Keeping Love Alive - Serving - How to Deepen Your Love, Part 1

How do you keep love in marriage alive? I mean, the glow after the honeymoon wears off, where life settles into those routines and daily demands. How do you build a marriage that is fresh and really lasts?

That's today. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge features the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram on this international discipleship program. I'm Dave Druey, and in this program we begin a brand new series called Keeping Love Alive.

Now, whether you're married already or hoping to be one day, we've all got a story, circumstances that led to the day you say, I do. Well, Chip begins with a little bit of his story with Teresa, not exactly a formula for success. But as you'll see over the course of these next several programs, commitment to each other and to God have resulted in over 40 years they wouldn't trade. Well, here's Chip now with his message, Serving, How to Deepen Your Love, from John chapter 13. My father was in military, Guam, Iwo Jima, Purple Heart. My wife's father, military, lost a brother on a ship.

Both of our fathers came out of World War II, alcoholics. We came from not healthy backgrounds, so we brought that into our marriage. My wife married early to get out of the house, had a not good experience. Married young, put a guy through college.

He started selling drugs, ran off with another woman. She had two little boys. She was a single mom for a while. So I got to know her as a friend for a year or so, and then later we got married. So blended family, lots of baggage, alcoholic past. God calls us into ministry.

I've never met anyone who loves God more than my wife, and I've never met anyone that makes me more crazy than that woman right there. We couldn't resolve anger. We couldn't resolve conflict. I mean, it was like we put everything in a truck within six months after we got married. And after I'd been a school teacher and a basketball coach, and I'd played ball overseas, and it was like within six months, it was like, what have we done? I mean, we were a mess. And within the first year, by God's grace, where I went to seminary, a guy named Paul Meyer was teaching a class of the Meyer Menereth Clinic. And I went and talked to him, and we were broke. And for like the student rate of $90 a session, which was a huge amount of money, 12 sessions. It's the best money we spent that we didn't have. Think on that one, really.

We were making under $1,000 a month. So here's what I want to tell you now. We think we're going to make it.

We passed 41 years last December. And those kids that I got to adopt have turned out amazingly well, and God gave us two more. I want to tell you something. Hard work. The challenges you have, the conflicts you have, the family origin issues, the financial issues, the sexual issues, the in-law issues, welcome to the NFL.

Okay? That's real stuff, and we're going to talk about that. The overarching theme is how to keep love alive. And I'm going to talk about four biblical practices that great marriages have in common.

One book that if you haven't read, it is so worth it, and I'll be talking a little bit more about it later, is The Five Languages of Love. And in the introduction, Gary Chapman talks about being on a plane, and he sits next to a guy, and one thing comes to another, and he says, Well, what do you do for a living? He goes, Well, I'm on marriage counseling, and I do seminars, and I write books on marriage.

He said, Well, this is my lucky day. And he said, You know, I love it like you're in love, but does anyone ever keep love alive? I mean, is it possible? I mean, do people just say, I guess marriages are mostly empty, and you just grind it out? He said, Is there any way to keep love alive? And of course, Gary Chapman in his book talks about that in love euphoric over the top dissipates. But the need to feel loved never goes away. And you and I are living in a day and in a culture that basically says the in love feeling is what marriage and relationship is all about. And if you don't have that all the time, you've probably married the wrong person, or you, right, we fall in love, we fall out of love, and so what you need to do is find the next person, which then you look at the statistics, and it doesn't work, and the next one after that doesn't work, and it's chaos. And so it's a gift from God to have that euphoric in love experience, and what a lot of marriage needs is how do you keep the passion alive? What needs to happen in your relationship so that you feel loved by your mate, so that your emotional love tank gets filled up by the other person and vice versa?

Because that's part of going through all the ups and all the downs. And I want to go to maybe an unusual place. You can open your Bibles. I want to read a passage. It's Ephesians chapter 5, and normally what we do is we talk all about, you know, it talks about what a woman should do and be, and then it talks about what a man should do and be, and then it has this little line at the end that says, oh, but this is really about the mystery of Christ in the church. Follow along, Ephesians 5.

