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It's fun to ask, isn't it? It's fun to ask. We need to do this every day, don't we? We have a, well, we, notice how I said that. She, but now we have a dog. And I bought it for her. Okay. And we call it learning from the dog. And we said, you haven't pawed me yet. When we come in the house, that little dog will paw my leg until I pick that dog up. And I have to hold the dog upside down, literally like a baby. Both of her feet, four of her feet are in the air, and I'm holding her like that.
And it can go for 30 minutes, but I'll make it about 30 seconds or a minute. And I put it down. Every time I come in the house, she won't let me until I pick her up. And so I said, baby, we need to learn from each other on that. We need to learn from the dog. You haven't pawed me yet. I've been in the room for 30 seconds, and you haven't pawed me. I mean, this dog. It won't let me come in. It won't let me get by with it. So we've picked up a new habit around the house. I want to move over. I want to build on that concerning Christ over our marriage built on three pillars, spirit, soul, and body. And we're going to talk about some practical things in the next few minutes here. Because the foundation is covenant and purpose.
It's right, Sharonda. It's covenant, isn't it? And covenant. Covenant is serious thing with God. Covenants can be sinned against and defiled. Jesus says that if a sexual sin against the covenant, he said that that gives permission for divorce. Doesn't require divorce. God saw himself both as a divorcee. I don't know if you know that. Because he divorced Israel. Because she went to whoring after others. He wrote her a bill of divorcement. But also, he shows us the other side of forgiveness and receiving back. Does that make sense? And when we talk about covenant, I don't want anybody to beat yourself up over broken covenants.
I want you to start from where you are right now. Is that okay? Do not go back. Somebody says, well, you can't unscramble those eggs. You can't change that. Start where you are. Do not let this word covenant. Pass you by. Embrace it that you're in right now.
Can I get an amen out of everybody in this room? No matter what you've gone through. And nail the door shut. Right? If you've got a back door, run out here to Lowe's and get some wood and nail it shut. Right? Because if you use the word divorce in anger, please don't ever use that word. Maybe use I'll shoot you or I'll kill you. But don't ever use the word. I'll divorce you. Now, you know, I'm joking, but I'm not joking about the word divorce.
And the reason for it, because if it ever gets in your vocabulary, you cannot allow it to get in your vocabulary. We've had some very tough times. I remember probably around 2000, we were, I won't take time to go through all the healing process. We were talking about that some last week about how we were going through the healing process and how we got divided in some areas of ministry over. And she didn't know what to do. And I didn't know what to do. And I didn't know what to do. And I was so after the scriptures and, and man, it was just, it was, it was tough.
And she went and got her law degree in the midst of that. That was so hard. Those three years, three or four years was the hardest we've ever had because her going to law school just consumed her time. And she's a learner by laying things out on the floor, all of our papers and all these things. And we're walking through this and, and, and, and really we were, we were, we were struggling with so much. That was a really difficult time. But I'm glad we had these principles because that didn't come up. That didn't come up. And I know what you could, and I've been praying over this tonight. There's probably someone here in this room that you have so much water under the bridge, so much emotional water under the bridge that you may not even want to be here.
And you're thinking, how can anything ever be restored? So we've been praying for these sessions that God would begin somehow to break something loose because it takes the Holy Spirit. It takes the Holy Spirit. And I don't want you to throw anything out. I don't want you to do that. I want you to give God space and time. And I know there's situations.
I cannot even imagine some of the situations that people are in, but let's talk a little bit about wholeness. Let's talk a little bit about getting some help and being willing to get some help. We all need some help, don't we? Nobody has all the answers. So in this process, you are spirit, soul, and body. And if God has called us to permanent intimacy and companionship, there has to be all three. There has to be all three. The system has two of them. What's the world? The world system has two. Can you imagine what the two of the world is? The body is the first one, right? And the soul ties. We have something in common.
And so if we get together. But there's no spiritual. And so the house will not stand without the spiritual intimacy, without the soulish intimacy. There's a place for that. We're going to talk about that, okay, in the next few minutes. And the physical intimacy. So with that, let's talk about a healthy soul, emotional maturity.
It is true that in each one of us men, there's a little boy. In each one of these women, there's a little girl. I want you to see that in compassion towards one another. I don't want. I don't want you to see yourself justified in being that little boy or little girl. Do you hear what I just said? I want to look at her and be tender towards her as a little girl. But I don't want to look at myself and allow myself to be immature emotionally. Because your marriage will stay there, right? So let's talk about what is a child emotionally. You may find yourself in one of these. A child, adolescent.
