Cultivating a Kingdom Marriage (Part 2 of 2)

Man, I knew my marriage was falling apart.

I just didn't know how to fix it. I felt like I would always be alone, even if I stayed married. At Focus on the Family's Hope Restored Marriage Intensive, we offer hope to couples in crisis so they can have the marriage they've always dreamed of. For the first time, I felt like my husband truly heard me. I've received some great tools from the counselors that have changed my life and my marriage. To begin the journey of finding health, go to HopeRestored.com today. Today on Focus on the Family, Dr. Tony Evans talks about the servant attitude that's necessary to have a strong marriage.

And here's the key thing to do that we don't want to do. How can I serve you today? That question, that question, even if there's nothing, the fact you thought enough to ask the question made you serve it of all. Dr. Evans is our guest again today on Focus on the Family and has more to say about humility and service and doing marriage God's way. Your host is Focus president and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John Tony Evans has been a great friend to this ministry for many years, and we also love having him on the broadcast as often as we can. Our listeners love it because he is very gifted at explaining God's word and applying it to our lives. And today he'll share about God's plan for marriage. We mentioned last time that his wife Lois went to be with the Lord almost two years ago after 49 years of marriage. She was really a special lady, and you'll hear Tony talking about their relationship in the broadcast. Yeah, and Tony Evans is the senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in the Dallas, Texas area. His books have been read by millions and Focus on the Family partnered with him to publish the book Kingdom Marriage, so this recorded conversation is built around that. Tony, it's great to have you back at Focus on the Family.

It's always a joy to be back with you and the Focus team. Tony, last time we left off with a couple things that were nagging at me. One is, in marriage, in Christian marriage particularly, it's that idea of selflessness, but it's not what we think about, and we're so saturated with me-ism. The whole culture is about me, me, me, me, me. And frankly, our kids are growing up even more saturated in that environment, and they're feeling like the whole world revolves around me. Then they get into marriage and find out, no, it doesn't. And it creates great conflict, and people, especially younger people, but those in their 50s and 60s, too, are divorcing because they're no longer getting their needs met. And I'm looking at you with puppy dog eyes, Tony, because it really is about me feeling better about my life, isn't it?

And we in the Christian community, man, we could talk ourselves into this. I'm not feeling joy. I'm feeling nothing but pressure. Why do I cook for that guy? Why do I work for that guy?

Why do I work for that woman? I mean, it's all these things that the enemy feeds us, and we don't just stop and say, Lord, forgive me, because I am not becoming more like you. I'm becoming more like the enemy.

Well, in the question is the answer, because the way you postured it was excellent. I am not becoming more like him. The whole point of creating marriage was to take us out of ourselves. When Jesus was on earth, he said, I have come to do my Father's will. And then he translated that to his disciples when he took a basin and a towel and served them. So to be so prideful that you lose a servant's heart is to say you're better than Jesus. And most Christians wouldn't want to say that, but we function that way. True humility is being small in your own eyes.

It doesn't mean that you're insignificant, but it does mean that I am not so self-absorbed that I am unwilling and unable to make the life of somebody else better. You have many parents who are abusing their children because they don't want that child interfering with their lives, and that abuse comes at different levels. Mates abuse one another because they don't want that interference in their lives, which means, you have to understand, when you take that posture, you have repelled God from his involvement with you because you're being so unlike what he is. God so loved the world that he gave. Didn't have to, didn't need to, but love prompted him to. So the question is, do I want to be more like him or do I want to be more like the devil?

Because that is the choice before you in lack of humility or a willingness to be a servant under God with your family. Man, I mean, that's such a path. What you're talking about this time and last time is such a pathway.

Such a pathway if we could actually get a hold of it and apply it in our lives, which, you know, again, for me, I'm an ex football player. One of the toughest things in my life is losing weight. And but it's that thing. My doctor said it real simply. Hey, you got to eat less calories and your weight will go down. It's a statistical and scientific proof.

