The Discipline of Marriage 3.2

Welcome to The Student Podcast. This is where two guys get together and we discuss and learn how to be students of Jesus Christ. So good to have you today. Well, hey, why don't we go ahead and introduce ourselves? So I'm Brian. And I'm Simon. And this is The Student Podcast. And today, Simon, what are we looking at today? I'm going to let you lead it again. I think you did a great job last time. OK. All right. Yeah, so we are studying Disciplines of a Godly Man. If you're me, you're studying the updated edition. And if you're Brian, you're not. If you're Brian, you're old and old-fashioned. Yeah. But we try to bring this back to God's word, which is pretty timeless.
This chapter, we, on the last session, we started talking about the discipline of marriage. So, Arkandt Hughes, who's the author of this book, kind of goes through different disciplines. So, so far, if you've been listening, we've been talking about the discipline for godliness, discipline for purity, and then this chapter is discipline of marriage.
Jared So, he saved the easy one for the front. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. As we learned last time. Not an easy calling that we have as husbands. A joyous calling and a humbling one. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, where are we at in the discipline of marriage? Because last time we did part one, this time we're on part two. Yeah.
So, part one, Arkennt Hughes kind of breaks this down into three categories. So, sacrificial love, sanctifying love, and self-love. And last time we did the first two, sacrificial love, sanctifying love, and I think if I'm tracking right, we're going to pick up on self-love. That's what you have. Yeah. Well, why don't we pray before we get started? Sound good? Yeah.
Father, we thank you so much that you have shown us selfish, or selfless love, not selfish love, selfless love. You have poured out your Holy Spirit in our hearts. You have shown us what love looks like. Lord, we thank you. That your loving kindness lasts forever. That your mercy is new every morning. Lord, we pray that you would bless this conversation between Simon and I now. We pray that we would be like iron sharpening iron. That we would be building each other up. We pray, Lord, that this conversation might be used by you for your glory.
In Jesus' name, amen. All right. Well, you're taking it away here, man. All right. That's a dangerous thing to ask. No. Live on the wild side. You have to let the young one have the reigns. All right. So, he kind of opens up his talk here on self-love. Did you just call me old? No. Okay, okay. No, I'm calling myself foolish is what I did. Okay, okay.
No, so yeah, he starts this talk on self-love, which might kind of come across as like, oh, why are we talking about self-love? Why should a husband love himself? But he brings it back to what the Bible says. So, Ephesians 5, the same way as Christ loves the church, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body." And so, it's, you know, contrasted with a very narcissistic, God-less view of self-love and brings it to this picture of marriage where we love our wives as we love ourselves, which is a kind of a, I don't know, a complex, but a really profound idea.
And I guess I'll talk about his definition, then we can talk about it. But he says, To love our wives as our own bodies is a grand and great thing. It means granting them the same importance, the same value, the same existential gravity that we take for granted in ourselves. They become as real as we are to ourselves. She is me. So, I guess, you know, that helps kind of put some structure on this idea. But what do you think it means to love your wife as you love yourself?
Yeah, give me one second. The kids are watching VeggieTales while we're talking and my Alexa alarm is going off in the other room and I know they're so plugged into the TV because they only get like an hour of it a day that they're not going to go in there and tell her to be quiet. Let me just turn this off real quick. It's prime time. Yeah, really? Okay. All right, well, yeah, so I really like that definition, especially the part where he says, the same existential gravity that we take for granted in ourselves, she becomes as real as we are to ourselves. She is me. Yeah.
I think that's, I think it does a really good job at getting at the essence of what it means for that one flesh relationship. You know, it's not just the physical cardinal reality, carnal reality of, you know, intimacy in the marriage bed, but it's, that is meant to show hearts becoming one, souls intertwined, selfless love for one another, kind of this abandonment of self and uniting with someone else. I think that's just like, at the heart of what Jesus is getting at when he says, you know, what God has joined together, let no man tear asunder.
You know, because to do that is, you know, it's hurting yourself. It's like suicide. You know, you can't, you're going to be damaged by it. I know to jump to divorce is a weird way to define self-love, but so often divorce is a mark of selfishness, not of selflessness.
And so, just the Lord's been really convicting my heart around this topic a lot of selfishness and what does it mean to serve Olivia and care for her and thinking of her preferences above mine. So, okay, I'm tired. So what? Suck it up, buttercup, love your wife, you know? And I don't mean it that way, but what would I want if I was in her shoes? You know, what would my desire should be after her desires, you know? Well, we'll get more there, but I really, I have a double underline there. She is me. Pete Yeah. Yeah.
I think part of it kind of harkens back to what we were talking about last week about how our marriages, like once you are married, it impacts everything in your life and how part of that just comes from our identity as husbands. Like we aren't Lone Rangers, we are husbands of our wives, right? And that's part of who we are, just as we are in Christ. And that's core to who we are. And so I think this, like, if you're married, part of your, part of the definition that goes with that is you love her as you love yourself.
You know, it kind of flows from your identity, but yeah, talking about that idea of being one flesh, and I might've shared this before, but we were talking in college, we were doing a Bible study through, I think it was Mark, and it was talking about, you know, one flesh and why does Jesus bring up the one flesh idea in the context of divorce? And we had one guy who wasn't really paying attention very well, and we were like, you know, what do you think? And he's like, well, you know, I guess the only way to put it is you can't have two one-fleshes. And so, you know, why would you join yourself to one flesh and then go to another?
And so, if we are one flesh, you know, there's an inseparable unity there. She is me. And like you were saying, like, I have no problem thinking of myself, serving myself. Like, that's something we all know how to do by nature. We're selfish creatures. And so, thinking of, okay, if we turn all that desire and all that thought and all that service, not towards me, but to someone else, I think is kind of, what are you talking about? That takes dying to self, right?
