Love Sex and Lasting Relationships - The Secret to a Lasting Relationship, Part 1

If you ask the average person on the street, what do you want most out of life?

They'll tell you. I want a significant, deep, lasting relationship. Today I'm going to talk about the secret to a lasting relationship.

Stay with me. 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. We stand firm on God's Word and what it says about love, sexuality, and marriage, even as cultural morals change and often oppose that truth.

And that's why the study we're kicking off today is so controversial in the world's eyes. In just a minute, we'll begin Chip's foundational series, Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships. Over the coming programs, Chip will reveal why God's original design for intimacy and relationship is so much better than the Hollywood model. But before he gets going, if this is your first time listening to Living on the Edge, or you want to learn more about what we do, go to livingontheedge.org. You'll find resources on tons of topics and countless programs to enjoy.

Or if you prefer, the Chip Ingram app is also a great way to get plugged in with our ministry. Okay, if you have a Bible, go now to Ephesians chapter five, as we join Chip for today's talk, The Secret to a Lasting Relationship. Love, sex, and lasting relationships. You know, we are all, we just are made and wired and longed to be loved and to give love.

We are made and designed by the Creator of the universe to have spiritual, emotional, and connection physically with the person of the opposite sex that does something in our soul and our heart. And we are longing for that experience to not fade, not end in divorce, but to last your whole life. And the question is, if you're single, how do you find that right person, right? If you're married, how do you keep that kind of love alive? If you're widowed or a widower, how do you avoid that pitfall of when to move forward and because of the great need and the hurt and the hole in your soul of getting connected too early in some way with someone that usually ends up in a disaster? Why is it there's so many relationships, but most of them just don't turn out very well? I mean, over half of all the marriages don't work.

Where I want to start is with something I think is pretty basic, is what's the secret to a lasting relationship? I mean, let's face it, there's some people that love each other, it's rare. I mean, you know, you can see them at all different stages and decades and, man, they are in love and there's something to what they know that a lot of us don't. And what I'm going to suggest is there's two basic models out there that we're going to look at. Hollywood's model is one and God's model or God's prescription to enhance your love life is the other. And so I want to look at Hollywood's model and then I'll look at God's model and maybe we can learn some things.

Imagine, if you will, that this small little tube is filled with multiple silicon tiny little chips that can take information and then you can turn it this way and it can synthesize it through an algorithm to take all that information to come up with the basics of what's inside of it. So what, hypothetically, I put inside of here is the last 40 years of movies, the last 40 years of all television shows, the last 40 years of all self-help books, the last 40 years of all romance novels, the last 15 or 20 years of reality shows and anything that's been written about love, sex and relationships. And then when I take this and I say, okay, of all the movies we've seen, the magazines, the books, the world that we've grown up in, if I could shoot that out through some sort of algorithm to say, is there a step-by-step process to find the right person to be in love and have this great awesome relationship with amazing sex, what would it be? Hollywood would say this. Number one, you need to find the right person.

I mean, right? We all grew up, there's someone out there for you, you need to find them. Where are they? I wonder when and how are you going to meet them? And so what we're told in each one of those movies and in the songs that we sing and the Netflix that we watch is, there's someone out there but you've got to attract them. In other words, if you're going to find them, it's kind of like you need to be honey so the bees will come for you. What Hollywood says is there's a way that you attract people and what they say is that you need to be really good bait. You need to look a certain way, you need to dress a certain way, you need to drive a certain car, you need to be sort of hip or cool or neat or whatever word you want to use. And then there's a theme that's very, very physical in how you attract the opposite sex.

In fact, I did something. I'm going to take you on a quick little journey. This is very, I just went to the typical drug store and I went to the magazine rack and I thought, I'm going to do some very anecdotal, non-scientific research. And I'm just going to take ten magazines and say, is there any theme about who I'm supposed to be to attract the opposite sex? And so I'd like to invite you to join me on my research. So I started off kind of mild. Let's focus on our self. The self magazine says I can burn fat faster.

And as I go through these, see if you can see some words or themes that developed. And then I can tone and tighten. Don't have to go to the gym to do it. And then here's something, sporty sex.

How many calories can you actually burn? I didn't realize that was part of the diet program, but I can see where it would sell a magazine. So I go beyond simply myself because I want to be glamorous because if I'm glamorous for glamour, attract other people. And a very attractive young woman here will tell me 65 ways to play up your body. So apparently how my body looks is really important.

