We make marriage prickly and tense. We make big things out of little things. We can’t resist pointing out the weaknesses, and failures, and foibles that every human being has. We constantly tell the other person that we’re better, and smarter, and more mature than they are. Relationship is really more about selfish judgment than it is about self-sacrificing love. What we’ve described is the sad song of hundreds of thousands of marriages--my wants, my needs, my feelings. Now, maybe you’re hearing this, and you’re thinking, “Well, Paul, you’ve really encouraged us this evening.” Well, I want to do that because I think that this passage that we looked at is incredibly encouraging; because in this passage is not just a very accurate diagnosis, and there is, but in this passage is a beautiful cure--Help for this deep, abiding struggle, this struggle that all of us have between the ‘already’ of our conversion and the ‘not yet’ of going home to be with the Lord. We’re not without help, because look what it says; it says, “Jesus came; He died so that those who live would no longer live for themselves.” Think about what this passage is saying, “This deep, heart struggle, this deep and abiding ‘me-ism,’ this antisocial thing was one of the primary reasons that Jesus came to earth, and lived, and died, and rose again so I would have help. Now what that means is that there’s not a hopeless marriage in this room--not one! No matter how dark it is, no matter how hurtful it is, no matter how discouraging it is, there’s hope, not to be found in your husband, not to be found in your wife, but the Savior who was willing to do the unthinkable--leave the glory of heaven, walk in this broken world, suffer horrible things--literally the destruction of His own body till he died--so that there would be hope for our marriages--right here, right now. Maybe you’re sitting here thinking, “Paul, how do I find that hope? Our marriage surely needs some hope right now?” I pointed at this earlier that the doorway to that hope is found in personal helplessness. Wives, hear what I’m going to say, and I mean this in a none-accusatory way; I mean this in a way that would help you. What’s powerful about this passage is that Jesus is saying this, “I didn’t so much come to deliver you from your husband; I came to rescue you from you.” You see, you can run from a relationship; you can run from a location; you can run from a situation, but you cannot run from yourself. I’ve found that whenever I try to run from myself, I always show up with me at the end of the run. You see, it is this thing inside of me that makes such a mess of these relationships, but I can’t escape that; I can’t run from my own heart. I have no ability to do that; so Paul says, “Don’t you understand what Jesus did? He came to do the one thing you can’t do for yourself. He came to rescue you from you.” Husbands, it’s not so much that you need to be rescued from your wife--that’s not what Jesus has promised you. What He’s promised is He’ll rescue you from you because that’s the one thing you can’t do for yourself. Now, how does a couple enter into this hope? Here’s where it begins--you willingly confess how much you need help. Husbands, you quit carrying an accusatory attitude towards your wife; and you say, “Every day somehow, someway, I exhibit the ‘me-ism’ of sin, and I need help.” And wives, you don’t so much carry that accusatory attitude to your husband, but you say, “Every day somehow, someway, I give evidence of the selfishness of sin, and I need help.” You see, if you’re willing to do that as a husband and wife, now instead of standing against one another and having an accusatory and adversarial posture in your marriage, you’re now standing with one another, and you’re saying in harmony, “We need help!” Would you say that right now? Would you say that to yourself? This week, if I would watch the video of my responses in marriage, I would see the selfishness of sin, somehow, someway--in a word, in an action, in a criticism, in a judgment, in a hurtful word said, a hurtful action taken, an act of selfishness or demandingness or entitlement. Would you say that? Husbands and wives, I need help because that confession is the only available doorway to help and hope in your marriage. Because a husband who says, “It’s not me; it’s not me,” is not just rejecting the plea of his wife, he’s turning his back on the help of his Savior. And the wife who says, “Don’t tell me it’s me; it’s not me,” she’s not just rejecting the concern of her husband; she’s turning her back on the powerful, transformative grace of
Transcript: Session 4
WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?
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