You know, if you eat fewer calories, you lose weight. Why do we struggle? Not just with that, but in our marriages like this that it is so self-evident what needs to be done, especially for those of us in the Christian faith. Yet we still don't do it. Why? Because our ears are tuned into the world. And because the world has become so dominant with media, with social media, with the people we hang out with. If you hang out with selfishness, selfish is what you will become. You become like what you hang out with.

So you've got to hang out with influences. That's why God calls us to serve in ministry, to force us into benefiting others and not just seeking for others to benefit us. So we're called to do that with our families, we're called to do that with fellow believers, we're called to even do that out in the world. So we're listening to the wrong voices. And what we have to understand is when we adopt the worldly way of thinking and acting, the Bible says we lose the love of the Father in 1 John 2. So now we're asking God to serve us, because everybody wants to be blessed, everybody wants God to serve them, while we are rebellious with our servanthood attitude toward others and then wonder why we're not hearing from heaven. That's why. That is so straight and true.

It's amazing. Talk about the benefit of humility. You touched on it, but I want to expand on that a bit. What does it look like to be humble in marriage? Because a lot of people, a lot of men, let's speak from the man's perspective, we see that as weak.

Sure, sure. Linemen are the biggest guys on the field for ever serving a smaller guy called the quarterback. Wait a minute, I was the quarterback. I mean, they're getting hit and beaten, bumped.

They're serving for three hours to protect this guy because of the bigger goal down the field. You would have to conclude, since Jesus was the servant of all, that He was the weakest of all. Or the Bible calls Him the greatest of all, to which every knee will bow. Since the greatest of you, Jesus said, will be your servant, the man is more manly and more man-ish when he out-serves his wife. So if you make a list with what she does for you on one side and what you do on the other side and what you do on the other side, and your list is shorter than her list, she's the greater in the family, even though you call yourself the king of the house. Ouch, now you're hurting me. Because you are not the servant of all.

The greatest of you should be your servant. Does that hurt a little, John? Well, I'm just making a mental list.

It hurts me to say it. Yeah, all right, so what does the list look like for you and Lois? Well, there's certain things that I know she wants me to do. She has a place where the regular things, like I'm the trash guy, you know, I'm the guy who cleans out the—so there's regular. But then there's things that come up that she makes this list, and the list is put in a certain place every day, and she wants me to fulfill that list. When I do that list, I have met her needs because she needs me to do that.

Some of those things on the list, I look at it and say, now you could do that. You know, you could get one of the kids when the kids went home. Well, they could do that, but she wants me to do it. Pride says, I don't have to do that.

I've got a national, international ministry. You shouldn't be asking me to do that, you know. Oh, come on. Now you're speaking my language.

Now you're hurting me. Can't you pay somebody to do that? So I could take that position, or I could say, this ministers to you, so I will do that. And here's the key thing to do that we don't want to do, how can I serve you today? That question. That question, even if there's nothing, the fact you thought enough to ask the question made you serve it of all.

Yeah, that's so good and so important. From the wife's perspective, I know Lois isn't sitting here with us, but if she were, what would she be saying that a wife's responsibility is toward her husband? She would say, to please him so that he wants to be served of all, to find out what matters to him, what encourages him, what strengthens him, to say to him, what can I pray for you for today as you go out and deal with your world? How can I pray for you?

What can I do for you? It's easier for her to do that when she's being served, because women have been made to respond, because women have been made to respond. They can respond in two directions, but they've been made to respond. And so if she's given something to respond to, it's easier for her to ask that.

So when Lois is filled, full with my love and attention and care and inspiration, then anything she can do, she will do. There becomes a resistance when the tank is on empty and you're still demanding to drive somewhere that happens in the emotional relationships, the physical relationships in marriage. All of that has to do with where the tank is. You keep passing gas stations and start running on fumes, and then you wonder why people's get up and go has gotten up and gone. Well, you're describing so many marriages that I know of, and it seems that a lot of those situations don't have fuel because of circumstances. There's a relative, a mom or a dad in a different state, and they're sick. Troubled child. Yeah, there are children who are really causing the problem. There are financial strains or other medical issues in the home.

