We all know that the love that transforms is unconditional love. And when we love our mates in the way that God loves us, great things happen.
But what's the practical way to do that? How do you love your mate in a way that really makes sense to them? That's today. Stay with me. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip is our Bible teacher on this international discipleship program, and I'm Dave Drury. We're in Chip's new series called Keeping Love Alive, looking at four biblical practices that great marriages have in common. He began in our previous program with some of his own personal story with Teresa, talking about how their backgrounds weren't the best formula for success. But the practices he's sharing are a guide to hanging in there and building a life together that lasts. Now, if you missed it, it's available online at livingontheedge.org or on the Chip Ingram map. In this program, he's picking up where he left off, describing the practical implications of unconditional love.
Here's Chip now with part two of his message serving how to deepen your love from John chapter 13. What are the practical implications? Practical implication number one is that love is a choice. It's not insincere to do actions and say words of kindness and serve and help your mate when you don't feel like it.
Have you ever heard that one? Well, I really would, but I don't want to be a hypocrite. I mean, I don't want to say something nice if I really don't mean it, or I don't want to do something nice if I don't really mean it. Was Jesus having any ooey-gooey feelings when he went to the cross, when he was praying in the garden? I mean, if emotions are what love is, then Jesus didn't love you and he didn't love me. He said, nevertheless, not my will but yours. Love is a choice. And when you get that, and loving means I'm going to choose to serve my mate when they deserve it, I'm going to choose to serve my mate when they don't deserve it, and I'm going to choose to serve them unconditionally.
And if that doesn't get you into a life of prayer and time in God's Word to say, Lord, I can't do that, nothing will. But I will tell you, one person can completely turn a relationship around. Don't always guarantee the person's going to change overnight, but I'll tell you, love never fails. Don't confuse that with a doormat. Don't confuse that with giving the person their way all the time, but I mean serving and loving and caring. It's a choice. Second implication is love meets the needs of the one loved.
You know, Jesus could have come in and just not even noticed that their feet were dirty. So you got to love people in a way that makes sense to them. You have to observe what are the needs, what's going on in their life. My biggest, biggest challenge in our marriage was I was loving my wife in ways that it was like I spoke German and she spoke French, and I was trying hard and she was trying hard, and I mean we were just completely missing each other. And it was so frustrating because I didn't, things that said I love you to her, I didn't even notice. I didn't know about her family of origin. I didn't know where her wounds were. I didn't know sort of her language of love. I didn't understand how she was wired. All I knew was this is how I feel loved, so I loved her the way I felt loved. And it was like, you know, I remember she was telling me, I can't believe you did this. You must not love me. And I'm thinking, I've been trying to love you like crazy and you think I've been there? Another implication is love requires extreme humility and security.
Did you notice, I mean, this is God the Son humbling himself, bending down, washing feet. And humility is rooted in being secure, knowing who you are, where you came from. In our case, it's knowing who you are in Christ. You're a son, you're a daughter, you're valued, you're loved. Your value as a person isn't how your mate is currently responding to you. You can desire for them to love you and come through for you and meet your needs. You don't need them to come through for you and meet your needs to be a whole person. When you need them to love you in a certain way, that's called codependency. Your life can only work when everything's going okay.
And so it creates all kind of dysfunction. When you can serve and understand, I don't like this, there's times where it was God, I don't even want to do this, I'm going to do this for you. Because right now I'm too ticked off at her to do it for her. But I'm going to choose to do this activity and say these words as an act of worship to you. And wow, first of all, it changed her and it changed me. But it was a choice. And it was challenging.
And it was dependency of the Holy Spirit. And see, that's a whole different paradigm than I don't feel this today. I don't feel that you never do this. You ought to do that. We always fight about money.
You never want to have sex. You know, your parents are crazy. You know, we talk about disciplining the kids and you never follow through. Well, you weren't home and then I come back and then you try and run the show when you get back home.
I've been living in your kitchen, right? The tool for transformation I want to give you is we're going to learn the five languages of love. And I'm going to tell you it'll be the beginning of a new day.
I'll give you the picture of this is how this works. So my kind of one of my love languages are words that affirm. And another love language of mine is physical touch. And probably after that is quality time. And by God's grace, that's quality time is probably her number two and my number two.
And so early in our marriage, I think I'm loving my wife. And so I'm telling her, you look beautiful. I love you. Verbal. I care for you. You're wonderful.