Like we talked about last time. But I think this is the part that has made the gospel so sweet to me lately. You know, it's like, that's how Christ loves his church. That selflessness, that even when he was tired and the crowds pressed around him, he'd look at his disciples and he would say, they're like sheep without a shepherd. You know, like, we've got to care for them.
Now, there were other times where the crowds pressed around him and he had to withdraw and go to a secluded place, but time and time again, even when he was headed to go somewhere else, he would get to the other side of the lake and He's tired and people are there waiting and thinking about, you know, if I was in Jesus' shoes and I knew that that night was my execution, you know, I was, or the next day was going to be my execution, would I really humble myself so much to wash my disciples' feet? I mean, we were talking about this, we had a Bible study in Mediapolis this afternoon and one of the guys, Kurt Hartley, when he was in the Middle East, you know, he saw people who walked around in sandals and dusty roads all the time and he was saying how you don't cross your feet. Like, what we're doing right now, you don't do that in a Near East or Middle East culture because feet are gross. They're dirty, they're gross, they're caked in dirt, they're, and to touch someone's feet is servile. yet that's what Jesus does.
He could have been thinking about himself. He could have been thinking about what's going to happen and said, hey, guys, don't bother me. I got a lot of weight on my heart. There's a lot going on in my mind right now. You just don't get it. But instead, he spends that time and he shows his love for his disciples. He institutes a meal that they could always remember him by. You know, it's like just, just thinking about that selflessness is kind of like, that's the love that Christ has for me. And the exciting but sad thing is that's how I'm supposed to love Olivia.
And I think about how poorly I do that. And I just think like, I'm never going to be able to do that perfectly. But it's been really fun to try. Like I said, the Lord's just been convicting me all over the place with all sorts of selfishness. And so, yeah. Well, I mean, that was, I think that was something that was so convicting to me on Sunday, you preaching through the, what a shepherd should look like.
And in some sense, like, the Lord has given us, our wives, to shepherd and to care for and to nourish and you know, you're talking about the bad examples of shepherds in the Old Testament. I look at Moses who's grumbling and complaining and selfish. I look at like David who's covetous and like discontent and I look at Ezekiel and like the shepherds called out there who are just out for themselves. It just, I mean, how much of that is in my own heart? in, I mean, these are people who are outwardly caring and it, I mean, it struck me to the heart, thinking about, wow, how much, how much poor shepherding am I doing? How much poor leading am I doing? And on the flip side, turning that to the gospel, looking at the sufficiency of Christ, who carries His sheep in His bosom, right?
And gently leads those who are with young. And, you know, I had, I've read the Bible multiple times, you know, cover to cover, multiple years. I, every once in a while I'll go through and I'll read a passage or I'll be doing some type of research and I stumble across a passage that I know I've read before. But it's like the Holy Spirit was like, you know, putting my face right in the gold and just saying, hey, look, you missed this. And that passage in Isaiah chapter 40 was just like, that picture of like, he's the shepherd who tenderly brings his sheep to his bosom and cares for them.
Just thinking like, would it look like for me to love Olivia like that? That she knows that I'm going to care for her, I'm going to protect her. We're going to get to the discipline of parenting later, but I think about do my children feel that way? Do my children feel like I'm shepherding them, like I'm caring for them? How much would my marriage be transformed if I Love like Christ, shepherded like Christ. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So more elaboration on this high calling we have, but praise God. Yeah. We're going to move away from our issues here, but okay. We'll keep going. Yeah, yeah.
So, he talks about ways that we should love our lives, love our wives with self-love. And he talks about the first one being a physical, so he categorizes these as incarnations, which is an interesting way to put it, but he says the first is a physical incarnation. And he talks about how her body is my body, her comfort, my comfort, her adornment, my adornment, her care, my care. And I think, you know, this definitely has applications in the realm of intimacy, where it can be easy to run into that selfishly. But I think it has applications beyond that.
What are some ways that you find it important to care for Olivia physically? Jared Yeah, you know, So, Olivia and I have very different love languages, you know? And so, one of my primary love languages is physical touch, you know? Hers are acts of service and quality time. She used to like gifts and then we started going through the budget and she's like, gifts aren't so much fun anymore.
I know where it's coming out. So, now I have to like, when I get like loose dollars, you know, somebody gives me change somewhere, I kind of stash that away. I have a secret stash in my wallet. She doesn't look at my wallet. And so, I found that as my safe place where I can hide cash from her.
And so, like the other week, somebody watched our kids for a couple hours and I was able, when we were out to dinner, she was like, well, we only have, I think it was like 25 bucks or 30 bucks to spend on dinner. And I was like, oh no, No, you got more than that." And she was like, what? And I was like, well, I've got an extra $40 I've been saving. So, get what you want. And she was, I know some people listening might be like, oh, it's a cheap date or whatever. But for us, it was like, she was like, well, you just doubled our date money. And then she didn't even spend it. Elevate is just very frugal. And so, I was like, well, what would you want to do? Because I saved this money to spend it on you. And she was like, can we go to Hobby Lobby? And I was like, yes, we can.
So, caring for her physically is actually different in our relationship in the sense that I need to be in tune with Olivia for how does she feel loved physically? So, physically for Olivia to feel loved is her physical environment. our house is dirty, if our house is a wreck, you know, it's just in chaos, Olivia feels like life is in chaos. And I know that's going to kind of go more into emotional incarnation, but that is one, that's actually one of the first ways in which I need to care for her physically. Because if I try to move towards marital intimacy and there's dishes in the kitchen, Yeah, like, hold on, you know, you're just, I'm just an object to you and you haven't actually cared for my soul. And so, it was interesting to me that he actually starts here with the physical element because I think the physical element is the culmination of love, not the first incarnation of, now it's, yes, it is the most powerful, you know, intimacy in a marriage, and yet if I haven't cared for Olivia, talking to her about her heart, praying with her, if I haven't been shepherding our children well, if there's been a lot of chaos in our lives and our family, if I haven't, you know, ordered my schedule in a way where she feels prioritized, then jumping into, you know, hey, do you want to have physical intimacy?