I'll pick it up at verse 25. Husbands, I mean, you talk about a hard assignment. Love your wives. How? Just as Christ also loved the church. Well, how did he do that? And gave himself up for her. Why? So he might sanctify her, set her apart, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word. Well, why? That he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

Parallel. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body. And then he goes back and reaches into Genesis, that classic passage. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Look at verse 32. This mystery is great, but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church. In other words, there's this model of marriage that's a love relationship between Jesus and his church.

And then he kind of brings it back down to everyday life. Nevertheless, each individual among you must also love his own wife, even as himself, and his wife must also see to it that she respects and honors her husband. And I was thinking and praying and asking God, you know, Lord, what do you want to say to this group of people?

And that passage kept going over and over and over. And what I realize is very rarely do we take how Jesus loves the church and use that as our model for how we're to love one another in marriage. And so what I want you to do now is to open to John chapter 13. And this is a time where the disciples are being told to go prepare the Last Supper. They don't know it's the Last Supper. It's just Passover.

They're Jewish boys. It's a very important moment. They're going to reenact that moment where God delivered his people and the blood was put on the doorpost and the lamb is going to be, you know, killed. And all these things are going to happen and Jesus has been telling them for some time now that the religious leaders are going to kill him and he sends them on ahead. And now imagine the parallel is going to come.

You can look at your notes and you can sort of look ahead. But what I want you to get is the context and where Jesus was. He sends them on ahead and they get to this upper room. And when they get to the upper room, we learn the commentary is from one of the other gospels on the way there, what they were discussing. Does anybody remember?

Who was the greatest? I mean, after three years and you're going to hand over the ministry to save the world to a group of guys that have been with you. They've seen you raise people from the dead. They've seen you feed 5,000, 4,000. They've seen you walk on water. They've heard all your sermons and all your messages and you got like 24 hours with them. And their big argument is we know he's leaving. And so who's going to be the top dog now?

I mean, who's going to get so many stars or stripes, right? And so they walk in and I think the Lord created this little test for them. And when you would walk the dusty streets, everyone wore sandals. And when you would walk in a room, there would be a large jar and then probably the lowliest servant in the household would be there.

And when you came in, they would wash your feet off and towel them dry. So all 12 of them walk in and no one humbles themselves because I'm better than that. This is about me. It's about I'm more important than that. That job's too lowly. In other words, here the last night and their passion and their focus is my needs about me and my role and what I need and who ought to serve me.

Is there like a remote sense that any of us have felt that way in your marriage? Now, let's push it a little farther. After all he's done for them, think of what he's done for them.

Think of not just the time teaching. I mean, can you imagine having a struggle and it's kind of late at night and you all have taken a long walk and you go over by the fire and say, hey, Jesus, could we talk? He says, sure. And he shares with you on and off for three years. And after all he's done, this is how they treat him.

This is what they've learned. Any of you in your marriage ever felt like you've really gone out of your way, you've really tried to do your best, you're being the best husband or the best wife or whatever, and then you feel like your mate is kind of dissing you? That's where Jesus is at emotionally. So let's find out how does he respond. John chapter 13, pick it up at verse 1. Now before the feast of the Passover, don't miss this. Jesus, knowing that his hour had come and that he would depart out of this world to his father, and having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

In other words, this is going to be one of his greatest acts of love. During the supper, the devil had already come into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray him. Jesus, knowing the father had given all things to his hands and that he had come forth from the father and was going back to God, got up from supper, laid aside his garments, taking a towel, he wrapped it around or girded himself, he poured water into a basin, and he began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with a towel with which he was girded around his waist. Then he came to Simon Peter and he said, Lord, do you wash my feet?

Jesus answered and said to him, what I do, you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter. Peter said to him, never shall you wash my feet. And Jesus answered, if I do not wash your feet, you have no part with me. And then Simon Peter said, Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head. And Jesus said to him, he who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean, and you are clean, but not all of you.

For he knew the one betraying him, and for this reason, he said, not all of you are clean. So when he had washed their feet, taken his garment, reclined at the table again, he said to them, do you know what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the teacher and the Lord, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.

How do we get this moment? Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is the one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. Let me skip over because he's now going to talk about his going and Judas is going to get up. And at the end of this supper, if you skip all the way to verse 34, he says to them, 33 for context, little children, I'm with you a little while longer. You'll seek me, as I said to the Jews.