But I like this. Ladies, you don't just need to look good with makeup. You don't need to look good after you've been rested, been to the gym, got a little tan. In this magazine, how to look ridiculously good on zero sleep.

I mean, hey, the expectations aren't getting too high, are they? And then just in case you kind of wonder, you know you're wondering that man and how do men really think. In this edition, 1,001 men answer your questions, ladies.

This is what you're going to find out. How to be good bait. About sex, about your body, about babies, about falling in love and falling out of love. Well, you know, it's a fitness world. It's a diet world. We all know that we want to be in good shape. So I thought Shape magazine would be a good one. And so what does this tell us? Well, you can drop seven pounds in two days. Amen, right?

And then it's the better sex workout. I'm catching a theme. I don't know about you. There might be a theme emerging here.

Here's how I like it at the very bottom. One week plus four moves equals your new hot body. Is that like amazing? You don't have to diet, don't go to the gym, just in one week? Are you beginning to realize you have been inundated by every form of media to say, how you look is the key to attracting the opposite sex. And sex is the ultimate goal of every relationship.

That's what it says. Well, let's get on a little more, you know, focus toward health. And so women's health, how do you get healthy? Flat abs, that's how. Hold it.

Not only flat abs, but more sex, better sex, up the action and the satisfaction. Hey, you know what? It's not like I pulled these from years. I just went to the drugstore yesterday, all right?

This is just a for real. Now, here's the moment though, things are changing. It used to be that there was an expectation, if you're in your 20s and your 30s, and you know, hard body, all the rest.

But we used to at least think that like, you know, 20, 30 years later, 40 is the new 20. So if you're not married, if you're 40 and you don't look like her, you have a problem. And here's the thing, if that message keeps going, your husband looks at you and looks at her and says, you know, maybe... So what's the deal?

Or flip it around. And you look at him and say, you know, he didn't have that when we got married. Well, guys, let's not let the women take all of it. This is the bachelor. And so just an average normal looking guy from my opinion, actually. Right, guys?

Kind of looks like a little stubble, hard body. But now think of this, that this show has so many followers. We have 17 women, all who happen to be gorgeous, who want to line up that don't know anything about him but want to marry him. What's he like? I have no idea.

I just want to be on the show. But he found out three of them have dark pasts that want to take him down. This is men's health and this is the most unusual men's health I've ever seen. I do this research when I walk out of the grocery store, by the way, often. And usually the men's health has a guy with his shirt off. Ladies probably don't even notice. But he has his shirt off and he doesn't have a six-pack. He doesn't have an eight-pack. He's got like a 12-pack. Now you do understand that he's been working out for years. This is his full-time job. He takes creatine and probably little steroids here and there because he's not playing the NFL. And he looks amazing. And what he says to me is, Chip, you can burn flat abs 24-7, the new all-Spartan workout.

Ooh, okay. And muscle secrets from the real fight club. Guys, you get to that gym, your wife's going to go, wow. Or if you're not married or if you're looking, the whole key is for some of you, maybe you're thinking it's too late for the gym. Maybe it's in the clothes. A little more sophisticated.

In this detailed magazine, build a perfect wardrobe, the eight pieces every stylish man should own. See, if you've got a shirt like this, they can tell where this came from. I mean, the women. I mean, then Starbucks.

Unbelievable. Do you see that suit? But that's not enough. If you can't afford the wardrobe underneath of it, the haircut of the moment. Guys, how cheap could it get?

Well, it's not really all that cheap, except for some. You have this haircut, and she goes, unbelievable. I think I'm in love. We're having a bit of fun.

And we laugh because it's in the air, it's in the water, it's in the movies, it's in the songs. And we all care about what we look like. And we all have these private thoughts that we wish we looked a lot better. And we all have now been inundated with a culture, and it's in the air and water, that says if you don't look like this, you don't measure up. And worse, we can get deluded in thinking we kind of do, but the person that we're married to doesn't.

Or we can feel like if I don't look like one of these people and I'm single, I'll never ever get married. And you know what, here's the thing, is the expectations are now so false and so unrealistic, this message destines you to fail in every relationship. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Today's message, The Secret to a Lasting Relationship, is from our series Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships. Chip will join us in studio later to share some insightful application for us to think about. For more information about our ministry, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org.