Well, I got this stuff back in about 2000. And I preached a series on leaving Netherland. How children, how we need to leave those stunted areas and grow up into maturity. Leaving Neverland. Yeah. Neverland. Neverland. Yeah. Yeah.
Apologize for Netherland. But Neverland. An emotional child doesn't know what you're talking about. You start talking about feelings. Try it. Go back there. Try to talk to children about feelings. They don't know what you're talking about. They become confused when emotions are addressed. And feel you're asking too much work. They don't know what you're asking them to do.
And here's what I've learned. I've learned so many people don't know how to talk about their emotions or feelings. How does that make you feel? Well, it just makes me feel like you don't love me. Okay? That's not a feeling. Well, it's not. Well, it makes me feel like you don't care. That's not a feeling. Those are thoughts. Feelings follow thoughts. Try it sometime on each other. Tell me how that, tell me what feeling you're feeling. Well, I just feel like you left me out. No. That's not a feeling. What's the feeling? What's the feeling? And it's like. It's like pulling teeth sometime to get people.
What do you mean? Well, are you sad? Oh, I guess. Yeah, I'm good. I'm more angry. Okay, now we're talking. Because as long as I'm thinking, you just made me feel like I don't care. I'm putting it on you. Being triggered has nothing to do with the person who triggered you. It's true. It has everything to do with ourselves. So as we said last week, let's flag those, right? In other words, mark those and say, this is where I'm going to have to get some help. It may take counseling. It may take getting some help, but don't just pass over it. If this next week or tonight or tomorrow, you get triggered big time, inordinate, just mark it. Don't beat yourself up. Don't say, well, this is over. No, just mark it. This is where I need some help.
If they wouldn't do that, I'd be like, no, just you mark it for yourself, okay? Here's an adolescent emotionally. They have feeling, but limited ability to communicate them. So what do they do? They have emotional constipation. They can blow up. Now, that's the 42-year-old that acts like a 16-year-old. It's true, isn't it? Let's be honest with ourselves. It's emotional adolescence. I'm not saying that anyone can't fall into that as a trap, but if that's your normal response to things, go get some help because your marriage is going to be suffering. You couldn't be married happily to anybody because it's emotional, okay? So if you're more concerned about your feelings. Listen to yourself. The pastoring, I hear it all the time. People focused on their feelings. They got overlooked. It's about their feelings. And I'm going, okay, here's a great opportunity now to grow. Here's a great opportunity to get some help. It's the same in marriage. So what does an emotional adult look like? Well, first of all, he or she has learned how to identify and communicate feelings, can be emotionally safe and keep confidences, values.
And here's the feeling of their spouse. Let me back up just a little bit. I think probably women are guilty, perhaps so more than men, of having a fuss with their husband and then going and talking about it all with a girlfriend. That's not really being an adult emotionally. And it's really a betrayal of sorts. Values and here's the feeling of their spouse. That's what an adult does. When we work. When we were early marriage, if I would hurt her, say something, she'd slam a few cabinet doors and then we wouldn't talk for 30 minutes. And then that grew into three hours and then eventually grew into three days. Maybe not, but it seemed like. And I knew we weren't going to have any togetherness or anything in that time. I remember we were five years old in marriage. I came home from lunch break. We were actually youth pastors in Lawton. And I saw the depth. The depth of the wound that she had, not that she was responding correctly, but the depth of the wound that my words were causing. And I really, truly repented. And I actually, in my prayer, I pulled darts out of her back. I said, baby, I've put daggers and darts in you.
I'm going to pull these out. And each time I prayed and asked for a good, I would pull them out of her back like I was. And God did something. We ended up in the same chair together, didn't we? And just cried and wept. And we decided, OK, wait a minute. How can we guard this? How can we guard this atmosphere? So you can feel that atmosphere start to rise up, can't you? And so we made a commitment. We would roll the window down and let it out and start all over. And many times we're riding down the road and we start feeling it. You roll your window down, I'll roll my window down. It's kind of a joke, but it was like, OK, wait a minute. What's happening here? We're really not protecting our relationship emotionally. Now, we had to grow up and become more mature.
And I'm sure we still have some growing to do. I don't mean that. But you really do start valuing your spouse's feelings. You want to hear and you want to say, am I hearing you? That's part of the emotional health. What does it look like? Let's look at this. Here's what it looks like. If you were emotionally healthy, it feels emotionally safe with your spouse. I'm going to have you ask a question here in a minute, OK? Shares fears, dreams, and disappointments and joys. Not tonight, but sometimes ask your spouse. Am I defensive? When you try to share something with me, don't ask that tonight. I want to get through the meeting. Just got a few more minutes. Would you do that to yourself? Would you do that? Ask yourself that.