I'm not loving her. Pete. Mm hmm. she actually feels very differently. No, you don't love me. And so, it's in that sense that, you know, when I do marriage counseling, like having a specific, and I don't like this either, you know, there's, we've had people sitting in this room for marriage counseling before and you know, seven out of 10 times is the guy whose primary love language is physical touch. But there are other relationships that people have been in here where it's the woman. And so, I don't want this to be, you know, just talking to the guys, but this is us two guys talking about this. But when we do premarital counseling, having to tell a young man, you know, or the woman, you know, you need to make sure you're caring for them.
And if your primary love language is physical touch, then when they are going to give you physical touch, and I know some people don't like Gary Chapman, so just, okay, if you don't like this, just turn off the radio and come back in 10 minutes or whatever, you know? I fast forward this, whatever.
But I need to follow her lead on that. It's a gift she's giving me. And so, you know, what is she like? What are her preferences? You know, how, when we are having marital intimacy, whatever that looks like, and I keep using that word marital intimacy because I think physical intimacy isn't just the act of actually having sex, but there's all sorts of other, you know, holding hands, you know, that's a huge thing for Olivia. She likes physical intimacy when we're sitting in church and I'll just hold her hand. No, that's pretty rare because I'm up in the pulpit, but when somebody else is preaching or we're on vacation or something, it's a huge deal to Olivia when I'll just put my arm around her. And so, how does she feel loved?
And being able to, you know, yes, 1 Corinthians 7 is still in place, you know, we shouldn't withhold sexual intimacy from each other if, you know, because you're allowing a foothold for Satan to get in there. So, I'm not advocating for that. But selfless love in the physical element of marriage, I think is really important. I remember talking to a young guy not too long ago who's just getting married, and you can tell, like, I mean, they were going to, he was going to give her the first kiss and it was going to be like, really giving her a kiss, you know? But I knew his wife pretty well. And I just kind of, at the reception, he and I had a really close relationship and I was just kind of like, hey bud, I'm not going to say his name, but I was just like, I didn't say bud, I said his name, but I was like, hey bud, just a word of advice.
Go at her speed. It'll mean a lot more. Just use self-control here and serve her in this way. That's probably way more than you were asking for this section, but I think it's, I think it's an important thing for, for whichever party in this, but it, like I said, 70%, that's a rough, you know, if I was to make up some type of statistic on the spot, you know. It's mainly the men that I have to tell, hey, hold on, think about her, love her, care for her. This should be the peak of your intimacy.
There's got to be a whole lot more that comes with it than just the physical part. And I think I was also surprised too that he put physical first because, and this probably sounds cliche, but intimacy starts outside the bedroom. And it starts, he'll go on and talk about emotional and social and I think that's it.
But I mean, if you're not mentally connecting with your wife, if you're not connecting with her emotionally and serving it, like you said, it's just an objectified experience. And on the flip side of that, something I've had to learn is being cautious with that with women who aren't my wife. Just because there's absolutely zero physical interaction going on doesn't mean repeated, you know, okay, there's over time that there's not emotional intimacy inadvertently cultivated with that. Jared Yeah, no, that's a true statement, man.
We were just in here talking with Debra. On Monday, we were having a conversation with her and we were actually explaining adultery to her and talking to her about things. And as we were talking about that, we were talking about emotional, you know, intimacy and so, you know, mom and dad have a very open relationship where mom can tell me if she thinks I'm being too nice to a certain woman. And Debra was like, oh, kind of like what happened at the gym? And I was like, what do you mean by that? And she was like, well, you and mom were talking in the kitchen about mom thought you were joking around too much with one girl. And I was like, that's exactly the point.
And I mean, Olivia's right in the room. I mean, we go to the gym together, but just that openness that Olivia is able to be like, hey, you know, I know that there's nothing going on between the two of you, just be careful in how friendly you are joking with somebody. I was like, yeah, there's no, there wasn't any you know, emotional or sexual attraction to this other woman, but just kind of like, you know, Olivia has a right to be, to tell me like, hey, be careful with that relationship, buddy, you know? And Great. Thanks for bringing it up, love. Paul Because if it's self-love, what's good for her is good for you. Right? So, you want the best for you and you want the best for her. Jared Yeah, and that's true. I want to honor Olivia with that.
And so, it's just one of those, you know, there are other people that all throughout our marriage that I try to be a pretty friendly person to whoever I'm talking to. And there have been times where Olivia is just kind of like, you need to be a little less friendly with that person. And I'm like, well, I'm not being any more friendly with that person than I am, you know, the old lady's at church and she's just kind of like, you might not be more friendly with her, but she's showing more interest in your friendliness.
It's kind of like, Like you said, listen to her, you know, okay, great. So, just pull back from that a little bit, you know, talk to that person a little bit less, you know, answer questions just a little bit more short. I don't know, that sounds, that's a bad sentence. Pete Yeah, succinctly. Jared Succinctly, yeah. don't get into as deep conversations or point that person more towards Olivia instead of having those conversations with myself.
Or sometimes it looks like pointing them towards Jim or John, you know, if these are people from church. So, which I think is a good segue into, he talks about the next part being emotional incarnation. And he kind of calls out the stereotype. He says, so many men make the emotional differences between men and women subject to degrading degrading humor. Sorry. And man, I've definitely seen that a ton and probably been guilty of some of that.
