GLORIFIED SINNER WHO speaks in tongues. You're not acting like a saint. You're not acting like a son. You're just acting like a heathen, like a tax collector in another scripture says. And honestly, I'll be honest with you, that convicts me because there were seasons I love to match my wife's energy. She's moody. And I was like, "Well, girl, there's stuff boiling inside of me, too." So, she's the trigger. I'm the response. I'm the trigger. She's the response. And somebody needs to grow up and stop being response to the triggers. And that's the sinner's level of love. So when she's upset or I am upset, one of us has to stop transmitting this energy and put a filter to it and transmit something else. And you know who usually does that? The person who trans stops transmitting negative energy is the one who's most mature in this family or this marriage. So, if you're the person who's like, man, well, you know, for my emotions and the volcano that I'm feeling right now, you know, I just just can't control it, but they need to learn to control it. Whoever is most mature is the one who's going to stop acting like an electric wire and start behaving like a water filter. Would that be you or would that be you? The second level of love and this is the one where Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 5 he says to love as you love yourself. So this level of love is when you love your spouse as you would love yourself. Now there's different components here. Some people would say that that means you have to love yourself before you love another person. You could say that but in the context that's not what Paul means. Not against you loving yourself. There's nothing wrong with that. But in the context, Paul says Jesus loves the church who is his body and the husband should love his wife like he loves his body because Jesus loves his body. So watch this. Jesus loves the church because Jesus is the head. The church is the body. Jesus is now one with the church. And because Jesus is one with the church, Jesus loves the church the way he loves himself. Jesus loves the church. And we have to love our spouses the way we love ourselves. There's few components there. One is the way you care for yourself. The way you think about self. Expand that to your wife. Include your wife in that. Why? Because you are one. Another aspect that I need to as a man and women need to think about is THAT IF YOU ARE HURTING YOUR SPOUSE, YOU ARE TECHNICALLY HURTING YOURSELF. WHY? You will reap it. YOU PICK A FIGHT WITH THEM, YOU WILL BE THE ONE THAT'S ALSO GOING TO BE HURTING. IT'S THE SAME WAY. IF YOU, GOD FORBID, TAKE AND YOU BREAK YOUR LEG on purpose, LIKE YOU'RE THE ONE THAT'S GOING TO BE HURTING because it will affect you. So it IS TO YOUR SELFISH BENEFIT TO TAKE CARE OF this union. Why? Because you are one in this union and you benefit from this union and you are hurting if this union is not doing well. So love your wife as you love yourself. Love your husband as you love yourself. Why? BECAUSE YOU ARE ONE. PROTECT the oneness by love. And this is where the Lord wants us is is to love each other as we love ourselves. Now, someone say, "I'm not capable of loving my I'm not capable of loving my spouse." Well, you love yourself. You will not intentionally go take a a nail and hammer it into your knee. And if you do that, please see a doctor. That's not normal. You don't intentionally ever hurt yourself. You do take care of yourself. I see all of you guys. Most likely took a shower. Most likely took a little bit of time in front of a mirror to took care of your hair. Put on some shoes. Put on some clothes. You came here. You you take care of even if you're in a walk around yourself with yourself like I'm a little diva or this and that. You still have a decent way of taking care of yourself. I do. So do you. And the Lord is saying is the way YOU DO THAT, EXPAND IT TO ONE MORE PERSON. It's called your spouse. Include them in that as well. Care for them. Love for them AS YOU WOULD DO FOR YOURSELF. DON'T JUST BE ABOUT YOURSELF. Also be about them because you are one. Corinthians 1:13 talks about that love does three things. Love acts, meaning it's proactive. Love restraints, meaning it doesn't do certain things even though sometimes you feel like doing it. And then love endures. Think of this. Love is like a on the road. It drives because there's a green light and you're kind and you're patient. It's something you do. Love also holds back. Sometimes you want to say something, sometimes you want to do something and just becomes because it comes into your head, you don't want to. Love restrains. Any love that only acts but it doesn't restrain. It's not love. You will do things that are not pleasing to the Lord because God wants your love to restrain. So the way I keep the unity in my marriage is that I am active and then I'm also restraining. And