Am I defensive? Ask, am I defensive? Am I known being known? This is what I'm asking myself. So here's one of the questions I want to ask. I know we're running out of time, but real quickly here. What about emotional safety with your spouse? I'm not going to ask you to ask them. I'm going to ask you to ask yourself. Do you believe that your spouse feels safe emotionally with you?
And then I want you to go home and ask that question. Do I feel emotionally safe? Honey, do you feel emotionally safe? I'm going to ask you that when we get home. We've been going over stuff today, but I'm going to ask her that when we get home. So the questions should be, do I really know what my spouse is feeling? And does my spouse feel safe telling me hard things? That would be a really good one.
Honey, do you feel safe telling me hard things? That'd be really good, wouldn't it? Healthy physically, mature in intimacy.
A sexual child does not see themselves as sexual, will not initiate sex, and talking about sex is always inappropriate. That's a child. That's a sexual child. An adolescent, sex is for them mostly. If we had time. If we had time, here's what I would say. I would say most men enter into a marriage with some level of sexual addiction. Probably the first level. There's three levels. Probably just the first level.
And with that, you will not know your sex drive without getting help there. I wish I had more time to deal with that. But you will not know your sex drive until you get dealt with a stronghold of a sexual addiction. Because you'll think the sexual addiction is your sex drive. It's not. And I could give you example after example. And I'm hesitant to do that right now. But I could give you. An adolescent is unaware of the spouse's sexual needs. Why?
Because it's normally about them. And here's how you could tell if you have the first level sexual addiction. You get angry when your needs are not met. Sex conversations seem to feel cheap. And it's never about intimacy. Here's what a sexual adult looks like.
Accepts themselves sexually. Accepts the sexuality of their spouse. Willing to initiate sex. And has intimacy during sexuality. There's so much to be said here.
I can say here's what it looks like. There's frequent communication. There's mutual care. There's vulnerability. There's romance. And there's pursuing one another rather than waiting for the desire. Let's share with them.
We got a hold of something probably 20 something years ago. 20 or 30. And it was this. It helped us a lot. Maybe where we were in our life. Maybe if you're newly married it won't fit. But we had a sex agreement. And here's what we did. I wrote down on a piece of paper how often and frequent. She wrote down on a piece of paper without showing me. And then we showed each other. And most men will have more than what she has. And most women think it's more than what he thinks it is. So that helped us to have some honesty. And we did something else. You may not think this is romantic. But it is. It helps. Is that one week was my week. And one week was her week. And she chose what days in advance. And I chose what days in advance. And it took anxiety away. Because she may be tired thinking, oh, I hope he doesn't want. And he may be thinking, when's the next time going to be? So there's anxiety about that. And if I bring it up, how do I talk about it? So you never become a sexual adult. It really helped us. You may not want to. You may not want to talk about romance. Hey, that just happens anyway. But the other was a real, it helped us.
Don't you think, babe? Absolutely. We actually even, we called it a contract in one sense. I guess that was the lawyer in me coming out. But, you know, we agreed on, we would compromise. But we would agree that, okay, so this week, let's say it's going to be Tuesday and Friday. And so the good thing about that is. It's her week. Well. Yeah. But at least. Just saying. Well, and the good thing, the good practical thing about that is that on the nights that you know that that's not under the agreement, then, ladies, if you start reading a book and you want to keep reading the book until midnight, then you don't have to try to figure out whether this is really okay or whether it's not really okay. Or maybe you want to sew. Or maybe you want to do something else. As far as having the agreement, you know what the terms of the agreement are. And so you just hold to that and you keep that. It's a covenant like other things are a covenant. Right.
