Hard work and dedication are the keys to success in many areas of life, whether it's running a business, playing a sport, or just staying in shape. But every organization and relationship gets stuck. Things get old. They get routine. You might say they stagnate. How do you keep your marriage from stagnation?
That's today. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram.
I'm Dave Drouie, and we're nearing the end of our brand new series, Keeping Love Alive Volume 3. And as Chip just teased, for these last two programs, he'll focus on the issue of stagnation, what it looks like, and how to keep your marriage from falling into unhealthy routines. Now, before we get started, if you're new to Living on the Edge or just want to learn more about us, go to livingontheedge.org. There you'll find tons of resources on a wide range of topics and countless programs for you to enjoy. Or if you prefer, the Chip Ingram app is also a great way to get plugged in with our ministry.
Well, if you have a Bible handy now, turn to Hebrews chapter 13, and let's join Chip for his talk. Pull out the notes. I think the final challenge is stagnation.
I have two or three quick illustrations that I'm going to give you an overview. I want to talk about breaking out of stagnation because I think it constantly rears its head. Life just gets to a grind, and you just start doing things and get into routines that lessen communication, lessen romance, lessen discipleship. And this is a very simple thing, but if you've ever built a fire, now, this is so simple, please don't laugh at me, but if you've ever built a fire, a really nice fire, and if you stop putting logs on the fire, can anybody remember what happens? It goes out, right? I mean, you put logs on and keep sending them, it gets down to coals, and you put a couple logs on, and I think what happens in our marriages, it's not intentional, but you get busy and you just stop putting some logs on the fire of your relationship, and then you start thinking that it's dying.
Well, actually, no, what it just needs is fuel. It doesn't mean you married the wrong person. It doesn't mean that you have irreconcilable differences. It means that, and sometimes, especially, there's the outdoor fires, but there's those fires. We have a friend that has a cabin where you open the door to the thing, and it stays hot for a long time. Well, I love to build the fires every day, but after a while, the ashes build up so much that you've got to take the ashes out before you can put more wood. Okay, let's get rid of some of the ashes, and little by little, you put a few logs on, and then sometimes you need a little help, because those logs are big, and so you have to put some paper in there right now, and you have to take some extra energy to get that fire going again. So what I want to talk about now is breaking out of stagnation. We know that our priorities get out of whack. We can get stagnant. We can be tempted in low moments. Children can drain us. I love the line that I heard.
You don't know it's too much until it's too much, but just the fact that renewal has to happen all the time. I had an interesting experience, one of the, I think one of the great experiences of my life because I've not served in the military, but I had a friend who arranged for me and about eight or nine other guys to get on a special kind of plane that I can't tell you what it was and go out near San Diego and land on an aircraft carrier, but it's 20 stories high and 5,000 people. We toured everything from, you know, went up and were the captain and it was very interesting to realize the best disciplers in the world are the military. There was a 19-year-old female driving this huge aircraft carrier, and right behind her was someone that had trained her, and I learned that in six months she would be going somewhere else and someone else would come in, and then I saw 18 and 19 and 20 and 23-year-olds going like this as planes would come down and, you know, stop, and then they took us down to the munitions and we got the tour of everything, could answer any question, and the level of maintenance, the level of what they did, how they did it, how regimented it was, how everyone knew their job, and everything was kept tip-top shape, and as one guy said, he said, you know, you see all these planes coming in and red flags here, yellow flags here, those, if someone doesn't know what their job is or they do it wrong, someone dies out here.
Everything has to be maintained. All I want to say is that's the kind of focus and intentionality we need to bring to our marriages, and if you do, because you've been trained to do it regardless of where you find yourself, as you see on the front of these notes, your marriage can change for the better. The picture, when I think of God's marriage, is an equilateral triangle that you see is there. God is at the top and you'll notice that if you put your notes down, put your fingers on the right, you know, where it says woman and where it says man at the bottom, you know, kind of at the bottom of the triangle, and then just move your fingers up halfway, and as you, as the man and the woman each get closer to God, what happens to their relationship?
And then move it all the way up within about a quarter of an inch to the top. See, the greatest thing you'll ever do for your marriage, it's the thing that you can control, is walk closely with God, because as you get closer to Him, He gives you the power and the perspective to give your mate what they need, to forgive your mate when it's really hard to, to not let the wounds fester. And then you'll notice that in that picture, there's spirit, emotions, your soul and body, and on the right side where it says spirit, just write the word fellow worshiper, is this is just a part of, this is God's diagram, this is the engineer saying, this is how marriage works, you want to have a spiritual connectedness with one another, be fellow worshippers, and on the left side of that, write the word agape. There's three words in scripture, four in Greek for love. Agape love is an unconditional giving of love with no expectation of return. God so loved the world, it's agape love. And so you want to, you want to experience God's love and you want to provide that to one another. Where it says soul, if you put a little arrow to the right, and write best friends.
