Marriage #3 -- Fondness and Turning

Working through Seven Seeds to Make your Marriage Work… We are on numbers 2 and 3.

2. Nurture your fondness, admiration, and faith for each other.

Where your relationship has even a glimmer of the fondness, admiration, and faith system at work --- wherever your marriage is today, it is salvageable. May be long… hard… slow...

There may be 10, 487 things that have to happen before your marriage

Our Marriages:

It may take a TON of work… and that work is worth doing — NOT primarily for your own. Sometimes in the day to day grind, we can forget to be — or how to be — fond and admiring to our spouse through the eyes of faith in the Lord. But, often, pausing to remember times of fondness, admiration, and faith can and do help When

Marla and I met… Elsbury, MO — in the toughest times I have held to that moment.

Nurture fondness… Share admiration… and all through the eyes of faith — for what God has joined together, let no one break that up.

Jesus and His Bride, the Church:

And don’t you see the same kind of command to “remember” with the Lord as his Bride?

Psalm 103:1–5 ESV

1 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, 3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, 5 who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 ESV

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Jer 31.31

A boy in Omaha… A boy on a Summer run...

3. Turning Toward One Another Instead of Away From One Another

Jesus and His Bride, The Church

James 4:1–12 ESV

1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. 11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

In this passage we see a powerful picture of the relationship Jesus shares with his Bride, the Church.

Jesus Bride, The Church, has within Her:

Quarrels

Passions

Polluted desires

Coveting

A refusal/resistance on the bride’s part to ask for what they/we desire from their spouse — that is the Lord.

When they/we do ask, they/we don’t receive… their/our asking was selfish and pleasure-seeking.

His bride — the Church — has divided affections and allegiances.

The Church is trying the ol’ “I love you more than the new house/phone/car/relationship/emotion/reputation that I’m making out with in the backseat of the car.

I call this the Priority Play… it’s a loser.

And the Church’s husband — Jesus — calls the Church what she is… what we are: adulterous. Friends with the world… enemies of God.

Jesus is jealous of the Spirit of God within us…

The good news of our groom is this: His grace is greater than any compromise…

Then, Jesus and His Bride model an essential component of any marriage that works… a turning toward one another marked by humility.

James 4:6–10 ESV

6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James 4:

Prodigal Son… turning away… turning home —

Humility… weeping… mourning… Just because no one has had an affair doesn’t mean there aren’t things to weep about… because only when you are humble can exaltation come in the Kingdom of God.

Our Marriages with Each other — We have to humble ourselves to turn toward each other rather than away from each other.

**“Bids can be as minor as asking for a backrub or as significant as seeking help in carrying the burden when an aging parent is ill. The partner responds to each bid either by turning toward the spouse or turning away. A tendency to turn toward your partner is the basis of trust, emotional connection, passion, and a satisfying sex life. Comical as it may sound, romance is strengthened in the supermarket aisle when your partner asks, “Are we out of butter?” and you answer, “I don’t know. Let me go get some just in case,” instead of shrugging apathetically. It grows when you know your spouse is having a bad day at work and you take a few seconds out of your schedule to send him an encouraging text. In all of these instances, partners are making a choice to turn toward each other rather than away.”

Research:

Six year study of Newlyweds — couples who remained married responded favorably toward their partner’s bids an average of 86% of the time!

Those couples who ended up divorced averaged turning toward their partner’s bids only 33% of the time.

Marla on our way to bed… “I just haven’t been able to get by the Rx to pick up my medicine.”

Turning on lights when Marla is working in the dark

Foot massage

A biggie I missed: Cousin Johnny

You can’t rekindle a relationship with a “hail Mary” 2 week trip to Rome (or Memphis)… the trip to Rome (or Memphis) is heated up by a lifestyle and patter of paying attention to each others bids.

And the same is true in our relationship with the Lord… If I did a two week “revival” and brought Jesus himself into speak hoping that major event would set you straight in your relationship, many of you couldn’t get Jesus onto your schedule for two weeks of Camp/Revival/Retreat — some “Hail Mary” to turn your spiritual life around!

Do you need to turn toward your spouse away?

Do you need to turn toward Jesus today?

**Gottman, John. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (p. 88). Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale. Kindle Edition.