Miles Apart In The Same House Part 1

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, the family, an endangered species, fractured, stressed, broken, dysfunctional. All these words describe a crisis in society's most basic unit, a crisis that begins when marriages fail.

Today a candid look at what causes these failures. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, when celebrities split up, the tabloids say they had an estranged marriage. Is that where you're heading in today's message on being miles apart, in the same house?

I think so. That's exactly what I'm talking about. There are people who live together. They are under the same roof, but their hearts aren't together. And as a result of that, there's a tremendous strain. And by the way, the children very quickly pick up on that.

You're absolutely right, Dave. Our marriages are in trouble and in great need. And if there's ever a time when we need these kinds of messages, I think it is today. Well, Christmas is not that far away. I know that we've not yet celebrated Thanksgiving, but Christmas comes very quickly. And if you're like me, and I suspect that you are, you absolutely love Christmas music. As a matter of fact, the same carols that bless you year after year are available to you in a CD entitled In All of His Glory. It's a CD that was recorded here at the Moody Church Choir and Symphony Orchestra. It's the kind of CD that will bless you with songs such as Sleigh Ride, Mary Did You Know, In All of His Glory, All is Well, O Holy Night, and Others. For a gift of any amount, this can be yours. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com.

That's rtwoffer.com, or call us at 1-888-218-2118 9337. And now let us go to the pulpit of Moody Church when again we speak about the foundational unit of society, marriage and the family. So what do you think the American family is going to look like in the next century? According to Time Magazine, it will be interracial, bisexual, divided by divorce, multiplied by remarriage. The concept of illegitimate children will vanish because the nuclear family will have vanished. In fact, the nuclear family that was so popular during the 50s will be thought of as having been abnormal. There will probably be serial monogamy, that is one partner at a time, but several partners during a lifetime. You may get married and write into the contract that you're marrying this person for your college years.

And then you have a career, and during that period of time you're married to someone else, and then you decide to divorce that individual and retire with someone that is compatible, finally. And the children will have to divide their affection and their loyalty between stepmothers, birth mothers, biological fathers, step-parents and ex-step-parents. Schools will have to have 24-hour support structures for child care, sanctuary for abused children. Maybe, and Huxley, you remember, presented this in The Brave New World, there will actually be baby hatcheries staffed by nurses who will do the rearing for people, and then everybody will be free and everybody will be equal and live in uninterrupted happiness and bliss.

And that's exactly what's going to take place, and if Time magazine is anywhere near correct, I'm glad that I'm living in this century and not in the next one, because the emotional distress that is going to take place is going to be absolutely devastating and unbelievable. And the reason is because God put it in the heart of every little boy that has been born and every little girl that has ever been born to have two parents who love the child but who also love each other, to give it security, stability, and a sense of identity. Today I speak on the topic miles apart in the same house, basically a message on communication or the lack of it in our homes and in our own lives. Why is communication so important?

Well, there are several reasons. First of all, because communication is necessary to solve problems. You see, communication can be defined as giving messages both verbally and non-verbally that are understood and received. And communication solves problems because we need to communicate in this world. Some people are better communicators than others. On the way down to church this morning, I was trying to think of that statement. I hope I have it correctly. I know that you think you understand what I said, but what you heard is not what I meant.

Well, sometimes we do get into those problems of communication. There was someone who was writing a biography of a very important person, and this individual's grandfather died in the electric chair at the Sing Sing Prison because of a crime that had been committed. And the author wanted to put it in the biography, but you don't want to just say it up front to ruin the person's reputation. So that story was included in the biography, but it was written like this. This person's grandfather occupied the chair of applied electricity in one of America's best-known institutions.

He was attached to his position and literally died in the harness. Well, that's one possible way of saying it, communication. Or did you hear about the child who came home and said to her mother, Mommy, my teacher said that if I am ever absent again from Sunday school, she's going to throw me into the furnace. A mother couldn't believe that the child had actually heard correctly, but the child insisted that's what the teacher said.

So the teacher was asked, and what the teacher said was, if you're absent one more time, I'm going to have to drop you from the register. Well, communication, communication is important. But there's a second reason why communication is important, not only to solve problems, but that is because of the need for harmonious relationships.