lastly is I got to be enduring. Meaning there are seasons love has to push through. Love has to endure. Love doesn't quit. Love is not kind of one of those things that it just because it's not about me. It's about love. It's about his love. Now the third level of love. So we mentioned the first one is I love you because you love me. Jesus says sinners do that. The second level and it's the level we need to be on is that I am one with my wife. My wife is one with me and I got to love her as I love myself. And the way I do that is I act good toward her. I restrain myself in some areas and I am enduring. Meaning I don't just quit when things get hard. Let's just say you lost this. Let's just say you lost this thing. You have not been acting good. You have not been restraining. In fact, I would say your marriage is no longer one. You're no longer sleeping in the same bed. You're no longer in the same room. Maybe not even in the same house, but you want to get back to this. How do you get back to this? Jesus gives us in Ephesians chapter uh five, one more level, and this is hard. It's a third one. It's when you love them like he loved you. Why? Jesus did not always have me as his body. I was not always his body. So what did he do to get me to be one with him? He gave his body for me so that I can be his body. Jesus loved me by giving his life for me. So I got to the level now that I can be with him one. But in order for me to be part of Jesus, Jesus had to love me when I was not loving. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus gave his life for me. Jesus pursued me. Jesus forgave me. Jesus did not act in a way that I responded correctly. Jesus went the another just he went a long way for me. HE REACHED ME. I RESPONDED SAYING YES. AND NOW I am on level two. But Jesus HAD TO BE ON LEVEL THREE for me and him to get to level two. There will be seasons in your marriage and I want to say this as pastorally and carefully as I possibly can without feeling like I am giving green light for some kind of an abusive destructive marriage. But there will be seasons in your marriage where you will have to love them as Jesus loved you. THEY MIGHT NOT ACT LIKE IT. THEY MIGHT NOT THEY MIGHT EVEN BE called towards it. And maybe because of your own previous sin and something else. Maybe they have a physical thing that they're dealing with. Maybe it's A DEMONIC ATTACK. WHERE YOU WILL HAVE TO LOVE THEM, not like a victim, not keep a score because he loved you. SO THAT GOD can do the miracle of bringing you back to level two where two are one. Two extremes, negative extreme, I love you because you love me. That's a lowest way of love. That's a reactionary electric wire. The best place is I love you like I love myself. In loving you, I care for this union. In loving you, I do intentionally things that make you feel loved. And in loving you, I pull back from things that I want to do that will hurt you. I don't want to do that because love demands of that. And then in loving you, I do it for enduring love. Believes all things, stays, doesn't quit, doesn't walk away. And the second extreme is when I don't feel loved. I don't feel seen. I don't feel like my cup is being filled. And I want to run to this one and give you a piece of my mind and give you your own medicine. I want to treat you like you treated me. But all of that will just create World War II in our marriage. I don't want that. I don't want to also leave. So, I go to level three and I ask the Lord to help me love you as he has loved me. Why? Because it's how he got me to be his body. I want us to be one again. And to do that, I have to take the step of proactive, sacrificial, redemptive love that you don't deserve. I don't even know if this will work, but I know it pleases him and I have to give this a shot. I've seen marriages restored like that. That's one thing that I have the opportunity of seeing and we have the opportunity of observing even in some of the most painful moments where marriage is broken by infidelity when difficult moments where one spouse is struggling with mental health or a spouse is struggling physically and you could see or the bodies of people have changed or one spouse is going through a bankruptcy and and they're just feel disconnected and one spouse is holding all those things and feel like that's just that's just not fair. That's just not fair. And then something switches and they go from it's not fair. I'm going to treat you this way and they step into Ephesians 5, love as Christ love. It's not easy, but the Holy Spirit that pours the love of God into our heart steps in and helps us. And I've seen marriages restored. We've all have experienced where this kind of love changes people. My friend, we're not changed because somebody beats us into it. We don't change because somebody yells at us. We don't change because somebody threatens us. We change