Bebe's off of a tank. And by the way, she doesn't say that to me. I'm an extrovert. She's an introvert.
She doesn't say a lot. There's times we get in the car and we're driving for 30 minutes. I grew up in a family where you didn't take turns. You just interrupted one another. You know, it was like, I mean, my mom grew up in this city that was very Italian.
We were very Italian. You know, someone's talking, someone interrupts them and they interrupt you and then, no, let me tell. And everyone's telling stories and you know, like she came and visited my family and it was like, these people are crazy.
She didn't get a word in edgewise. Well, we're a verbal family. Hers, I mean, you hear a pin drop. It's supper, you know? And so we're driving in the car for like 30 minutes. And so being the man and having bizarre thoughts, I think, I wonder how long, I'm not going to say anything and see how long it takes her to say something to me. You know?
So, okay. You know, and you know, it's 10 minutes, 22 minutes. And now, I mean, I'm just like, and I'm so ticked off and, and we're getting ready to be where we're supposed to be. And you know, she's looking out the window, like that. And then, but in the nick of time, she says this, I'll never forget it. She turns to me and she goes, isn't it wonderful just to be with the person that you love and not have to say a word?
You know, on this drive, I've just looked at the hills and the animals and it's been so beautiful. I'm so glad I didn't say something on that one. You know? And so I would say things like that and it meant nothing. And on another occasion, I thought, you know, I'm working really hard and I wasn't real detail oriented, to say the least. And we're in seminary and so I go and get some flowers for her. You know?
I played a lot of pickup basketball and I would lose track of time and I kept coming home late and we always argue about it and I was trying to make up for it, you know? So I bring these flowers or something and she's, what? She takes more like that. She says, what are you doing? I go, well you don't like flowers? Chip, we only have $10 in our checking count. How much do those cost?
Just a little bit more than $10. So here's what I want you to get. I'm trying to express my love in ways that are not communicating. All right? And so on her side, I mean, we're in marriage counseling. Okay?
We're trying. So she cooks these great meals and the house is always beautiful and she takes care of everything. I mean, just because one of her love languages is acts of service. So she's saying, I love you with a great meal. I'm saying, you know what? I'll eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Hug me like this and say, you're awesome Chip and you're handsome and I think you're brilliant and you look so sexy tonight and you know, there's my love language, right?
And you know, oh, the house looks really clean. You know, it is a wonderful meal. Okay. You know, and so she's feeling like I'm rejecting her love. Now guys, I'm going to skip ahead.
All right? Because here there's some real breakthroughs as I learned to love her in a way that made sense to her and she learned what my love language was little by little by little. See what happens is there's all kinds of issues, right? I mean, we had some deep stuff. Family. When you grew up in an alcoholic family, we had some, some challenging trauma and we have a blended family. I mean, there's a lot of deep and insightful things and things we had to work on and we were working and working and working, but if your emotional tank is empty, you don't want to work at it.
You don't care. It's just like it's not worth it. And so if you can learn to meet the emotional needs of your mate, then what happens is you kind of get enough gas in the emotional tank to work on those things that some of them take a long time.
But, but the testimony of God is, I mean, how many of you prayed to receive Christ one night and just became like the apostle Paul the next day, right? You know, it's, it's a journey and the same is true in your marriage. I mean, in every area you learn to communicate, you learn to develop a satisfying sex life for both of you.
Yeah. You learn to come up with a financial plan and a budget that, that works for you. You learn to relate to your various in-laws in ways that are both accepting and set boundaries, but it's a, isn't it a journey doing all that? And somehow, I mean, I mean, I, you know, I, I, I played basketball and baseball in college then a few times overseas. What I can tell you is when I coach kids is here's the deal. You got to learn to dribble. You got to learn to block out. You got to learn to pass. You learn to rebound. I mean, there's fundamentals and skills and you have to practice and practice and practice and then you put it all together.
It's a process. And you're going to be in, you know, 41 years. I'd like to say, Oh, we don't argue. We never have any problems, but I'd be a liar.
Now we don't have the kind of arguments that attack each other. And you know, after 41 years, I know her buttons and she knows mine. And I mean, she'll, I'm still, my love language is words of affirmation.