Particularly within the family, we have to have the same kinds of goals, the same kind of vision, the shared values, the similar beliefs, and all of that becomes important to the communication process. But there's a third reason why I speak about communication today, and it is the most important, and that is that communication is absolutely necessary for love. It is impossible to love deeply unless you communicate deeply, unless there is a sharing of who you are with someone. Real communication has not occurred, and real love is impossible, because it is impossible to love a stranger. Real genuine love knows the good, the bad, and the ugly about the other person, but still loves them unconditionally, just as they are, with a recognition that improvements may have to be made, of course, not necessarily loving everything they do. But there is a sense in which that person is received and accepted and loved, no matter what lies beneath the surface.

That is genuine, true, lasting, unconditional love. But the problem is that there's very little true communication in our homes, and it's not possible to have a happy marriage, certainly, without communication, and if you were brought up with, you know, a home where there was very poor and bad communication, you have felt the effects. There are some people who say, I'm not going to communicate, except of course on the superficial level, and so the talk becomes very, very mundane, because there is no real sharing of who that person is. And so what people do is they build structures, they put down the foundation, they build walls, they close up the ceiling of their lives, and then they put a do not disturb sign on the door of their heart.

Like one woman says, I'm married to the great stone face. All that he does is sit there and read the newspaper and he simply will not communicate. But the problem is you cannot love under those conditions, and that's why there are so many frustrated women, because women desire communication, oftentimes much more than men do, and they desire to communicate. And it can work the other way around as well, but unless there is a breaking of those walls that have been so carefully dug, there can be no real genuine fulfillment and love. Well, where did all these problems get started anyway?

Why can't we communicate? Well, let's take our Bibles and find out where the whole mess began. Genesis chapter 3, Genesis chapter 3, I am always amazed at how many things all began in Genesis chapter 3. Well, you know that Adam and Eve were in the garden and they decided that they would disobey God, and we will be commenting on that again next time in the message, but the eyes of them, verse 7, it says they were opened. This is after now they chose to eat of the fruit of the tree that God said they should not eat from, so sin entered into the world. And that sin that entered into the world has come now upon all individuals, the Bible says.

Every single person has been tainted by sin. But notice it says that the eyes of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. What is the first barrier we notice that sin brings to the human family that is going to block communication?

The first barrier is shame. It was not just merely their physical nakedness that they suddenly became so aware of. But along with that there was also an emotional and spiritual nakedness because now they were beginning to feel the guilt of their sin. And so they sewed fig leaves together and they began to hide from each other and then of course they wanted to hide from God. They had been talking to God in the cool of the day and now God comes along and wants to communicate and Adam and Eve are nowhere to be found.

They are hiding behind fig leaves, behind some trees in the garden doing all that they possibly can to stay out of sight. The awesome unbelievable power of shame. Now where does this shame come from in people's lives today?

Some of it comes from their families. If you were brought up in a family where you were slapped and hit and beaten or where any expression of sexuality was immediately frowned upon and you were made to feel guilty and shameful, you will grow up with shame. And those of you to whom I am speaking and you know exactly what it is that I am saying if it applies to you, you went to school and you went to college and you felt as if everyone who saw you could see the shame within.

You wanted to run and hide because to you it seemed as if everyone was peering beneath a glass surface and they could see it all. Parenthetically I am just amazed at the foolishness of some parents and how all expressions of sexuality and all normal sexual development among children is not simply accepted with joy and with a recognition that that's the way God created us rather than with a sense of shame and a sense of guilt and a sense of hiding. But many of you were reared that way. Probably shame that your parents inherited from their parents and it can be debilitating and incredibly destructive. But there's another kind of shame and that is shame that people feel is not imposed upon them but it is derived from their own experiences because they have done shameful things. You know there are many people who have a very, very sordid past and they want to keep that past hidden and that's understandable. And there may be some people who may be doing some very shameful things in the present. They may be committing adultery, they may be secretly addicted to pornography, they may be involved in some kind of bizarre activities, possibly financial improprieties, all kinds of things. And as a result you see one of the things that shame does is it absolutely fears, fears exposure.

And there are some people whose lives are like that proverbial iceberg. You see only a little bit of it and if you saw what was beneath the surface you simply would not believe it. Just think of the disclosures we find in our newspapers, sometimes of prominent people, and discover what they've been up to and we're shocked.

We're shocked. Now how do people respond to shame? Well, they become very defensive.

Any attempt to pry beneath the surface of their lives, any attempt is immediately cut off and that lid is slammed down and now instead of simply being buttoned down it is nailed down and if it is a metal lid it is welded down because nobody, nobody is going to find out who they really are. And if they are not defensive they will also resort to manipulation like the person who whines, now you don't really trust me asking me those questions do you? You don't trust me. Now just think that through. What that person is saying is you ought to feel guilty for even asking these questions.