Like, oh, they're sensitive or, you know, like, oh, she's a woman or, you know, things like that. And it's like, hold on, like, I understand there's some, some joking and some stereotypes that maybe both parties can laugh at, but like, she's made in the image of God. God made her that way. And if she's your wife, you know, I wrote down, I think it's 1 Peter 2 verse 5, you're called to live with her in understanding. And part of that means understanding how she ticks, what makes her think, you know, how she thinks and what makes her do the things she does.
And instead of being like, oh, there is a difference, we'll just laugh at it and like, leave it the way it is. He says, no man can claim obedience to God and do this. And I think he's probably making reference, saying that statement in reference to 1 Peter. And so, that takes a lot of work because women are different than men.
And I think, yeah, it can be, it's more than just having a friendship. It's truly understanding the emotional highs, the emotional lows, what brings them on, what makes them go away. Yeah, I remember, I forget which book I was reading, it's probably one of the books on the shelf here, but one of them was actually saying, you know, keep a journal. I think it was, actually the title of the book, it's up there, it's got an orange cover. It's How to Love Your Wife as Christ Loves the Church, or Loving Your Wife as Christ Loves the Church, something like that. Really original title. But a really good book.
And anyways, he actually, I think it's in that book where he talks about keeping a list on your wife, studying your wife, continue to, and this isn't keeping a list of wrongs, but when you find out something interesting, how she responded to a certain situation, write those things down.
Remember, oh, okay, when this happened, this really griefed her. I remember I went into a house one time and doing a shepherding visit and the man was of the opinion that kind of like the sound of music. You know, the dad in The Sound of Music, he runs the house like he's still the admiral of the ship, you know? And so, he should make a command and everybody should just obey right away. Well, that's how he was treating his wife. And he was really like, I'm the head of the home, when I say something, that should just be it.
She should just zip her lips and listen. Pete Yeah. And all the while, I'm seeing him, like, shove his wife in a box of silence. And I mean, this is, this is not like, you know, this is small stuff. Like, stuff that there should be compromise on, stuff that they should be talking about. And so, him just kind of pushing his wife in a corner and essentially saying, you sit here while I run everything.
And that's troublesome, you know, to be so disconnected from your wife's heart. I think we as husbands need to be studious of our wife's emotions, our wife's heart, you know. So, many men, if we go to the first incarnation, love the somatic part, you know, that they're a body, but they're a psychosomatic union.
They are body and soul. They have anger, they have depression, they have sadness, they have joy, you know, there's a whole range of feelings that they go through and I think part of the husband's job is to shepherd them through those different emotions, you know. Weep when they weep. Rejoice when they rejoice. Being able to be that shoulder for them to cry on. being, and I'm not talking about being a, you know, just a punching bag for their emotions, but being a sounding board for them.
Learning good communication skills, actually listening. Oh man, I don't know if he has a chapter on here on the discipline of listening, but that is a godly discipline. Zip the lips and honestly hear what she's saying. Pete Yeah. Have you seen the little video clip about the lady? She's got a nail in the middle of her forehead. It's not the nail, it's not the nail. She just wants him to listen. And he's like, I just want to fix it. And that's a humorous video and whatever. But a lot of times it carries a lot of truth. Olivia feels deeply loved. When I discipline myself, that okay. We're not going to get to watch the movie I might have wanted to watch with her. We're not going to, you know, get to play the board game I wanted to play. We're not going to get to, you know, do whatever. We're going to be talking for the next hour and a half because this is where Olivia's heart is. This is where she's burdened.
This is where she needs to go. to think of like, again, bringing this back to like Christ as an example, like Christ, the Good Shepherd knows his sheep. And if you look at Revelation, he's like, all the church, he's like, I know your works, you know, I know this. And he knows his church intimately. You know, Psalm 139, I can't go anywhere from you. You know, and obviously we're not going to know our wives with that degree of omniscience, but that's nevertheless the knowing, intimate love of the Savior that He shows towards His own flock.
And that's the standard that we're called to. Jared Well, and I think of Jesus' office as a priest and His mediatorial, not His mediatorial kingship, but His office as a mediator. He hears us when we pray. Like, the prayer is, the Christian prayer is a Trinitarian prayer, you know, Christ hears us. Pete Yeah. and he brings our prayers to the Father and makes them perfect.
So, every time I pour out my heart to the Lord, Christ listens. So, if I'm to love my wife like Christ loves the church, she needs to have my ear. Because she doesn't have my ear, she doesn't have my heart. And I'm obviously not caring for her heart. And so, yeah, caring for emotions. I honestly think that this one, I would have started off as the first incarnation. Yeah. Yeah. I would agree too.
Seeing though, as we've only done a page and a half, we should probably charge ahead. We'll make this a six part series. See, wanted to learn about marriage. So he moves on from emotional incarnation to social incarnation and basically kind of saying you need to immerse yourself in the settings that your wife is in. And sometimes these can look really different as a couple. I'm at school five days a week, and Natalie's been in the building but doesn't really know necessarily what it's like to sit in class for six hours, and I don't know what it's like to work a 12-hour shift at her department, right? And so, I think, you know, with those limitations there needs to be understanding, but in the things that you can enter into and learn about and serve each other in, I think there's some real opportunity for growth. And so I just think just of a very mundane, practical example, I'm frankly not a very good cook, and my wife is, and she knows, she can tell you something and know exactly what it's in, so when she's gone and I need to make dinner, it's like, okay, I can do this, I need a recipe, and I need a broom and a lot of rags because I'm gonna make I'm a mess.
The kitchen looks like a bomb went off and she's doing it. It's just real simple and done. And so that's something where it's like, wow, I can really appreciate your skill in doing this and you serving me in doing this. And I'm glad to enter in to do it, but man, it makes me appreciate it a lot more.
And I think vice versa, we do finances together and someone's got to take the lead. And I think that helps just build open communication and open appreciation for what each other is gifted in doing and what each other does on a regular basis. This is a total side note, but what do you guys use for budgeting? I use Excel and then day-to-day we do EveryDollar.