because somebody loves us. John 3:16, it doesn't say, "For God so hated you that you got saved." It's God so loved us. It's through love Jesus died and won us. And if you want to win your spouse back, I know this is not easy to hear and it's a lot harder to live as Christ loved you. You might have to learn to walk in that. Your alternative is to love them like sinners love them. Oh, they don't treat me good. I'm not going to treat them good. But sinners do that. Jesus didn't call you to be a glorified sinner. He called you to be like him. And sometimes you have to practice that kind of love is you love them as he loved you. Maybe you fell in love and you fell out of love. What if you didn't never fell out of love? You simply now are facing the real person who God is inviting you to learn to love. You may say, "How can I learn to love?" Yes, love is a verb. It's an action. Look at this video and I think it will change how you view love. >> Advice. I know I've asked this, but I want to take another swing at it. Give you another opportunity. What advice do you have someone watching this who's newly married or who is about to be? Do you think that when you are very old and your wife is very old and ugly and wrinkled uh and fat and uh not very bright or even nasty that uh you will still find her beautiful if so marry her. The last uh view I had of my wife uh in the nursing home uh about an hour after she died uh I fell in love with her again. Here is a a wasted, emaciated uh wrinkled suffering body. It's as beautiful as a crucifix. cuz that body ain't going to last, but the soul is. If you're married and your husband and wife are here, I would like the husband to stand. I want to take a moment right now and I'm going to have you pray for your wife. The wife can sit. Husband, I want you to lay hands on your wife. Your head, on her head, on her shoulder, whatever you feel led. The rest of us, we can be in prayer, but if you can just lay hands on on your wife right now for the next 60 seconds, I want to pray with you. I want to just ask Lord, soften her heart. I ask you right now this ask God for strength for grace. Ask God right now for the love tank to be filled first by him. Father in the name of Jesus I pray right now for all the wives in this room. I pray Lord God all the builders of home. All those God that have brought life into this world. All of those God who many times they're managing not only taking care of the home but also even working. I pray right now for all the wives in this home, God, who maybe have raised children already. I pray that their relationship from their end, God, that they're going to become women of God. I pray that they will become saints. I pray that they will not transit transmit the energy they receive, but that they will filter it and that they will release love. Lord, I pray that the hearts will be softened. Lord, I pray that you will break away the the outer shell of contentment, of sarcasm, maybe offense, bitterness, hurt that you'll bring healing to their hearts in Jesus name. Father, I pray that you'll begin to bring healing to the heart of every woman in this room in the name of Jesus. Amen. And the husbands, if you can take a seat, I'm going to ask the wife to stand up. And dear woman, this is your moment to do exorcism on your husband. I know you've been wanting this and I want to give you the permission to cast out every demon out of him today. I'm just kidding. But seriously, lay hands on him. Um, let's pray for him right now. Father, in the name of Jesus, we pray for the men. In the name of Jesus, I ask you that you will make them initiative, the ones who take initiative. Father, I pray for the husbands right now that you will help each husband to be the one, Lord God, they will see his wife. I pray right now that you will help each husband to be the one that will frame every discussion, every disagreement, not through criticism, but to expressing his feelings and listening to his wife's heart as well. I pray that you will help every man to pursue his wife. I pray that you will help every man, every husband, Lord, not to keep score, but to keep filling the love tank. I pray right now that you'll break every single contemptment, that you'll break criticism, that you'll break stonewalling, that you'll break the hardness, the pride, and I pray in the name of Jesus that love will flow. I pray for those that have to learn to love not as they are loved, but as you have loved them. Help them to love as they love themselves as the scripture commands us. Lord, help them to grow in love. That they don't treat their spouse like a fish that they love, but they treat their spouse as a person that they love. That they share that love. They speak that love into them in Jesus name. May marriages heal because individuals heal. May marriages get restored because individuals repent in Jesus name.