That's LivingOnTheEdge.org. Well with that, let's get back to today's program. It destines you to try and become something you're not. It destines you to compare inside your relationship where any flaw now is up against these 1% of the gene pool in all of the world who have private chefs, work out four hours a day, and have unlimited expenses on wardrobes, and then they do these shoots and then they touch up the shoots afterwards. And it gets worse because it never ends.

The last one is the most sad for me. I don't know about you ladies, but if you don't look like this at 60, there's a big problem. And so now it's not like you can't even grow old.

There is no room for sags or lags or anything else. And what I want you to know is that Hollywood's formula is find the right person and that's the way. And then when you find them, you fall in love, right?

I mean in all the movies, you just fall in love. The picture is you're driving your car and you stop your car and it's at a red light and you look over and she looks over. You look again, she looks again. Your eyes meet. Electricity starts at the top of your head. You begin to shake almost uncontrollably inside your car.

You have the Volkswagen, you have the Volkswagen. You don't know her, but you're in love. She pulls off and you want to follow her.

Or sometimes it's a little less dramatic. You're just walking in a coffee shop and you notice her. She notices you. You go to refills at exactly the same time. You brush one another. Magic dust pours down upon both of you.

I've got to know his name. You go back having not done any more than that hoping that the same day at the same time at the same coffee shop, he or she will be there. But you return home to say to your roommate, I'm in love. Your IQ drops 30 points.

You start acting in ways that are ridiculous, spending money you don't have, dressing up. Does this look good? Does this look good? Does this look good? What do you think? Should I buy a new outfit? Why? I'm going to the coffee shop. Why?

To meet a guy I've never met, that I don't know his name, that I know nothing about, that I think I'm in love with. Now, is that not Hollywood's formula? You believe that a lot.

I believe that a lot. The third step in Hollywood's formula is once you find that person, and once you sort of have this mystical, infatuated experience that we'll literally talk about later because there's a chemical reaction that happens when we're infatuated, and God designed us that way, and it's a good part of a relationship, we just need to understand what part, then you fix your hopes and dreams on this person. And what you do is that, so all the songs are, I can't live without you. In fact, once you find him and you fall in love, if loving you is wrong, I don't want to be. How did you know those words?

You're amazing. Over and over and over and over. And then when you fix your hope on this person, and probably most everyone's been there, and then there's the breakup, your life, you can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't drink. Life is meaningless. You put on weight, you drink too much, you do all kind of things because what was going to make your life work is gone. And if you don't believe it, ask all the pretty people who make all the movies who are the most beautiful with the most money, who seem to not be able to stay together for more than a few months or a few years.

And then finally, when failure occurs, you repeat steps one, two and three. And it goes like this, in a marriage, it goes like this. We've fallen out of love. I guess it just wasn't the right person. What was good for a few years, and she was that way and I was that way, but we've grown apart. All these euphemisms, the belief system is there's someone out there, and therefore, once you break up, you go back to the gym. You ever seen how many 40 to 50-year-olds there are in the gym?

Right? Now you get a new wardrobe, you get a new car, and you play the same game, except the next time, the chance of failure goes up to 75%, not 50%. This is the mantra that you have been sold that destines you for dissatisfaction or to never find the right person or to have heartbreak that God never intended. The results are the success rate of Hollywood's formula is since 1960, the divorce rate has doubled. About 41 to 43% of people are divorced now, but since we don't count those who cohabitate and then break apart, a good round figure is about 50%. Over half of all divorces happen in the first 10 years, but really between year 3 and 6 is the most devastating time because reality hits in, some young kids come, people don't endure.

The pain and the fallout is really beyond what we often think. Despite all the words and talk shows of it was an amiable divorce, we're still friends, it was just a mistake. The research indicates that the pain, fallout, and damage to the children, to the economics, half of all women who go through divorce live below the poverty level, or just the fractured relationship and the pain is the tip of the iceberg and that our problems and the tragedy of divorce follows us into adulthood. One of the most interesting studies I've ever read was Children of Divorce 25 Years Later, a landmark study that tracked kids from broken homes, beautifully tracked them for over 25 years to find out what happens to kids, not now, oh they're resilient, everything's going to be okay. Wallerstein is the founder of the Center for Families in Transition, one of nation's leading expert on divorce, and her book The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce 25 Years Later, landmark study. She gives an example, Karen was 36 when she detailed to Wallerstein the long shadow cast by her parents' divorce. Like so many other children divorced, James had embarked on a search for lasting love, yet was so deeply anxious that she was unable to trust others. A fear of abandonment kept her cling to a string of unsuitable and troubled partners. I mean, it would be too embarrassing to ask you to raise your hand of how many in this room have been down that road or have a sister or a brother or one of your kids that you say, yep, that's what happened. It goes on to say, by the time the children of divorce reached their 30s, she found only half of them were doing well personally.