David Ramsey. Oh, okay. So you guys are Dave Ramsey type people? Yeah. Okay. Not lock, stock, and barrel. Okay. We just followed my grandma and grandpa's envelope method. Come find out that's basically Dave Ramsey. Okay. But we use YNAB and you need a budget. Okay. We really enjoy it. Okay. Yeah.
We sit right here and it takes us either three weeks out of the month, it takes us like 10 minutes a week, but it gives us some time. And then once a month, it's kind of like, okay, where's all the money go? And how do we parse it out? Then it might take, you know, 45 minutes or something. Yeah. If we let ours pile up, it can take a while.
Yeah, we try to reconcile every Monday morning. Reconcile our bank accounts every Monday morning to make sure that we're good to go. And so, that's when Olivia finds out that I bought pizza while she was out of town. No, it wasn't oops. She knew it. She knew it was going to happen.
But yeah, so being involved in their social life, you know, I think for for the season of life we're in, for me that means actually being involved in homeschooling. It's really easy for me to check out with homeschool rather than be present. Now, the bulk of it still lands on Olivia, but I need to know enough that if she's going to go to the women's retreat, I can school the children for two days and we can get things done. We might not get much else done, but their stuff will be done. But yeah, getting to know her friends, talk about life, you know, I think that these are, again, the whole point is stay curious about your wife.
And I think this is the picture that Jesus gives when he's talking to the church in Ephesus. Just like he said, I know your deeds. You guys do great things. You even hate the sins of the Nicolaitans. You don't like their sexual immorality. But one thing I've got against you, forgotten your first love. You know, and this is what I'm saying. I really wish that emotional and social had come before physical. And that's just a small critique of Hughes. He gets there, you know. Jared Maybe an 11th edition. No, just kidding.
Pete Yeah, but specifically this, the, it's easy for our hearts to grow cold because familiarity just makes things I don't want to say it can kill a relationship, but it can. Because you stop becoming curious, you stop wanting to learn, you stop being appreciative.
You know, one of the things that I remember telling a guy is, you know, every single day when you pray for your wife, think of one thing that you can thank God for an attribute that he's given her. just giving that man, you know, this challenge, like every day stop and purposely think about your wife and something that you can be thankful for in her. He had kind of had this heart of bitterness what was going on with him towards his wife and it was kind of like, hold on, man.
This is the woman you love. This is the woman you married. You need to stay emotionally engaged here. And so, all right, well, maybe we can get to page two. Let's move on. And I think just one last comment on that. I think it just brings it back home to how gracious it is of the Lord to give us marriage as a picture of our relationship with Him, because we can understand that growing familiar, growing rote and apathetic in this relationship can really just breed separation and coldness and bitterness. But how much more with our relationship with Christ? And I think we've all experienced that where like, okay, same old, same old, and you're never actually sitting at his feet and learning about him and being, you know, pouring yourself into getting to know Christ better.
And the same thing happens there. So anyway, we'll charge forward from there. But I think I think that definitely comes through. So he moves on from these incarnations of physical, emotional, and social incarnations to how to answer the call. So we've been talking, and this is a lofty call to be a husband. And ultimately, you know, I really, like we've said before, I really do appreciate Arkent Hughes because he's a bit of a military sergeant. He's like, this is the way it is, and here's a kick in the pants, and let's put in some sweat and do something. And that's great because men kind of need that.
But I think, going through this next section realizing that this takes grace. This takes a spirit reborn heart that bears fruit from Christ. Yeah, if you take this as just like a playbook and follow A, B, C, D, you know, but you'll become a Pharisee. Right. So, I really appreciate that. You know, like, this is one of the things I love about Ephesians 2, the first ten verses, the structure of it. We're saved by grace. And you were saved by grace alone. you were saved to do good works. So, don't let your grace die. You know, but your grace was meant to, you know, tie you to Christ. And once you're in Christ, now you bear good fruit.
So, go do it. Reform people want to shy back, but it's always, it's Christ who's the root and the fruit should follow. So, And so, we're so worried about talking about the fruit that sometimes we forget about the root, but sometimes we're so worried about forgetting the root that we don't want to just talk about, we've got things to do.
And that's where I appreciate Arkin, he's here as well, that he's just kind of like, all right, let's do it. So, let's get into some of these, let's just do it. Oh, I was hoping for a big rabbit trail of antinomianism. I actually had some conversations with people out there today. But- Jared Well, we can talk about that off mic.
Matthew We gotta stay focused here. Okay, so how do I answer the call? Number one, commitment. We must begin with the discipline of commitment. And yeah, let's just talk about that real quick. Jared Yeah, I have double underlined there. Love despite how one feels. It doesn't matter how I feel. I made a commitment to love Olivia. Matthew Yeah. period, our vows should mean something. I went to so many weddings as a wedding photographer, where I heard people have quote-unquote wedding vows, and it was nothing more than sentimental mushy-gush.
You know, like, oh, I really like when you make breakfast for me, and I really enjoyed when we go on these walks, and blah, blah, blah, and I'm like, that's all good stuff. When are you going to tell that woman, you know what, even when you get sick, and you're in a hospital bed, I'm still going to love you." Even when you're old and you're wrinkly and you're fat, you know, because this is what my pastor, Byron Snapp, told me that, you know, we went to Tennessee, we had lunch with him a couple months ago, and he's like, you know, people don't take commitment seriously. They don't realize that someday their husband's going to get old, wrinkly, and fat like me. And so, as we were planning our wedding, I kept on asking Natalie, just teasing her, I was like, What do you think about writing our own marriage vows?" Because she hates that. She's like, they're so sentimental, they don't mean anything.