So God wants you to be fellow worshippers, but an awful lot of marriage is just being best friends. We'll talk about what that looks like. And to the left, then write the word phileo. It doesn't matter how you spell it.
Just be, be phonetic. But phileo love is, it's a friendship love. It's, it's, when Jesus, you know, said, do you love me to Peter? Peter responds, you know, phileo, you know, I love you. And he goes there a couple times and, and finally he gets to the Lord, you know, you know who I am.
Yes, we're friends, but only you. And he makes a little distinction between agape love and phileo love. But this is, it's, it's the kind that, that, that friends have that you care for one another.
We would call it, you got each other's back. You have fun. You share. And then the body is passionate lovers. Put that to the right. And so there's fellow worshippers, best friends, passionate lovers.
And then on the left side, write the word eros. We get our English word erotic. God wants us to have deep, intimate, passionate sexual relationship with one another. And it starts with your connection. There's a very high correlation by praying together and having passionate love physically, because there's something that happens that opens the heart and the soul of one another. There's a connectedness.
And so that's the, that's, that's the picture. The problems are three or fourfold. There's spiritual issues, psychological issues, gender issues, and history issues. And by spiritual, I mean, I'm basically a selfish person. Even after coming to Christ, I want my way and my wife wants her way.
And so I've got to, the only way I can get that straightened out is by God's power. And then there's the psychological. And what I mean by that is you have different personalities, introvert, extrovert.
You like different things. You connect in different ways. You're different and differences are great for connecting, but differences also repel. And then you have gender issues. Women and men don't look at life the same way, don't respond in the same ways.
And so, you know, that old, old book, you know, what was it? You know, men are from Mars and women are from Venus. I mean, there's, there's contrary to what we're hearing in our day, there's dramatic differences, not just physically, but between men and women in terms of everything from processing information to relational styles, to abilities and capacities. And then finally we have history and some of that's family of origin.
Some of it's trauma. You married someone that has been abused, someone who's been raped, someone who's been in an accident. I mean, all the, all I'm trying to tell you is there's lots working against you having a great marriage. And then finally there's a, there's a process. And I think the process primarily is this idea of learning to communicate and share openly so that you can deal with those issues and realize, yes, we're different. We have different personalities. We have different backgrounds. We can learn about one another, but we have, you know, God, the supreme engineer has told us, put me first, draw near to me.
You'll draw near to one another. And at the very bottom where it says Genesis 2 24, just write the word oneness or intimacy. That's God's goal in marriage.
Genesis 2 24 says, well, we'll leave our families and become one. And it says they were both naked and unashamed and certainly was physical, but it's more, it's emotionally, it's the vulnerability being safe with one another. And so all I wanted to do is just give you the sort of the, a picture of exactly kind of that's, that's the goal.
That's the design. And so I think there's four things that keep stagnation at bay. And the first one is commitment and commitment is a lifelong notice choice of unconditional love, circling your notes if you would choice. So often we think it's commitment is when it works. The focus here is to love.
And as we've already shared, love is volitional, not just emotional response to our spouse. It's that agape word. It's Jesus in the garden choosing to go to the cross. And our model is Hebrews chapter 13 verse five. And we're only going to look at four verses very shortly. So I'd like you to go ahead and turn to them so you can, I'd like you to see them in your own Bible or your own phone, if you will. Hebrews chapter 13, it's written to a mixed group of believers and unbelievers. And the big issue of the book is people are drifting.
They're drifting away from God under pressure. Verse four says marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept pure. For God will judge the adulterer and the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. So there's a couple strong words there about sexual purity, about the danger of not money itself, but the love of it.
And then here's the purpose clause. For God has said, never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you. So we say with confidence the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?
It's that idea. I will never, ever leave you. I will never, ever forsake you.
Your mate knowing that that's your commitment to them creates a place of safety. You can be hurt. You can be angry. You can be frustrated.
You can have arguments. But I don't think he ever used the word divorce. It should never come out of your mouth. The commitment says I love you. That's what commitment really says. I love you in the good times. I love you in the bad times. I love you when things are going well. I love you especially when things are not going well.
Love for certain means fidelity to one another sexually. Loving your mate when it's hard. And I just think that's what helps you get through. There's dark valleys in every marriage.
There are seasons. And sometimes it's because of children or financial pressure or struggles with in-laws or health issues or depression or anxiety or anger. But to know that there's one other person that you just choose to say I don't know how.
I don't have it all figured out. But I love you. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. Reinforcing that and I'll give you some ways to do that as we close up.