Interestingly, it seemed that it had absolutely no impact on their work life. We substitute and we compensate. Here's all I want you to hear very clearly. Hollywood's formula is all that we've heard.

You don't even have to try and not believe it or believe it. Every time you wake up and watch a commercial, read a book, glance at a magazine, watch a movie, this is the mantra behind it. And if you don't understand that you are being hoodwinked, seduced, and used, then you're a fool, because it doesn't work. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, who has been listening to Part 1 of Chip's message, The Secret to a Lasting Relationship, from our series Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships.

Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. The pursuit of true love is everywhere we look. It's overly romanticized in the movies and TV shows we watch, the books we read, and the songs we listen to. In this study in Ephesians Chapter 5, Chip's going to expose the love we see in culture as a mirage of the real thing. Stay with us as we uncover God's design for finding, staying, and growing in a genuine love that can last a lifetime. To learn more about this series or our resources, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org. That's LivingOnTheEdge.org. Well, Chip's joined me in studio now, and Chip, you know, out of all of our series, this study in Ephesians Chapter 5 is one of your favorites.

Why is that? And why is the subject of love, sex, and lasting relationships so important right now? Well, Dave, I have to tell you, I happen to be involved with a number of millennials in a church, and they're all looking for that right and that great relationship. And the flip side is, this is one of the earliest teachings I did that became a book, and so I've heard from people literally around the country and around the world, not just single people in their 20s and 30s, but that whole other group, kind of that group in the 40s through 60s, who either went through a divorce or who lived together and it didn't work or find themselves widowed. One of the most passionate things we long for in our life and our heart is how do you find that right person, and honestly, how do you qualify whether they're the kind of person?

What's the path? What's the game plan to really find yourself in a relationship where you have deep, meaningful love for a lifetime, where you understand and have vulnerability, and that as you get married there's sex that is God-ordained and it's exciting, and that, you know what, it just doesn't fall apart. It doesn't go down the path that so many relationships do that simply don't work. This is a different paradigm, and I am so excited because I've met literally hundreds and hundreds of couples and received emails and letters of people who said, either I was on my way to a divorce and I read this book or listened to this series, or this is what we went through together when I was trying to ask, is this the right guy or the right gal? And we listened to this together, and it became the pathway by which our marriage was built. I just cannot wait to share this if there's ever a time in our culture where Christians need to know how do you find the right guy or the right gal in the right way and have God's blessing?

It's now, and I believe this series really delivers that by the grace of God. Thanks for that, Chip. Well, I hope you'll join us for every program, and to help you get the most out of Chip's teaching, download his message notes. They're a helpful tool that includes his outline, all the Scripture references, and key fill-ins to help you remember then apply what you hear.

Get them by going to the broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org, app listeners tap fill-in notes. Well, with that, here again is Chip to share some application for us to think about. As we wrap up today's broadcast, let me ask you a question. Whether you're single, dating, married, how much of Hollywood's formula have you subconsciously bought into? The fact is is that we are bombarded each and every day with media and movie stars telling us that this is the formula, you know, this is the way it all works. And the fact of the matter is reality tells us Hollywood's formula doesn't work. You know, whether you're single or dating or, you know, I've talked to a lot of married people who found themselves getting disillusioned with their mate and a good marriage simply because Hollywood's formula, that there's this perfect someone out there somewhere, and that if you have a little feeling of dissatisfaction or an argument or something goes wrong, you begin to drift and think, oh, maybe I married the wrong person. Let me tell you this, this series is critical.

We all long for love, sex, and a lasting relationship. Let me encourage you, make it a priority to stay with us. And if you miss a broadcast, go online to livingontheedge.org and follow along and pick up the series. Thanks, Chip. Another way you can listen to this study in Ephesians 5 is through the Chip Ingram app. There you can also sign up for daily discipleship, send us your prayer requests, and more. We long to see every Christian living like a Christian, and the tools available through the Chip Ingram app can help. Check it out today. Well, join us next time as Chip continues his series Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships. Until then, I'm Dave Drury, thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.