So making that commitment, right? Put on love. Colossians 3, 14, put on love. And when he said that, I was like, yes. You know, you think about the sacrificialness that's found in 1 Corinthians 13. Patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness. That's the fruits of the Spirit. Yeah. Faith, hope, faith, hope, and love, the greatest of these is love. But 1 Corinthians 13, when he talks about, oh, come on, I've preached this passage during this, even during a wedding, Jacob and Jasmine, Brockway's wedding, I preached this. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Okay. There you go.
Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself. Love is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails because love is committed. is committed that even when there's, you know, hurts in the marriage, love forgives. You know, even when there's things that could annoy you, love suffers long. Even when your spouse might be having a difficult day, showing love to our wives looks like being kind to them.
Love does not envy, you know, okay, Olivia might not be the best at X, Y, or Z. That doesn't give me permission to break my marriage vows and go covet another man's wife. No, hold on. Love has committed that. No, Olivia's my wife." That's what grace looks like. And so, when he said that, I was just kind of like, yes! Yes! Yes! Yeah. And I think that's the foundation on it, because you can try, I mean, he talks about communication and elevation and these other things we'll get to, but you can try all that stuff, but so what?
Why? why do I care? Why should I do this when it's hard? Why should I do this when the tough gets going, right? And it's rooted in commitment. And you do make those vows before God. You are accountable. We talked about earlier, can you say that your wife is better because of that? of you being with her. You know, you are united to her.
And I think it also, this second discipline he talks about, fidelity, is really closely related. He says, one thing the church can count on is the fidelity of the bridegroom. And it, I don't know, it just kind of struck me because I've been reading through Jeremiah lately and just started, and Jeremiah is, through the Lord, calling out the idolatry of Judah, just, I mean, really powerfully. And the Lord's like, you know, you've been idolatrous, you've played the harlot with many lovers. And then he says in verse 14, return, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married to you.
He's not done being married to her. And I think, you know, Natalie and I were talking about this when we were studying divorce in the New Testament, and Jesus doesn't really give much ground on divorce. I mean, there's really not much wiggle room. And some of us are like, ah, well, that doesn't really match up to this day and like, what we're seeing now and why is Jesus, this doesn't make sense. And it's like, it's his own love for us. His people play the harlot. His people committed altruism. And he's still married to them.
And it doesn't mean like your spouse go and commit adultery, but it means that we have a commitment that's rooted in Christ's commitment to us, because it is unbreakable. Paul's like, what can separate us from the love of God? Nothing. And so what's going to separate me from my love of my wife, right? Is there a commitment there? Is there fidelity there?
Because Christ did it. And it was much harder for Christ to do it with me than even the worst day of my marriage. Yeah, I mean, this is, I'm going to go back up to commitment, but at the end of that paragraph he says, the truth is marriages which depend on being quote unquote in love fall apart. those who look back to wild promises they vowed in marriage ceremonies are the ones who make it. And there is no substitute for covenant plus commitment. You know, this fidelity comes based on Christ's commitment to his bride. and saying, I need to love my bride, like Christ is committed, like Christ is faithful.
You pick up the book of Hosea, you know, and you read the book of Hosea and you're like, how could he actually do that? Like, how could Hosea actually pursue Gomer like that? And then I have to realize, I'm Gomer, I think about the love of God shown to me in Christ Jesus. And Olivia doesn't behave like that. Olivia's no gomer. How much more should I love that woman?
You know, and you just think of Jesus' love for us and that picture of His sacrificial love, you know, God demonstrated his own love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. If it's not dependent on us, if it's not dependent on circumstances, but on his choice, his commitment, what he's decided to do, I'm going to love you because I love you.
That's how our marriages should be marked. Now, we're talking about lofty things. I fail at this. Pete Yeah, me too. what a blessing we have as husbands to get to, in a very frail and broken way, in any sense be honored. And I mean that. We are honored that we get to show that selfless love to our bride.
I recommended a book in the congregational email this month, What's a Girl Worth? I'm not sure if you saw that. not a book that is easy to read, not a book that children should read, but a very, very helpful book in a lot of different ways. Rachel Denhollander is a really gifted author and a very smart and godly woman.
Anyways, her relationship with her husband as he walked with her through the ramifications of her sexual abuse. I was just so encouraged. And even at one point, Olivia, she was, she and I were reading the book at the same time and she was just saying like, isn't her husband so sweet? And I just thought, what a beautiful testimony.
You know, he has so much going on in his life and yet he's there for her. You know, yeah, it's going to be hard, he's going to be there for his wife. And I thought, I'm sure he's not a perfect man, you know, by any means. But I thought, what a testimony that she has written of her husband's love for her.
I pray it continues until their dying day, you know. But from what we read in the book, I was just kind of like, this is what I'm saying, like, the Lord's been teaching me a lot. Like, that's what a selfless love looks like. And so, okay. Sorry, maybe we can make it page three. Pete Yeah. Okay. So, we've got discipline and commitment, discipline and fidelity. Wow.
Jared Oh, I have some things I wrote down here under discipline and fidelity. Do my eyes show that I'm faithful to Olivia? Does my language show that I'm faithful to Olivia? Does my schedule show that I'm faithful to Olivia? Those are things that for me, I write down his thoughts. – Yeah, it underlines his thing, because it's in the context, he says, everything about us, our eyes, our language, our schedules, our passion must say to her, I am and will always be faithful to you. – Yeah.
So I think, you know, just a practical thing for Natalie and I is it's really important to us to schedule a date every week. Or some set aside time. And there's been weeks where we could have been like, what happened? Oh, we didn't get a date. It's like, oh, we got a, you know, it's scary and stupid how easy it is to let that drop when life gets busy. And it's like, okay, if we don't keep first things first, how does my schedule tell you that I'm faithful to you?