Now I say to you, where I'm going, you cannot come. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also should love one another. How did he just love them? He served them. Who deserved to be the head and who chose to be the servant?

Who should have been offended and who chose to humble himself? Who was secure enough to know where he came from and where he was going and didn't have to have their approval? And so being secure and knowing his role, he could love them and he's going to love them to the end. And now what he says to them, this new commandment, I don't want you just to love, I want you to love each other the way I loved you. Now look at verse 35 in your Bible, notice the impact. By this all men will know that you are my disciples.

Why? By how you love one another, because you love one another the way I love you. And I will tell you, that starts in our marriages. I mean, I want a great and fulfilling marriage. I want to be happy and feel loved and connected and accepted and all those good psychological words, right?

We all do. But I want you to remember that your marriage isn't just about your personal fulfillment. Other than the Church of Jesus Christ, your relationship with your mate is the single most powerful testimony of the reality of God. And when people see, in the midst of not it's perfect, you've got it all together, in the midst of struggle and difficulty and sick children and dysfunctional past and big mess ups and huge mistakes and forgiving of one another and working through conflict, when they watch you love one another through all that, that's the power. And God will use your lives in amazing ways. I always want to remind us as we get started, because we've grown up in the consumer world.

And I will tell you, we are bombarded every day. It's about you. It's about you. Are you happy? You deserve to be happy. Are you fulfilled? Are you feeling okay today? Is everything all right?

You deserve a break today. The life is about you. If you're not happy right now, then something's wrong. If you ache somewhere, there's a pill or we can give you an injection or we'll give you a surgery.

There's something. You should never have a problem. You should never have a struggle. You should never be sad. You should never be disappointed. Everything should be perfect, and you can buy something to get that. See, the whole point of advertisement is to help you understand that there's deficit.

And you can buy or have something or someone that'll solve it. And it's a lie from the pit of hell. If you can't be happy with who you actually are in your relationship with God, you have no hope of being happy with anyone else.

No one has the power to do that in your life. In fact, the weird part of how God designed life to be is it's when you give your life away that the greatest fulfillment and the greatest joy you get. And so you'll notice that's the teaching of Jesus. His motive. What was his motive in serving him? Love. His action. He washes their feet.

Did you notice that just because you love someone, it doesn't always work? That some of them accepted it readily and some of them couldn't accept it. Why couldn't Peter accept it? He was embarrassed, wasn't he?

He just realized. I mean, I think every one of those guys, as he went one by one by one, is going, oh, I just wish I would have washed my feet. Oh, gosh, I just wish that I...

This is painful. You know, when you're really getting something you don't deserve and you're just... I mean, when you're exposed, I mean, those guys were exposed.

They were just going, oh, my gosh. I mean, any of us could do this, but not him. And when it got to Peter and his arrogance, he goes, no, this is unacceptable. He thought it was being spiritual. You know, sometimes when we want to serve our mate, sometimes out of some faulty thing, our mate won't let us.

It's one thing to serve, but there's another thing in this passage, you have to be willing to receive it. Some people are very uncomfortable receiving. Some people from family of origins believe down deep in their heart, almost below the conscious level, I'm unworthy, I'm unlovable, and when you seek to love them and care for them and speak words of life, it's like BBs off of a tank. My wife's self-image was so low when we first got married, she so viewed herself after her family background, being abandoned by this person, by being rejected, and I mean, she's kind, she's beautiful, she's intelligent, she's gifted, and she's godly. All of that was absolutely true objectively, told by me and friends and others, and then she would look in the mirror and she saw unworthy. I mean, one of the biggest things in our marriage counseling was she couldn't receive any love.

She couldn't receive a compliment, she couldn't, it just made me nuts. So I got really frustrated. When I get frustrated, I'm not very loving.

What's wrong with you, you know? And so no matter how, here's a hard time in marriage. When you're trying your very, very best, right, and you're thinking you're really loving the other person, and you're trying really hard, and it gets worse instead of better, that's when you have these really scary moments like, I don't think this can ever work. I don't think this can ever work.

And I want you to know there's hope, and it can. And we're going to learn from this passage, the beginning of how to restore your passion. The principles out of this passage to identify, to deepen your love, number one is love is not a feeling. Jot that down, love is not a feeling.