That helps refresh. We sort of assume that but over time you got to put that log on the fire. You got to look your mate in the eye and tell him I love you. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. Second is communication. The focus here is to know. It's a lifelong skill learning to understand each other. Circle the word skill. See some things are just a choice.
This is what I'm going to purpose to do. But this is a skill. And it's not learning to talk as I've had to learn painfully. It's learning to understand each other. You want to know them. You know what makes them happy. Know what makes them sad. Over time you know why they do what they do even if it doesn't make sense to you.
You know where they've been and where they've been hurt and where they've been wounded and why they might be sensitive to this or sensitive to that. The skill, it takes time. It takes practice. It takes help.
It takes effort. Therese and I have read multiple books over the years. We have listened to lots of messages.
We have made time to get away. Our model is Jeremiah 33.3. I love this. It says, call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things that you do not know. God says, let's communicate. Just call to me. Open up. Ask. Talk. I'll answer you.
And I think that's our model. Isaiah 43, I remember it's I think verse 21 through about verse 26 if you want to check it out later. It's a judgment passage where he's reminding them of all the things they've done and he said, I wasn't looking for all your sacrifices and all this and all that. But he says, you've drifted away from me. And then he says, I even I have forgiven you for my own sake. And then he makes this invitation. Come, let us argue our case together. In other words, God's saying to people that have rejected him, let's just start talking again. Let's just start communicating.
Even though you're way over here, I've blotted out your transgressions for my own sake. I want to be with you. I want to connect with you so much. And I just think that's the kind of attitude we want to have with our mates, especially when we're wounded. Communication is the highway upon which love travels. Communication says, and this is a key word, I trust you. So you can say words, but communication is I'm going to open up and I'm going to share some things that are vulnerable.
And if you don't treat them very well, then it's going to be very painful. And at the end of the day, love is being willing to say some things that I would really like to do or are meaningful to me if they hurt my mate, that I need to be willing to adjust. See, because the thing, when you lose trust, you don't just lose it in an area.
Have you ever had someone do something and then pretty soon everything's suspect after that and you read into this and you read into that and you take circumstances and you form dots that aren't there? That's why communication is so vital and that we build trust with one another. The third, there's commitment, communication. The third I would call log that you need to put on the fire is caring. An adventure of lifelong friendship, fun and mutual fulfillment and circle the word adventure. Yes, you got to be committed.
Yes, you have. There's a skill to learn and communication doesn't come easily for Teresa and myself. It was really hard. There was a book called Communication Key to Your Marriage by Norman Wright and we read it and filled out the questions and then later it came out with another book. More communication key to your marriage.
We got that one too. I mean, we were so slow and you can actually learn but there needs to be some adventure. The focus here is to share. It's becoming best friends and it looks different for different people but it's taking walks, it's dates, it's talks, it's hobbies, it's weekends away. It's thinking back to what did you do when you were dating? What did you do that's fun because what happens is work, work, work, work and especially once kids, kids, kids. This is one of the areas that literally can just dissipate and we'll talk about having a plan where at least once a week you and your mate say, you know what, our relationship really matters.
It matters more than the kids sports over here and this over here and that over there. We're going to have some time. We're going to do something fun together. You have to talk sure but life can't all be serious.
It's got to be an adventure and fun. The model here is Matthew chapter 11 verse 28 and it's an interesting passage if you want to turn there with me but this is Jesus speaking to a group of people who are in great need of rest and he says in verse 27 all things have been committed to me by my father and no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and those to whom the son chooses to reveal him come to me. All you are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I'm gentle and humble in heart and you'll find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Yes we had that with Jesus but we need to have that as a couple. We need to be in the same yoke doing some things together, things that you both like to do, things that are fun, things that are refreshing. So whatever that was when you were dating, whatever it is when you get done and you look at each other it goes I'm glad we did that. That was fun. Just great to be with you.
Begin to pencil those back into your schedule. Caring says I like you. Yes we need to say to one another by our commitment I love you, by our communication I want to know you.
Caring says I like you. You've been listening to part one of Chip's Message, challenge number four, stagnation. He'll be right back with his application for this teaching from his series Keeping Love Alive volume three. If you were able to press pause on life, take a step back and really evaluate your marriage, how does it look? Is it just a little out of sync? Are there a few areas that need some work or is your relationship on the verge of completely falling apart? Through his newest volume of Keeping Love Alive, Chip reveals a humbling truth every marriage has its challenges, even the ones that look perfect.
So how can you get your relationship where it needs to be? Well join Chip as he shares profound biblical truths that will help you and your mate tackle these hurdles together and build a stronger Christ-centered marriage. For more information about Keeping Love Alive volume three or our series resources, go to livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or livingontheedge.org.