So we just throw that out. Let me give you this here, too, because how many guys say physical touch is your love language? Raise your hand up high. Don't be ashamed because we're not saying it's sexual. Right. But it's hard to know the difference. And let's talk about physical intimacy a bit. Since physical touch is my love language, I can tell you any time she comes and lays her hand on my shoulder. I mean, if she comes over and just gets close to me, I mean, it's a big deal. She wants quality time. So that's a big deal to her. But it's amazing whether it's your love language or not, how important for physical intimacy that there be non-sexual physical intimacy. And somebody was talking about that earlier, just about holding hands. I think you guys were. I wish I could tell your story. I wish I had time for that. But they were. Well, let me just say this. Others have observed y'all doing that and seeing the intimacy and learning from that, the touching and holding hands. And so holding hands or hugging. And Amy and I will just, you know, we said we should do this every day. Just hold each other for three to five minutes because we need it. We need to do that every day. We don't do it every day, but it's almost every day. I think almost every day. Just because we're busy. How many are busy? You're going. You're going. You're going. You're going. And maybe she's not feeling well, you know, and it's like she's laying down and not feeling well. And I come in. I've got other things. Just let me just hold you. Just stand there. Let me hold you. Sitting close together. Kissing. Just being. We need that in your marriage. This is not sexual. This is touching. Well, and in the same way, ladies, that we ask the Lord to show us how to respect our husbands, how to show affection. It's the same thing. Lord, show me how often my husband needs physical touch. Help me. Help me be reminded that, you know, I'll be busy doing something or I'll have my head somewhere else. Help me just stop in the middle of it and realize, wait a minute. He just came home or, you know, he just walked in the door. And whatever I'm doing certainly is not more important than showing him. In this instance, that's his love language. My love language is quality time. He asked me the other day what we could do that would, you know, make me feel loved. And I said, well, I want to go to the movie and I want to see Toy Story 5. And so we went on a Friday afternoon and sat there in the theater. And I just felt so wonderful because he chose to do that with me. That would not have been on his top list of priorities. Priorities of things to do. But he did it because he knew that quality time for me is what it's about. That's good.
Here's what, let's just wrap this up. Here's what I hear. I want you to take this. I want you to take with you that God has given you a covenant, given you purpose. He's given you a covenant. He's commanded the men to love, the wives to respect, the husbands to love, and the wives to respect. And that we're to grow out of healthy, emotional spirit, soul, and body.
That is. Not just your, we could easily talk about the spiritual. Because I believe you all understand the need for the spiritual. We didn't even go there for that one. But the spiritualness is so clear that you need to pray together, be together. And you're learning that. You know that, right? Even if it's five minutes to pray for one another.
But I want in this room, I want to pray before we do something. I want you to just bow your head right there where you are with your spouse. If your spouse is here with you, just. Just join hands together with them.
And I want to pray for what we're about to do is that we are going to reaffirm. I started to say confirm, but reaffirm the vows that we made. And I want you to say, because I made those vows, I want you to say in your heart, I'm going to go for whatever it takes to get healing and to get help. And if there's a lot of stuff under the bridge, and I keep saying that because when I was praying, I had a sense in my heart that there's... There's going to be those here that have a lot that's happened. And yeah, it's neat, Glenn, to hear you and Amy sit up there and talk. But you don't know where I've been. You don't know where we are. You don't know how bad it is. And that's true. But I'm asking the Lord to give you some kind of hope that he's able to get to the bottom of it. It's like I said last week. I believe two Christians living out Christian principles, biblical principles, can make a marriage work. We believe God has providentially, divinely given us our share. But I believe biblical principles work no matter what your arrangement is. And I just want you to say, God, if that's the case, I'm going to allow you to heal me. I'm going to come to the point I can forgive. I'm going to come to the point that I'm not going to hold any record of wrong. The point that you heal my heart, that I can respond as a husband to lay down my life sacrificially, or as a wife to respect and submit. Lord, I pray for that to happen somehow in a way that only your spirit can work.
Take these two nights. Take these two nights going forward and begin to put a hunger in our hearts. Put an amenized heart in everyone in this room. A desire to have a marriage that represents Christ in the church. And everything that's out of order, bring it into line, Father. Everything that we would look around and find a family life ministry team and say, could I talk to you? Could I meet with you? Would you pray with us? Lord, I ask you that couples would be strengthened in this house.
Lord, all the tragedies of life. That have hurt us and separated us. May we say, heal us all the way back from our childhood. All the baggage that we brought. These things that are brought to the surface. Through these challenges of life. Really are you wanting to heal us? And so we ask for that in Jesus name.
Amen. Amen. I'm going to invite you to stand together with us. We're going to do two things. Next two weeks is on finances. And I've heard people say over the years that more marriages, are broken. You'll hear the professionals say this. More marriages are broken over finances than anything. I personally don't believe that. I believe finances reveals the problems that's in the marriage. Does that make sense? It doesn't cause a divorce. It reveals the problem. You could live in a tent and have one pot to cook in and be happy. You know, you can make it. You can make it. It's not things. But finances of managing is. Part of stewardship and it's part of our whole family. So that starts the next two weeks.