Or are you just someone that I happen to share the same address with? You know? Jared Yeah, we, yeah, that's something. We shoot photographing weddings for Olivia, used to be our dates. Yeah, we loved it because we were the type of photographers that we actually went out and danced on the dance floor. We had our cameras and we would go dance and we had a blast. Yeah. But when we moved here Monday morning, or Monday afternoon, sorry, so it's typically about 2 o'clock, the kids have outside time to play or they have quiet time, they'll read or something.
But Olivia comes in here and her and I sit down and we talk about, you know, how you're doing spiritually, how you're doing emotionally. what's our week look like, you know, we'll do the budget for ten minutes. She plays Stump the Pastor. So, she gathers all of her questions from her devotions for the week and she sits here and grills me down. Sometimes that takes five minutes, sometimes it takes two hours. But I mean, that's one of the ways that I need to love her. You know, she's got questions about the scriptures when she's like, well, I don't understand this and what about that? And so, you know, okay, you know, let's come in the office and we break out Hebrew and break out some commentaries and, well, it was Hebrew because she was in the Old Testament, but now she's in the New Testament, so I get to break out my Greek, which is fun.
But anyways, we, but investing that time, like whatever she wants to talk about, all right, you know, if she wants to, and Olivia is a very logistics-minded person. She is the queen of logistics. And so, that's how she needs to be loved. I need to give her two to three hours every Monday. she can work through all her questions, all her logistics, and feel like, okay, great, yeah. And that might sound like a weird date to most people, but it's our date. That's what she needs. So, yeah. And I think, yeah, it's part of that living with your wife and understanding what do they need emotionally? What do they need socially? What do they need physically? What do they need spiritually?
Yeah. Yeah, if I, you know, lit a candle at dinner in the kitchen for the two of us after the kids went to bed, she'd be like, this is really sweet. Can we just go to sleep? It wouldn't be what she wants to feel loved, you know? It's just not her love language. And so, okay. Well, let's go to communication. Yeah. Yeah. Communication. Oh, I kind of jumped ahead before. We can just, we can fast forward through this one if you want. Yeah. Oh, just talking about how... Listen. Yeah. Listen. Yeah. Yeah.
Because he talks about, men, the discipline of communication demands that you set aside regular time to talk and that you really do talk and that you communicate more than facts, that you communicate feelings, that you learn to talk in metaphors and similes with phrases that begin, I feel like, and it means that you listen.
And so I think this is kind of rooted in that emotional intimacy that we talked about before of learning your wife's love language for one, learning how she wants to be talked to, not just telling her what she wants to hear, but really communicating to her and in your communication, communicating love. verbally, physically, what does my schedule communicate to her? You know, I think it can take lots of forms, but is she first in that communication? I would even add, you know, you could put in there, what does my schedule communicate, stuff like that. I would also say, what does your checkbook communicate to her that your priorities are?
You know, I know scores of men who, you know, they don't consult their wives with their budgets. their wives are stressed out to the nines about, you know, where their money's going. And the husband isn't communicating with that. But I've really, his last sentence there, second to last sentence, The Harvard Business Review recommends that 65% of an executive's time should be spent listening.
You know, you think of a CEO and you think of the one calling the shots. And yet, when we were in the business world, I had all these opportunities to be in business meetings and talk to owners of companies and stuff like this. And he's right. You know, I read so many biographies, you know, reading a biography about Teddy Roosevelt and how he would meet someone one time and he would remember their name and he would write them a letter and he would see them and he would call them by name. So many politicians who are actually good politicians they go on the trail, they'll actually sit down and feel one-on-one talking with people and people will continue to vote for them time and time and time again because every interaction that the voters have had with them hasn't been the big grandstand speech, but it's, you know, that guy actually picked up his phone and listened to me. It's kind of amazing, not amazing, helpful. They have a lot of time devoted in PA school to communication, how to interview a patient well. And the whole thing, which is really hard to discipline myself in, but less is more. Ask an open-ended question and shut up. You end up getting out of there quicker, and you end up getting a lot more information that's accurate.
And it's interesting how even in that, I'm like, wow, I might need to implement some of that. And even the guy teaching is like, yeah, you'll find that this stuff ends up being helpful outside of medicine too. It's like, yeah, that one is for sure. There's another book above your head that a lot of people don't like because of the title, but I don't think they've actually cracked it open and read it. My business mentor gave it to me. Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Okay. and his big thing is become genuinely curious about others. Ask them questions.
You meet a botanist. I don't know anything about botany. Oh, well, I've, you study flowers. I've always wondered this about flowers. And people would come up to him later and say, you know, oh, such and such said that you were a wonderful conversationalist. And he was surprised. He's like, I just asked questions. Like, I actually didn't say anything. I just listened.
Olivia feels loved when I am genuinely curious about her. And the key word there is genuine. Lovingly curious. I think this is what will drive us again and again. If we're genuinely curious about God, if we actually love God, what is he like? One of the books I keep, nope, it's not here anymore. Used to keep it there. Over there, black book, Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God. Now I've started to use Prayer Mate and it brings up verses all the time for me to be able to think upon when I think about prayers of adoration.
But being actually curious about who God is. what are verses about God that would teach me something about who He's like or what Christ is like? And I remember one theologian was talking about how pastors, your heart is going to die you read all the eschatology books in the world, but you don't actually love Jesus. If you read all the systematics and all the dogmatics, but if you don't actually know who Jesus is, he's the object of your faith. Know him, come to him again and again, be curious about Christ.
And so, I'm never, don't want to poo-poo on people when they have questions about the Bible. You know, they're curious about their Lord. I might not have the answer, but that's awesome. I'm glad you're curious. Let's explore it together, you know? But yeah, communication, listen to her, ask her questions. I think that's so great. I love this next one. Yeah. Yeah.