So guess what? I'm super sensitive when the tone of her voice is even a little bit critical. If it's a 25 cent criticism in my brain, it goes $25. And I can, you know, I've learned not to respond too much, but it kind of hurts. So let's go through the five love languages. And then I'm going to give you some keys to discover yours. The first love language is words of affirmation. Some of us words are super powerful, a compliment, um, a word of appreciation, uh, for some just saying some words, right? Recognizing things about your character, saying something out loud in front of the children that where a wife says she respects you, uh, being out in public and saying a compliment about your mate, something you admire about them.
And I don't mean in some phony, artificial way. And some people you're not verbal and you're married to someone that their number one love language is words of affirmation. And you know what? They're starving and you go, but I cook great meals. They're starving.
I gave him a nice gift or I gave her a nice gift. They're starving. What they need is words of affirmation. So what do you do? You go into training and you come up with devices to become a person who shares words of affirmation because love is a choice. What, what is it that allows them to come alive?
What fills their tank? And then you just become a student who says, I'm going to flat out choose to figure out what fills her tank or fills his tank and whether it comes naturally or not naturally, how in the world can we give more energy to our profession, more energy to our business than we would to the person that we lie in the same bed with and say, I don't know what it's going to take, but I'm going to, I'm going to learn and that I'm going to do it when it feels good. I'm going to do it when I don't feel anything at all. And I'm going to do it when it feels bad because that's what love is.
That's what real love is because you're going to serve them. So words of affirmation is self-explanatory. But think of, think of all the different things that you can say.
Sometimes it's asking questions. Tell me a little bit more about that. How did that go? How did that make you feel?
What happened in your day today? Wow, that's very interesting. That was very insightful. What I just, you know, I'm amazed at how God has your mind work and you process information. You know, I really thought the way you interacted with our son after he was so disrespectful, but I tell you what, you wrote, you're a godly man. I'm honored to be married to you.
How you responded to, you know, your boss or that supervisor and the way he treated you. Wow. I'm so proud to be your husband and be your wife. The second one here is a quality time. This is just being with one another. It's for me and Teresa.
It is our common love language and I'm guessing it's really probably number two, maybe 2.5 for me. But I have to, I travel quite a bit both here and internationally and before have pastored some churches that were pretty large and so a lot of demand. And so we, I mean every Friday we had a date and just because the age of our kids, I would drop them off on Friday morning because I had Saturday night and Sunday services and we just had a four hour block, 25 years. And then what I learned was we had to connect because of our communication difficulties after supper every night for 10, 15, sometimes 30 minutes, but working to connect. We actually went through a script. I mean it sounds real structured, you know, what are you concerned about? What do you wish?
What are you willing to do? Until we just got where every day in supper or right afterwards we would connect at the heart level. But we put it in. Today it is, we are early risers and we start most days in the wee hours of the morning where we get to see the stars. I learned acts of service, so 15 years ago I started making coffee instead of her. I'd make it the night before and bring her a cup of coffee, sit on the floor and just talk. When I get home and we want to reconnect often it'll be, hey do you need to go to the grocery store or Target or anything because there's just something about when you've been away from each other.
She hates the grocery shop. I mean to me Costco's like whoa. But just doing things together or do you need to run some errands? Just being together. You want to take a walk with the dog and you just hang out and there's something that communicates to both of us that we're connected when we just hang out together. So we do a lot of hanging out and the good news is that's easy for both of us. So for me that acts of service are things fixed, are things picked up. Early in our marriage she would work very hard and she would do all the laundry and it would be on the bed, stacked.
T-shirts and this and this and that. So I would walk in being very busy and I would take all of them off the bed when it was time to go to bed and put them on the dresser. And they might be on the dresser for three or four days. And she would just look at me like don't you love me? And I mean you got to understand when you're as warped as I am, what do you mean don't I love you? Well there's all the clothes that I made and spent all that time to serve and love you on the dresser.
And you know forgive me ladies but I'm so hard headed. What in the world does clothes on the bed got to do with love? Love's about kissing right? You know love was like in my brain not fixing the disposal and the washing machine leaks. What's love got to do with it?
Got to do with it. And you know what I learned? I literally had to write these things on cards and every time I build a habit as soon as I see it I put it away. As soon as I see it I put it away. When I walk by the trash can each and every day I look in there and she'll say well almost every day. But I you know it's you know because what I've learned that means I love you.