App listeners, tap special offers. Well Chip, this has been a great series on how couples can really keep love alive. But what do you say to that couple who say, our love isn't alive, in fact it's a nightmare right now, and I don't know if I can even stay in it. What word do you have to those whose marriage is on the rocks?
Well Dave, that is a really good question. And this series is about keeping love alive and tuning it up and getting better. But the fact is, especially in view of the last pandemic years and all the impact that's had, there's lots of couples that are struggling right now like never before. In fact, I've had two or three friends, people that have had very strong marriages that have come to me and I've sat down with my wife and we've met with them, and I mean things are kind of falling apart. And so I'd say first and foremost for some of you, you do need to find a really good Christian counselor and say, okay, let's pause.
If we could have figured this out, we need to get some outside help. The second thing I would say is that tough times are normal, and we all have tough times. And so sometimes what we need is just some focus, some intentionality, and some tools. I mean, even in my own marriage, I've been married over four decades, and I can just tell you of multiple seasons. In fact, even one coming out of this pandemic time where Teresa and I just sat down and said, boy, we need to refocus and give more energy to our marriage because of all the stuff that's happening.
We just sense some drift occurring. So I just want to tell couples first and foremost, it doesn't mean it's terrible and it won't work out. It does mean you need to address it. Of all the things I've ever taught on marriage, I would say a small group series called Experiencing God's Dream for Your Marriage is the most helpful for people that are struggling. Because in it, I address the heart issues, communication, fighting fair, role differences, when you're discouraged and angry with one another. And then in that, I have lots of tools. So let me just encourage you, don't give up, hang in there.
God has a plan and it does work. Thanks, Chip. Well, whether you're a newlywed or have been married for years, this resource will make a significant difference in your relationship. You're going to be blown away by how much you'll learn about your spouse just by investing some time in this study. So let me encourage you, order the small group guide or the DVD and get ready to enjoy your relationship the way God intended. For complete details on Experiencing God's Dream for Your Marriage, go to livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003. Or visit livingontheedge.org.
App listeners, tap special offers. Chip, you know, I'm sure today's message really spoke to a lot of couples out there who feel stuck in a lifeless and maybe even loveless marriage. But that doesn't have to be the normal.
It's possible for them to reignite the fire of their relationship again, isn't it? It really is, Dave. It's interesting you had asked me this. Very recently, Therese and I did a seminar at the Billy Graham Center with military couples.
They have an hour of Q&A and they write down their questions. I got this stack of green cards and a number of the cards started like that. I'm in a loveless marriage. I feel like I'm single. We're on parallel tracks. We don't cuddle.
We don't communicate. It was really, really sad and tragic. I thought, where do I begin and how am I going to address these? And then there was a card right behind him. The card right behind him, I think the Lord got these cards in the right place for me, and the card behind it said this, I just want everyone to know that your Chip and Therese is not the only marriage God restored. Our marriage was dead and there was no hope. We'd already planned on divorce. We didn't communicate.
There was no intimacy in our marriage. Then this happened and the lady began to share very specific things and steps that she took and how for three or four months she did that and her husband, no response, no response, couldn't even believe it. Because God had worked in her, then about four months in, the lights came on with him. Interesting, that was the Q&A time.
Then at the very end, they have a testimony time and a guy stands up and he goes, you know, you heard that question. Well, I'm the husband of that woman and here's what I want to tell you. Don't give up. Our marriage right now is like a second honeymoon and we're communicating and this happened and that happened and this happened.
But it all was around dealing with the things that allowed stagnation to occur over time. And I just want to say to people, Dave, there is hope. I mean, there is hope and the practical thing I would say is it would be what Teresa and I wrote in the book Marriage That Works. In it, we kind of go through our journey of ups and downs but really the key is I share what the Bible actually teaches to a man and to a woman about this is your role, this is your responsibility and these are the tools that develop intimacy. And wow, if you make that a priority and take baby steps, God can save any marriage. And so there is hope. And Father, I pray right now you will speak, you'll open the eyes of men and women all across America to see their mates through your eyes.
That's what that lady said. She said, God gave me eyes to see my husband's need the way he saw my husband, the needs and the hurts and the things he wanted me to love. And God, I pray that for men. I pray that for women. And I ask Almighty God that you'll restore marriages in Jesus' name.
Thanks Chip. Well, if you and your spouse are wanting to experience a deeper marriage, let me encourage you to order Chip's insightful book. In Marriage That Works, you'll learn about the biblical model for love and relationships and the specific roles for husbands and wives. Discover what it really means to be one with your spouse on a spiritual, mental, emotional and physical level. To order your copy of Marriage That Works, go to specialoffersatlivingontheedge.org or on the Chip Ingram app. Well, join us next time as Chip wraps up his new series, Keeping Love Alive, Volume 3. Until then, this is Dave Druey thanking you for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.
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