What are some things that they can do to get back to serving each other when there's just not a whole lot there? There is a verse in the Bible that is probably, with regard to marriage, one of the most skipped verses when it comes to trouble in a marriage relationship, and that's 1 Corinthians 7.5. It's a call to sexual fasting. You hear about fasting, but you don't hear about sexual fasting. He says, I want the husband and wife to not be intimate, but to come together for prayer.

So they fast the physical. Fasting is giving up the physical to gain the spiritual, and they give up the time they would have spent being intimate to go to God together about the issue, strain, pain, or problem they are facing. When they come together, giving up the physical, the most intimate physical thing they can do for a greater intimate spiritual thing that they need, they get God's undivided attention at another level to address the additional weight that is bearing down on them.

Most couples don't do that. Most couples don't even know about it, yet it is placed there by Paul as a critical element of getting heaven to get involved with the pain, problems, and circumstances of history. Hey, Tony, you mentioned prayer a moment ago, and I want to talk about that, the importance of prayer together as a couple.

What have you found? This unity issue is critical. God only functions in unity, which is why it's important for Satan to create this unity, because that keeps God at a distance. When Jesus gave his high priestly prayer in John 17, he says, I pray that they might be one so that they might see your glory, because God is comfortable in oneness. 1 Peter 3.7 says that when a husband is disconnected from his wife, tell the husband not to pray. God is not listening, because there's disunity in the home. So you have to look at your disunity not only as problems in the relationship, but to keep you from accessing heaven for your marriage or for the things that your marriage is facing. So we are to come together in prayer, signifying unity, in order to get God's undivided attention. Satan wants to keep us too busy, too distracted, in too much conflict, that we won't pray, so that that unity won't be manifested, so heaven has no obligation to intervene into our circumstance. So every couple should make a commitment to regularly—goal is daily, but I'll say regularly—go before God for the pain in your marriage. Don't just generally bless our day.

Be specific about the problems you're facing with that wandering child, with that pornography problem, with that whatever that thing is that is burdening you down. When you come together, God perks up, because you're being consistent with who He is, and you're doing what Matthew 18 says. You're bringing Him in the midst of your gathering. And when you bring Him in the midst of your coming together, that's bigger than singular prayer, when that is possible. And again, what you're talking about there is that humility. Absolutely. Put ourselves aside and do the right thing, and then the Lord honors that, and He's present in that, and then clarity comes, typically. That's right. God brings up—He brings thoughts, ideas, people, circumstances. Fruit of His Spirit, love and joy and peace.

Yeah, God is free to express Himself in the people and in the relationship. Tony, people have heard us talk about this last time and this time, and they're saying, yeah, this sounds exactly like what we need in the marriage. What do I do? What's the roadmap for me? What can I do today to get us moving in a better direction, whether you're the husband or the wife?

What can we do? Well, my daughter Priscilla Shire starred in a movie called War Room, and we saw where there was a breach in the marriage, and she created this place to cry out to God for God to intervene. Ideally, if both of you could come together, that's the ideal. But let's say one is pursuing God, the other is not, which is often the case. And far too often, it's the woman who's pursuing God and not the man. Well, then you create that space with you and God, and you fast, give up some food or something, a meal a day or a week or whatever, and you go with God and you cry out to Him.

You may have other ladies in your circle, your small group, whatever. You cry out together for God to create something, to create a situation to wake up this mate. Now, let's suppose the worst possible scenario that may continue to rebel, that may continue—then you precipitate a crisis. You bring somebody into his life—should be leadership from the church—to confront him if he's rebelling. Now, I know that that's a risky business, but sometimes that is the way God wakes people up that's often not used.

You don't have to suffer in silence or suffer in secret if there's rebellion taking place in your mate. Let me ask you why that is the case. I mean, we don't administer church discipline, really, and we're so quick to find fault with the world that doesn't embrace what we believe. That may be—let me be bold enough to say it—the same-sex attracted community. We're very quick to point out where they are scripturally wrong. But we're not so quick to point out where a couple in the church may have divorced and they each remarried for unbiblical reasons, and the Bible says they're living in adultery. Why the double standard—one for the world, which seems very harsh, and one for within the church that seems very easy? Well, we become a worldly church.