And I resisted and I didn't like it and it was ticked off and it didn't make sense. And then finally I thought Chip do you love your wife or not? Yes sir.
Yes. Well if that means I love you to her why don't you just shut up and do it? And so I just started shutting up and doing it. And then she has very sacrificially learned to talk and give words of affirmation and encouragement. And she would probably say yes he's verbal. We've had conversations where oh my gosh. She's almost afraid so what are you learning right now? Oh I got to tell you you know. I don't want to hear that. She goes I don't want the whole sermon right now.
Let me get let me get it later you know or what's going on with you or what happened when you were in China or whatever. And I have to learn to I'm still learning. But she listens. She asks questions. She gives me words of affirmation and it fills my tank.
And I'm learning to fill her tank. Words of affirmation. Quality time. You drink coffee. You take walks. You go to coffee shops. Yes you actually walk around those little shops you know. And then at times sit on the bench outside and say I'll just be here why don't you take your time in there.
But you go. The third is receiving gifts. Some people that's their love language. And they don't have to be expensive. But you know you make something for them. Or sometimes they are expensive.
And see by the way now here's where conflict comes. Some of us by nature are our spenders. And some of us are savers. Some of us when we see money and the way we think about money we think about saving and investing and that's a good use of money. And other people think this is money and what you do is you spend it to love people and do wonderful things. When those two people get married there's a little conflict. And if you learn to communicate it's a blessing because having money stacked up that make you feel secure somehow and not enjoying the good gifts God's given is not very smart.
Or spending more than you actually have is not very smart either. But in this whole issue of gifts some people love surprises some people hate surprises. Some people are surprised what the gift is like. But it can be the gift of I was actually talking with someone earlier and he was saying you know Valentine's Day I got a card in my lunch. And I got a card like his wife little gifts three little cards that said you matter I'm thinking of you I value you. The gift of a phone call the gift of a text I'm thinking about you today.
You know I was at this little store and I know it's really crazy but you know I know you collect those cups from different cities and I saw this as I was traveling and when I come home I got it for you. You know my wife likes pink so sometimes when I'm traveling around and you know I'm not always sure about I'm not the artist type but you know maybe it looks like it might fit her and you know I'm not very good at picking it out but I just bring her something. That's not real high on her list but ask yourself is that when you feel special and often so much of this grew out of when you were a kid and your family and how they celebrated you ask yourself words of affirmation quality time receiving gifts acts of service.
I mean it's helping out it's working in the yard together it's taking care of things it's making sure they're fixed. For some of you that comes really naturally and by the way here's the thing the unconscious thing most of us do is whatever our love language is we express that to our mate because since it is loving to us we assume it's to them and rarely is it the same. The final one here is physical touch and most men rank that pretty high don't confuse that completely with sexual intercourse. I don't know that I've met many men ever who've told me most women probably have no idea how deeply affirming a man feels when his wife wants to be with him and really expresses her love sexually.
It just is the way it is. But physical touch is far more than that. That can be a squeezing of the hand it might be when you're sitting you know you sit close to them it might be a tap on the shoulder when you pour a cup of coffee it might be you know when you're sitting you know I've seen you know someone rub someone's hair but there's people that you know our whole bodies are made to be touched and there's something about I mean think of what happens in a crisis what's the first thing that people do in the middle of a crisis when they see one another they hug right so here's what I want you to do I want you to write down what you think your top two love languages are and let me give you let me give you two ways if you're if they for many of you it's like you know right now but here's one way what bothers you the most what really bothers you the most like if I mean how come he didn't notice I did all the dishes how come she didn't notice I cut the lawn I fixed this I did this I did this or how come I mean she didn't even say thanks there were no words if it really bothers you that's a good indicator it's your love language the other one is is what do you ask for the most I mean when you're getting really honest and you're saying hey you know at some point in time what what what says I love you do what what are you asking for what do you want from your mate the most that is probably your number one love language I mean listen carefully unconsciously what we do is we all have challenges in our marriage and okay it's a problem and he does this or that she does that and she doesn't do this or he doesn't do this and it really bothers you and you keep looking at that and you focus on that and focus on that focus on it you know what you start doing you start looking at your relationship through that lens and then pretty soon if this isn't a good marriage and I don't really like this and you become very very negative and the fact the matter is if you would pull that way back you have really in general a really good marriage with lots of normal problems and if here's the thing if you focus on that little 10 or 20 that's negative it will grow if you begin to fill up your mate's need for love in the language it makes sense to them I will tell you what this thing will keep shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and then there are