So, he moves on to the discipline of elevation, which is an interesting one. But I guess summary, he says, a commitment to building up your wife is of greatest importance. Men, if you think what your wife does is less important than what you do, you are wrong and you have big problems.
So, what's, I guess, what's something in your experience where you've discovered an area where you can elevate Olivia? Oh, let me count the ways. No, seriously, I have a dogged commitment in my heart that I will never speak a bad word about Olivia to someone else unless we're in a counseling situation. But if I'm with you, I'm going to praise Olivia. You don't need to know her baggage. If I'm, and she's not a saint. Well, she is a saint, but she's not Roman Catholic. She's not perfect. She's not Christ.
But making that commitment in my heart that whenever I'm talking about Olivia to others, I'm going to talk about how wonderful of a wife she is. I'm going to talk about her good qualities. Now, when we're sitting here doing counseling, I don't try to sugarcoat our marriage and act like everything is perfect, but she's here with me when we do marriage counseling. And so, we are able to step into that conversation where she's able to give context and I'm able to say, you know, we really wrestled through this. But like today, I was doing a shepherding visit this morning and somebody asked about how I did with the kids while Olivia was at the women's retreat and I was like, well, I survived. And I had this amazing opportunity that this lady gave me to praise Olivia for how organized she is at homeschool and how devoted she is to making sure everything is in its place and the children are on a schedule, they know what to do. And so, it was really easy for me to step in and do this because Olivia is so consistent.
And she has this full-orbed, holistic educational experience for them where they get scripture memorization and they get history and they get science and they have their independent work and they get all this done in a reasonable amount of time. She's got this great system of rewards built into it and It's just kind of like, what an ingenious woman, you know? This is a woman who wakes up before any of the children wake up, before the soft and light outside, and she spends time with the Lord. I can count on it every morning as I'm sitting here reading my Bible. that I'm going to hear alarm go off, she's going to walk into the kitchen, she's going to get her coffee cup, she's going to make herself a cup of tea with one teaspoon or one tablespoon of of coconut sugar and she's going to like like and she's got a little measuring cup so she puts a little bit of milk in there too and I know that she's going to go in there and she's going to spend time with the Lord and at about 7 25 I'm going to hear Hey Brian, are you coming out for breakfast? And and that's the routine, you know, and and so she has this consistency.
Yeah That I actually have a list Those are attributes of Olivia that when I thank God for her, you know, these are things that I can praise her for. And it's helpful for me to have that list by my desk that when I'm praying for her, you know, I can thank God for these amazing qualities of my wife that I'm, you know, the lady I was talking to today, she was like, oh, you chose a good one.
I was like, I gave her a little bit, but funny anecdotal story, and she's like, no, you still chose a good one. I was like, you're right, I did. But she's more of a gift than my choice. So, I'd encourage you, make a list. Write it down and keep it. Yeah, that's an awesome idea. Yeah, I like that. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Some people don't believe me when I say I have silly things like that. I'm like, no, I'm serious. It was good. Oh, speaking of wives, they're here. Well, I think we only have like two more. What do you think? Do you think we can get through them? Let's blast through it. Okay.
So, elevation, deference. So, he talks about, If you love your wife, there must be times when you forsake the heavenly, well, in context, it basically says that you must value her interests and simply love her, that you need to sacrifice your own time, sacrifice your own interests, do what she loves, you know, whether that's going into the department store and going shopping with her, even though you hate shopping, how much- Are you speaking from experience? Possibly. No, actually. Yeah. Well, let's praise your wife here. But what is one area that you've had to show deference to Natalie? Yeah. I think that's one of it is she's not really a shopper, but she does like thrift stores. And if she goes, yeah.
So, trying to sacrifice some time and spend that with her. And so, yeah, just dying to self and showing that through deference. And then the last one real quick, he just talks about time and romance. And so, just really setting aside time, being romantic, opening the door for her, complimenting her, doing something out of the ordinary, doing something spontaneous.
Jared Shivalry ain't dead. Pete Yeah. We got to keep it that way. Jared Yeah, no, keep dating your wife, you know? Really. One of the staying factors was time spent together. Make sure you maintain this priority. Your calendar reveals what's important to you, so write her calendar into yours. Schedule weekly time to do, not just happen. Be creative, date, surprise, be extravagant. Olivia doesn't like that part. She likes being being thoughtful and frugal. Extravagant with my time, but not with money. Olivia doesn't feel loved if I spend all of her money.
But men, when was the last time you opened the door to her, said I love you, complimented her, wrote her a love note, sent her flowers, dated her, gave her extra special attention. Work at it. Keep a log. You know, the Again, this is where I am glad that you handed on time and romance. Too many men, as their marriage goes on, will treat sexual intimacy like, you know, it's just clockwork and these things should happen. And they forget that they had to date their wives. You know, they had to love them holistically. And so, keep dating your wife. Love her. And so, not legalistically, but this is our joy. Well, I opened us in prayer. You want to close us? For sure. Let's do it.
Lord and our God, we thank you for your unfailing love for us. Thank you, Lord, that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Help us, Lord, as husbands, to be the husbands that you are calling us to in Christ, to love our wives with a sacrificial. with an intercessory and with a self-love, Lord, that reflects Christ. May our wives be able to see the love of Christ through us, Lord. May we be able to point them to the gospel in the ways that we care for them and talk to them and communicate and serve them.
And Lord, would you receive the glory? Would Christ be exalted? Lord, for you are worthy. And Lord, we just worship you. And we thank you for this time you've given Brian and I tonight, Lord, to just have life again today and to be able to talk and get into your word. We just offer this to you in Jesus' name.
Amen. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Student Podcast. Feel free to go over to the website, sharonharpc.org backslash student and find more information and other shows. Also, don't forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. We appreciate it. Have a great day.