That's why. This is a leadership problem in the church. Every Wednesday night at our church, we hold court. We have a court. That court has a lawyer on it, it has an elder on it, and it has a couple of spiritual laypeople on it to determine whether a person has a legitimate grounds for divorce based on Scripture. So they can come to this group.

They come to this group, and this group meets with them. If a person has legitimate grounds and the mate is unwilling to come or to repent, we write a bill of divorcement, which gives them church permission to get a civil divorce. But we tell them to come to the church first. First Corinthians chapter 6 says, you litigate matters in the church. You come to the church first. So churches aren't set up to do that. They're afraid of losing members, they're afraid of how they're going to be, but you do it in love, you do it with care, but you do it scripturally. The failure of the church and its desire to be accepted by the world has kept it from being the place where God renders judgment so that the church is pure for God's purposes, so we can work through it to save and deliver people in troubled marriages. That's amazing. I know another church that does that, which is actually sad, because we should all be doing it.

Yes. I mean, it's not like even said in just one place. The Bible over and over again, Matthew 18, tell it to the church, First Corinthians 6, the church deals with it. Judgment should start in the household of God, Peter says. So it's over and over again. You know, in your book, you provided an example there about Jesus turning the water into wine and how that applies in the marriage context.

Describe that for us. Well, in Jesus's first public miracle, it was at a wedding. So we're talking about marriage, and so it was at the wedding of Cana, and they ran out of wine, and wine was a big deal, as it is today in many places, but it was a big deal for weddings, and weddings would go an extended period of time in those days. And the water wasn't so good back then.

That's right, the water wasn't so good back then. So you would have wine, and so they ran out of wine. Jesus's mother tells her son, well, why don't you put on—find a telephone, po-boo, take off your Clark Kent uniform and become super savior and do your thing, but turn this—give them the wine they need.

Jesus said, well, it's not time for me to go public, but I'm going to help him out. He calls the servants and tells them to fill these jars, these containers, with water. They go fill the containers with water, and as they come back, the water is changed into wine.

Here's the lesson. At a wedding, Jesus performs a miracle, but the miracle was not performed until they gave Jesus something to work with. They gave him water, because water is a part of the wine process. So they gave Jesus something consistent with what they were asking for.

When they gave him something to work with, that's when the miracle came. This is the principle all through Scripture. When God wanted to do something special, the people had to do something first.

The priest had to put their foot in the Jordan River before he would block it up. Mary had to move the stone before Jesus did a resurrection, because that demonstrates faith. And faith is acting like God is telling the truth. It's not just an emotion.

It's an action. So when you demonstrate faith by doing something consistent with the need that you have, then you have now opened up the door, because God sees that faith. And Hebrews 11, 6 says, He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him. He is now responding to the faith. So give God something to work with, and let him perform a miracle at your wedding. It's so interesting the way you describe that. It's like we're taking the tools out of God's hands, if I could say it that way with respect, that we're not doing those things in our marriages that allows God to work fully, because we're running from them.

That's right. And God says that, you know, a lot of times we say we're waiting on God, but a lot of times God is waiting on us. Yeah, patiently.

Patently. Tony, let's end here with this, where you have that idea that my needs aren't being met. It seems to be the common theme when we counsel a difficult marriage here at Focus on the Family.

Something's not going right. It usually centers on my needs are not being met. My husband is this, this, or this. My wife is this, that, or the other thing. What's a practical way that we can get our line of sight off of ourselves and on to our mate and on to Scripture?

What can we do? When I meet with couples, I tell them four things. I say, I want you to do four things, and these four things are designed to affect the atmosphere, because a lot of times the problems exist because it's bad air, so even good becomes bad. You walk into a restaurant, it smells bad, it doesn't matter how good the food is, because the atmosphere is bad. So we can change the atmosphere. It's a lot easier to deal with the problem.