some things we're going to talk about how you really deal with but you'll have capacity you'll have some capacity to deal with it in a way that isn't critical and it's not make or break the biggest thing I see with couples is you think you have these problems that are insurmountable and you've fallen out of love and there's no hope or you're on the edge when what you don't realize is you just on the 25 yard line you just need to make a couple more first downs and believe me there's a great future ahead of you but you got to make a couple first downs we can't do this Lord without you fill us with your spirit fill us with your power Lord help us to choose to love when we don't feel like it that's probably when we love the most. Chip's going to be back with his application but just a reminder this message serving how to deepen your love is 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 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 the 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 Living on the Edge dot org or tap special offers on the app for additional information just give us a call at triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3 that's triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3 well chip one of the core messages of Living on the Edge is that healthy marriages are the foundation of strong families well as we lean into this series with the aim of strengthening marriages we've put together a unique offer for folks could you tell them a little bit about it and why it's so important absolutely dave you know i wrote a book called marriage that works where i talk about the role of a man the role of a woman what's a man to be what's a man to do what's a woman to be what's a woman to do and what i learned over all these years of pastoring and all the counseling that i've done i tried to put that in a format that's very very practical and then what i learned is people read a marriage book and it's like oh that's great or i ought to do this or maybe i could do that but they forget and so i took all the core content of that book and i put it on what we just call marriage that works truth cards you sort of go through these cards three or four at a time each day and it gives you very practical specific ways to build a deep and strong marriage you know we're living in a day dave where marriages are falling apart or drifting apart and this is a tool that will help those who want to stay close and grow deep to really have something specific to do that'll produce that kind of marriage perfect thanks for that let me go over those details one more time we've bundled chip's book marriage that works with a companion resource called marriage that works truth cards now in the book chip presents the biblical design for marriage what god intended it to look like what it is the unique roles of men and women and how they play out in things like finances and parenting and then in the cards he spotlights relational lies that tended to rail marriage providing biblical truth to get us back on track this is a powerful combination of resources that'll give you the tools you need to strengthen your marriage or help you build a solid foundation before you even start now to check out the discounts on this marriage that works bundle go to Living on the Edge org tap special offers on the app or give us a call at triple 8-333-6003 that's triple 8-333-6003 as we wrap up today's program i want to give you just a little bit of mentoring or coaching on how to put this into practice by wave review serving our mate is the way we express unconditional love but then how do you serve them in a way that makes sense to them i ask you near the end of this message to just write down two or three behaviors things specifically that you know makes your mate feel loved and if you're not sure what they are just go ahead and ask them at times i've asked trisa just write down this may not sound romantic write down two or three things that when i do these things you really feel loved and guys by the way it might be taking out the garbage or helping with the vacuuming or something that you're thinking you gotta be kidding me well here's the good news let them write it down and just choose to do it because people need to be loved in a way that makes sense to them the second thing i talked about was learning your mates top two love languages i get this from the book love languages by gary chatman and the five languages are words of affirmation quality time receiving gifts acts of service and physical touch and the only point here is this is that we tend to give love in the way that it's meaningful to us in other words mine are words of affirmation and physical affection well i thought well if i give that to trisa she's going to really feel loved what i didn't realize was that's not her love language her number one love language is acts of service so what i want you to do is just look at those five things you can even check out the notes we've got them right there and then begin this week to love your mate in the language that makes sense to them i found when i began to do acts of service around the house cleaning up things helping out with things seeing what needed to be fixed my wife started to feel very very loved when i had been telling her i love you and i'm for you and i did all these what i thought were romantic things and they were like bbs off of the tank let me encourage you it may not sound sexy or life-changing but isn't it interesting that the very last thing jesus did he served his disciples and at the end of the day when we follow his example that's how you keep love alive in your marriage let's do that this week you know an easy way to share chip's messages is with the chip ingram app with just a couple of taps any message you choose is on its way to your friend someone in your family or on social media to help others who could benefit from the truth of scripture and its encouragement and don't forget to include a quick note about how it made a difference in your life we'll be with us again next time when chip continues his series keeping love alive until then this is dave drewey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge
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