Romantic emotional feelings are good, just don't confuse them with love. Definition of love, I've kind of just taken what the scriptures teach and packaged it together. Love is giving another person what they need the most when they deserve it the least at great personal cost. I'll say that again, because I have to remember it a lot.

Love is giving another person what they need the most when they deserve it the least at great personal cost. And if you would just pause for a moment and think in your mind, what happened at the cross? What did God the Son do? He gave us what we needed the most, forgiveness. When we deserved it the least, we were His enemies. We were hostile to Him at great personal cost. And what did the Father do?

He gave the Son. And that's our model. And by the way, it's the supernatural power of God in us to do that.

I can't do that on my own, and you can't do that on your own. Notice also, love is serving. And if you redefine love in your marriage, it's putting the needs of your mate above your own. You might jot down Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 and 4. Paul is talking about what it really looks like to love, and he says, Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind consider others more important than yourself. Do not look only on your own interests, but also on the interests of others. And again, it's the kingdom.

It's completely upside down. I live in a world, I'm bombarded in a world that says, Get, get. Consume, consume, consume. Me, me, me. My needs now. And when two people in marriage each want their needs met, what happens?

It doesn't work. Now here's the hard part. At least in my little world, I thought once I started giving, that magic would happen and Teresa would just respond overnight. And it would be wonderful.

And it was not. And I think she felt like the same thing. One of the greatest lessons I learned was, the only person that can change Teresa is Teresa. And the only person that can change Chip is Chip. And so in my marriage, instead of all those thoughts in your mind, if she would only do this, if she would start doing this, if he would stop doing this, if he would start doing this, if he would just pick up his stuff, how many times have I told him this, if he would just call when I said, if she would just be more affectionate, blah, blah, blah. Since you can't change them, here's the deal. You just say, Lord, I can't change that person. But there's a supernatural dynamic. I'm going to follow your example and I'm going to do for my husband, or I'm going to do for my wife, what Jesus did for his disciples.

I'm so secure in who I know you are and who I am, I'm going to serve and I'm going to care and I'm going to sow seeds of love that serve them, that meet real needs in them. Here's what happens. When your mate gets more and more whole, they change.

They really do change. But how's nagging working? Anybody?

Or blaming? How's that one? How about the old ought and should? You ought to do this. That's how parents talk to children. You never. You always. Those are like four words you should eliminate from marriage, along with divorce.

Go to your little dictionary and cut it out, divorce, get it out. Ought, should, always, never. Does anyone always do anything? Does anyone never? I mean, you never help. Really? I mean, really?

You ought. So it's serving. It's putting their needs. The third principle here is that love must be received.

Ask yourself. Sometimes when you're hurt and you're resentful of your mate and they try and do something kind, what do you do? You want to make them pay, right? I'm not going to receive it right now.

You know, they try and be a little affectionate, or they say something a little kind. I'm not ready to make up right now. I'm going to twist that old knife, you know. Why, Peter? Peterists? Miss Peter? I don't know.

Why? So you have to let down your guard. There's this idea that we're going to, like it's some sort of game, that you do this and I'll do that and I'll pay you back and you do this. That's how you ruin relationships.

You know, I read the passage, the two become one. There's no such thing as a winner and a loser. It's either win-win or lose-lose. Every interaction, every conversation, every fight, every disagreement, every big issue, it's either a win-win or it's a lose-lose. And you can feel better for like 15 minutes, like, I got my way or she better do that or he's finally. And guess what?

One of them, when resentment or hurt or woundedness happens in one person because the other, quote, thinks they won, I'll tell you what, you just sowing seed to discord. And believe me, it'll pop up later. And so, well, then how do you do this? Did you notice even that love is unconditional?

You might jot that down. By the way, this takes supernatural Holy Spirit power in you. Sometimes, have you ever felt like, I just don't feel like loving my mate right now? Have you ever, you know the right thing to do? Anybody ever had, you just know for sure what the right thing to do is like forgive them?

Or the right thing to do is to take the initiative to make up? And then this comes to your mind, you know what? I think 8 out of 10 times, I always take the initiative, I'm not doing it this time. Because it's not really 8 out of 10 times because you're in denial.