And so here's what we're going to do right now on the screen. There is a commitment from the men, the husbands to the wives and the cooks. You're going to come up here and lead us in this. And Amy, you and I are going to participate over here. And Jonathan is going to lead the men. And this is going to be a time of like renewing your vows. But it's really more recommitment to the vows that you've already made. You're going to look back and say, we made those vows. And if you're not married. Just put up with us for a moment. OK, in this time, just let us let us do this because we're looking back and we're thanking God for our spouse. And I want this to be real in your heart. And men, when Jonathan reads this, you're going to say it out loud with him. OK, and you're going to say it to your wife. So if you want to look over that a little bit, so you know what you're about to say, because I want it to be real in your heart. I don't want it to be words that Jonathan puts in our mouth, even though you will repeat it. I want it to be real. And then when we're done.
When Alicia leads the wives in that same commitment to their husbands, we'll give you a chance to look at it. In fact, go ahead and put the one up for the wives, too, if you don't mind. I know it's a little bit. Take a moment. Look, it's real similar, but it shifts. It talks about a commitment of companionship, of submission and respect and commitment to follow and affections and hearts. So those things I want you to say out of your heart, if you don't mind, go back to the men's.
Now, notice it says here there's some things here. I want you to catch when you're when you're there to say it, because you're honoring her and it says that with you're going to lead her spiritually and it says that you're going to love her like Christ loves the church and you're going to say, my heart belongs to you and my eyes are for you alone. You're really commuting, communicating some real wholeness there. And I want you to see what you're saying. I commit to continue to uphold our honor and our covenant. So when we say this, let it be out of our heart. And when they're finished, Amy and I are going to come back and we're going to pray. We're going to pray collectively over all of us.
OK, and then we're going to ask our family life ministry teams to make themselves available. If you want to talk further, if you want to just discuss things, if you want to pray with someone, just whatever you want, we're going to make that available for us.
And this is how we're going to finish our evening. Jonathan, you and Alicia. Glenn, thank you guys so much. That was really, really good. Thank you. I'm going to ask us to look at each other. I'll lead us very slowly, just a little phrase at a time so you can say it. So you can really look at each other rather than we have the screen if you need it. But I think it's more effective for us to look at each other. OK, here we go. Before God and these witnesses, I joyfully renew my marriage covenant. I believe with all my heart that it is God's will that we are husband and wife. And I thank him for the gift that you are to me. I honor you as my equal in Christ, my companion and my own flesh. Today. I renew my commitment to lead you spiritually with humility, to love you sacrificially as Christ loves the church, to honor you, cherish you, protect you and faithfully care for you all the days of my life. My heart belongs to you and my eyes are for you alone. I pledge to be the husband God has called me to be walking in faithfulness, integrity and love. I commit to continue to uphold and honor. The covenant we made together, remaining devoted to you as long as we both shall live today before these witnesses. I joyfully renew my marriage covenant. I believe with all my heart that is God's will that we are husband and wife. And I thank him for the gift that you are to me. I honor and respect as Christ, my companion and my own flesh. Today, I renew my commitment to follow you, to respect you, to submit to you. As I do to Christ, my heart and affections belong to you. And I pledge to be the wife God has called me to be walking in faithfulness, integrity and love by God's grace. I will continue to uphold and honor the covenant we made together, remaining devoted to you as long as we both shall live. Just as you stand there together, holding hands, I want to ask Amy to pray over the marriages that God would not only strengthen the marriages, hear this here in this house, but that by example, they would see other strong marriages and that this house would have some strong marriages. Can you agree with that? Amy, would you pray that? Lord, I ask you for the grace to fulfill everything that we've heard, everything that you've spoken by your spirit. Lord, I thank you that you are with us in this endeavor, that you walk with us and that you enable us. Amen. Amen. Lord, I thank you that you are with us in this endeavor, that you allow us the ability by your spirit to love one another as Christ loved the church. Lord, we give you glory and we thank you that we have the opportunity to manifest the glory of God through our marriages. Lord, let them be as an example. Let them be as a road sign, a way to follow for those that don't know the way. And Lord, we just thank you. I thank you, Lord, that you are in us, working in us. Enabling us to do it and to be all that you would want us to be in you. In Jesus' name. Amen. I'm going to ask the teams, Family Life teams, just to make themselves available. What we've been doing in these evenings is fellowshipping maybe more out in the foyer and allowing those who want to talk with Family Life teams to be able to do that and have time to do that and just visit and pray. And if you just want to sit together as a couple and pray, you're welcome to do that. I know we have some children. We're trying to honor that as close to 830 as possible, but we want this to be a precious time. So God bless you and thank you for being a part of these two weeks.