You see it's your fault, it's not mine. It's a protective device. And then of course dishonesty flows very naturally because if you've been living a lie to tell one is no big deal. And so what people do is they maintain that secrecy because if there's anything about shame and its incredible power is it absolutely loathes, loathes exposure. And so Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. They were going along in life finding places to hide and that's a barrier to communication. Second not just merely shame but it says in verses 9 and 10 now, then the Lord God called to the man and said to him where are you? By the way that's not because God was a little puzzled and said you know Adam and Eve are playing hide and seek and I just can't seem to find them.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. God was saying I want you to tell me where you are. You know don't ever think that you can run from God. God can even find you in Chicago. I mean God's just got a network like you wouldn't believe.

Just give it up, give it up. And the Lord God called to him and said where are you? And he said I heard the sound of thee in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked so I hid myself.

If the first emotion is shame the second is fear. Well what is he fearing? Is he fearing God? I mean he and God were talking together.

They were taking walks in the cool of the day. What's the fear? And does he fear his wife? What is the problem with Adam?

Tell us. What is Adam fearing? He's fearing rejection. You see now that he feels guilty and knows that he has violated the laws and the commands of a very holy God he is thinking that God is going to look him in the eye and say Adam you are going to be banished from my presence forever.

Get out of here. That's what he feared. And you know there are many people who don't communicate because of fear of rejection like a man who told me if my wife really knew who I was she could never love me. And so there's a part of him that remains hidden and his wife will never really love him because it's hard to love a stranger. And then there are couples who make it difficult for themselves like the man who called me from Canada several years ago told me he said you know I committed adultery last week. He said I'm simply awash with shame and regret and guilt. But he said my wife always told me if you ever commit adultery I want you to know that I will never never forgive you. And you might just as well recognize the fact that if you do that our marriage is over. Now how does that man try to go to his wife and be reconciled after such devastation? You see she probably said it because she thought that this would keep him from adultery.

She maybe said it because that's the way she felt judgmental perfectionistic and I'm not in any way trying to minimize the awful effects of adultery. Don't misunderstand. But I'm simply saying that that how do you take two people and try to get them to communicate when certain rules have been set up by which they say unless you meet my expectations there will be no communication. How do you bring a couple like that together? You know if you feel rejected all that you can do is to retreat into the silence of your shame and your grief and your anger and you can live in that terrible terrible private world.

That's all you can do. Or if you really feel rejected what you can do is what many people do and that is make it impossible for other people to accept them. You've met rejected people and so have I. And what they have done to us is they have made demands of us that nobody could ever possibly keep because what they are trying to do is to prove that nobody will love them that everybody will reject them and the minute somebody shows them love they will begin to make demands that will inevitably lead to failure. This is absolutely necessary in the mind of a rejected person. And that's why rejected people sometimes in marriages are so incredibly hard to live with because because they are making demands of their partner that that no partner could possibly meet. They are out to prove that nobody really loves them and they will make it as hard on you as they possibly can to prove their point. Well my friend this is Pastor Lutzer but the good news is eternity is coming.

So if you're in a difficult marriage I urge you to continue to be faithful and God will bless you and who knows your partner may actually change. Well we haven't celebrated Thanksgiving yet but Christmas will be soon after that and you'd like to be able to once again enjoy Christmas music. I have in my hands a CD entitled In All of His Glory.

It was recorded here at the Moody Church with the choir and the orchestra. A great opportunity to remind us of what Christmas is all about and if you're like me you know that year after year you want some good Christmas music. For a gift of any amount this CD can be yours. Now I need to say that it has various songs of course that are familiar to you. Songs such as Glorious in Excelsis, Dale, of course the song also In All of His Glory. These are the kinds of songs that will bless you.

Now I need to say that there's a lot of Christmas music out there but in my humble opinion there's nothing like the Christmas music that comes from the Moody Church Choir and Orchestra. For a gift of any amount it can be yours. Here's what you do. You go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

Make sure that you get this CD well before Christmas so that you can enjoy the music and share it with your friends. 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life.

Adam and Eve tossed paradise aside when they disobeyed God. Like them, we manipulate each other to meet our own needs, not realizing that meeting our mate's needs is the real key to marital happiness. Next time on Running to Win, Erwin Lutzer concludes his series Until Death Do Us Part, Keys to Success in Marriage. We'll learn that dealing with rejection is a major component in rescuing a failing marriage. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.