It's probably only 6.5 or something, right? And the Holy Spirit, you hear that little nudge? And then it's like, they don't deserve it. Like somehow, this isn't like spiritual ping pong, they don't deserve it, the ball going back and forth. It's what's going to make the relationship right?

What's the outcome? Did you realize that there was one person whose feet got washed that Jesus knew would betray him later? Talk about unconditional love. You've been listening to part one of Chip's message, Serving, How to Deepen Your Love. From his series, Keeping Love Alive, four biblical practices great marriages have in common. For each of these four practices, Chip gives you a couple of principles that explain why it's true, practical implications of what those principles look like in the day to day, and then very specific tools to get this practice into action.

In classic Chip fashion, he unfolds the roadmap to give you clear directions each step of the way. Now if you want to hear how to deepen your love, strengthen your hope, multiply your joy, and restore your peace, you owe it to yourself and your spouse to dig into this series and integrate what you'll learn for the long haul. You'll be hard-pressed to find a more practical resource for the health of your marriage. For a limited time, resources for Keeping Love Alive are discounted, and the MP3s are always free. To order your copy or to send it to a friend, visit us online at livingontheedge.org, or tap Special Offers on the app.

For additional information, just give us a call at 888-333-6003. Chip, this series on Keeping Love Alive is applicable to all marriages and maybe even friendships that people want to deepen and cultivate, but it had an interesting start. Give our listeners a little peek into who you were speaking to at the time and why it was significant, would you?

I'd be glad to, Dave. This is a special ministry, honestly, that Teresa and I have with one another. For the last many years, at least once often twice a year, we go to the Billy Graham Conference Center and we speak to military couples, and they do this amazing thing where for active military, they allow them to come completely free of charge.

They pay for everything. And when you meet with military couples and they've been deployed or one of them is in the service and one isn't and they've been apart for 18 months or two years, and the dynamics and the challenges are just so hard. And so what I did in this series, basically it's keeping love alive, but listen carefully. It's four biblical practices that deepen and grow your marriage. And so I really wanted to be kind of the coach or the mentor with these military couples. And what you'll hear is very practical things that if you and I could sit across the table and I could share after a little over 40 years the biggest things I've learned from Scripture, I mean practical practices. Marriages that do these do well.

Marriages that don't do these things don't do well. That's the series, and I can't wait to share it with you. Awesome, Chip. This is going to be great.

Well, I hope you'll make plans to be with us for the entire series. And if you happen to miss a program, you can pick it up on the Chip Ingram app or anytime on our website, livingontheedge.org. These are free, along with Chip's message notes, which are his detailed outlines of each message, including Scripture references and much more.

Well, now here's Chip with his application. As we wrap up the first program of the series, I hope you heard a few things that you begin to think to yourself, oh, that's how Jesus did it. Jesus connected. Jesus really loved in John chapter 13. What are some things that I can glean, that you can glean out of that?

Here's what I want you to know. I've never taught a mentoring or coaching series quite like this. And what I've done in each one of these is I've taken the way that Jesus deepened his love with his disciples, because he's our model. And when we do that in our marriage relationships, I'm telling you, great things happen. And so when he wanted to deepen his love, what you see in John 13, it was his very last act he serves. And so in each one of these messages, I'll give the teaching, then I'll give the principles, and then most of you are going to be most excited for our next broadcast, because I'll give the practical implications, and then each time I will give you a very specific tool. I mean something practical to do to serve your mate in a way that here's what I will guarantee. It will deepen your love, because it will be a tool that allow you to do what Jesus did for his disciples.

So I don't know what you have going on for the next couple weeks, but let me encourage you, stay with me. Let's join together and learn to love our mates in ways that provide deep, lasting, rich relationships, because it's more than just about us and our happiness. Our marriages are God's billboard to the world.

It's the picture of Jesus in the Church. So join me for the next couple weeks, and let's grow together. As we wrap up, I want to say thanks to those who make this program possible through your generous financial support. Your gifts help us create programs, purchase airtime, and develop additional resources to help Christians live like Christians. Now if you've been blessed by the Ministry of Living on the Edge, would you consider sending a gift today? You can call us at 888-333-6003, tap the donate button, or donate online at livingontheedge.org. Your support is greatly appreciated. We'll be sure to join us next time when Chip continues his series, Keeping Love Alive. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge. .