So here are the four things. One, every day say something or do something small that lets your mate know you are on their mind. Every day. Every day. Now, it won't happen every day, but if you think every day, it'll happen regularly. So every day, it's an unexpected phone call, it's a note, it's a it's a non-sexual hug, it's something that says you are on my mind. Number two, I want you to begin praying with your mate every day. You take them by the hand. If you're a businessman out of town, you pick up the phone and you take the relationship before God every day, which means regularly. Thirdly, once a week, you allot one hour to listen to your mate share their needs. That makes you a listener. You cannot interrupt except for clarity.

They have the freedom. They can't go over an hour, but the more you do it regularly, the less hour will be needed. They can also tell you how successful you were or how unsuccessful you were in the week, but it can't build up because you didn't let it go more than a week before you had the conversation. So that way, you don't get nagged because they know they got a week. Within a week, they're going to get to talk about it, but she doesn't let it or he doesn't let it build up because it's going to be discussed in a week.

So you have that weekly meeting to have a barometer on how this thing is going. And then, fourthly, you go back to dating. In the Bible, you didn't date to marry. In the Bible, you married to date. People got married in the Bible who hardly even knew the person they were married to. They were arranged marriages.

How can you do that? Because the relationship was to be built by the marriage. We do it just the opposite, and it still doesn't work. So go back to having fun. You can discuss no problems on the date. All you can do is that which makes you happy. Those four things are consistently done.

I've seen change the atmosphere, which makes it a lot easier to deal with the problems. Tony Evans, author of the book, Kingdom Marriage. I think a good place to end, Tony, would be for you to pray for those marriages that are struggling and help them to see a better way. Father, right now, I pray for all the marriages that are hurting, all the husbands and wives who are on the edge, on the brink, who don't know if it's worth it or whether they can make it. For those who are contemplating separation or divorce or just settling to live unhappily, I pray that they will kingdomize their relationship, kingdomize their marriage, that they will make happiness the benefit, and they will live for your image under your rule for the advancement of your kingdom as the purpose, and that you will exponentially multiply their joy and that their joy might be full as they begin to apply the principles of being a kingdom couple investing in the kingdom marriage.

And for your involvement with them in answering that prayer as they pray to you personally, we give thanks in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You want a better marriage? Get a copy of Kingdom Marriage. Tony, thanks for being with us. God bless. Dr. Tony Evans has been our guest on Focus on the Family, and you can get your copy of his book, Kingdom Marriage, when you get in touch.

And we also have a CD or download of this two-day broadcast. John, it's incredible to see God working in so many marriages, and we get to see that firsthand here at Focus. I read a comment from a listener who said this radio broadcast has been helpful to her for over 30 years in their marriage, and they remembered back when they were newlyweds, away from the family, lonely, and how much Focus on the Family helped them. We're so grateful that the Lord uses our conversations here to touch lives in profound ways, and maybe we've helped in your marriage as well. If so, I want to invite you to join our support team and make a donation to Focus on the Family so we can continue to pass it forward, reaching other couples.

When you make a generous financial gift of any amount today, we'll send Tony's book to you as our way of saying thank you. Call 800 the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459, or stop by the episode notes where we'll also have a link to our free marriage assessment. Well, next time you'll hear a powerful testimony from former missionaries Andrew and Noreen Brunson about Andrew's two-year captivity in Turkish prisons. And so I felt abandoned, and everything was going wrong. It kept getting worse and worse, and I thought, where is my kind, gentle father? On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family.

I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ. When a woman discovers her husband's struggle with pornography, she needs a practical plan. The latest book from Focus on the Family, Aftershock, by professional counselor Joanne Condie, will help you through the seven steps of self-care, and you'll learn how to deal with the emotions involved in the discovery of your husband's addiction. Let Joanne Condie's timeless wisdom give you hope even while you're in your own season of Aftershock. Learn more about Aftershock at focusonthefamily.com slash store.