Love For A Lifetime II, What Matters For Men

If you were to give me permission to hang out with you for a relatively short period of time, it wouldn't take me long to know what you treasure. Just being with you for a while, I could discern your priorities and your values and what you really think is important in your life. The truth would come out. I could see the way you spend your time. I would observe the people that you would converse with because they reflect your treasure. I'd certainly observe where you put your money because where you invest reflects what you treasure. I'd see the things that you read and the places that you absorb information and that would tell me something about what you really treasure. Sooner or later, I'd discover it, if I just had the privilege of spending some time with you. Jesus said in Matthew 621, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. In other words, what you treasure and where you treasure it, you're going to find emotion and feelings and you're going to be able to give expression to those things which you treasure. You're motivated about it, you get excited about it, it gets your temperature raised a little bit because you treasure it. It means something to you. It's valuable. It brings a smile to your face when you think about it. Now men, I'm fairly sure that in most all of our lives here today, there was a time when your treasure was very obvious. There was a time if I had been privileged to tag along with you, I would have watched you giving prime energies toward expressing how much you cared for that one special woman in your life. Someone that you knew that was just the right person. It would be so obvious, wouldn't it? As you made effort to, you know, carve time out of a busy schedule to be there, as you went and scraped and scrounged to get the money together that you needed to make an expression of love. There was a time when that treasure was the most important thing in your life. A time when you'd do anything to let her know that. We did this maybe for a long period, maybe for not so long a period. But that treasure knew that she was treasured. She knew that she was on the receiving end of an awful lot of attention that probably she wasn't used to. She loved it. She felt special, secure, loved. She felt treasured. She knew it was gonna last. She was positive that it would just keep getting better and better and better because it, you know, that was the right thing. So she'd entered into the wedding and the honeymoon and married life with all this wonderful expectation of being treasured for the rest of her life. Then they moved into the apartment and stage two. Hit them between the eyes. Reality struck. And see, at that very point in many marriages is when the men kind of shift gears about what they treasure the most. And it's the common story of many men that I know that this very normal, if you will, instinctive, kind of natural as eating and sleeping, refocusing of their energies takes place toward the next challenge of their lives. Married men proceed to shift their attention to the next goal, which normally is, well, let's get on and build a career. Let's make a name for ourselves. Let's do something with our lives that's gonna matter. Now 99 out of a hundred men aren't even conscious of the fact that they're shifting the focus of their treasure. But it's happening. Sort of without any warning, without any sense of communication, they systematically begin to dismantle the esteem and emotional stability of their new bride by closing the book on their courtship phase, their romance phase, and shifting their attention to the next treasure on their list. It's almost as though he says, well, you know, I had a job to do. I was supposed to get married. I took care of that. And now it's time for the next one. Let's get on with it. You know, it's a subconscious thing. It's not like we make this conscious, well, I'm gonna put this. But he just, it's the next challenge along the line. Men, how many of you know that we're sort of raised that way? You know, it's kind of in us to, you know, our dads told us, hey, here's the chores for today. You do these and that's, you know, that's what you're supposed to do. When you did that, you got to pat on the head. Then you got into sports and you said, well, now you, you know, you try out, you practice, you make the team, you play, you go to the tournament, you get your award, put your uniform in the locker and you go do it all over again the next season. You know, it's just like very neat little stages. You get a job in the marketplace, the boss says, this is your job, this is what you do, you do it well, you get your next job and so on. We are raised to think in terms of the next challenge. Ah, men, you're looking real pious here. I happen to know that most of you are thinking this. Isn't that true? I mean, we are linear people, men. We tend to think this is the next thing along the way. For most women, that's not the way they view this whole process. We need to go back and take a look as to what's happening back in the mind of the woman doing all this. We need to look at the subplot that's taking place back in her mind. You see, she's seen this thing not as a task, but she's seen this thing as the answer to this longing and this desire deep in her heart. She's asking all along, does He really treasure me? Am I really that special to someone else in the face of the earth? Or is He out just for a good time and a quick thrill and you know, another conquest, so to speak. And so women also are raised a certain way and they're raised to kind of protect themselves and to watch out because they know that this is happening out there. They know they've got these men on a conquest and they've got to be sure that what they're entering into is for real. But over time, this cautious young lady begins to observe this man giving all these energies to caring for her, treasuring her. You know, the long walks and talks, the special expressions of love, the gifts, the dinners, the romance, the calls between coffee breaks. She starts to think, you know, He really does love me. He really does treasure me. He really does think I'm the most special person in the world. Slowly her fears and her defenses begin to subside. The courtship goes on into engagement and engagement on to marriage. She's saying, this is wonderful. This is what I've always longed for. This is my dream come true. So she enters into marriage to seal it. They go on the honeymoon to celebrate it. They come home ready to enter into the routine of a lifelong marriage of treasuring one another. And she picks up the pen to write the book on marital bliss just about the time he's closing the book on getting the marriage task done. Now, dear ones, right there is when it begins to unravel for many couples. Did you know that divorce statistics tell us that over 50 percent of divorces happen in the first seven years? And 40 percent of those in the first three. And it's because of this subtle shift in focus. And if the truth be known, for many people it's just a matter of endurance if they don't separate. And the reason is because of the subconscious shifting that's taking place in the minds of men. You see, the woman is left thinking, what have I gotten into here? What is this all about? I thought I was the most important thing in his life. And I find that well, he's got a lot of other competing interests. He's got goals to obtain and attain. He's got other desires that he's trying to fulfill. And I'm not the treasure that I once was to him. Now again, it's not happening like some overt discussion. You know, the husband doesn't walk in and say, you know, you're now number two in my priority list. Or three, or five, or ten. You know, he doesn't say that. But it happens through the actions and the values and all those observable things that you can see in a person's life. And she receives this as terrible rejection. How could I have been so stupid, she thinks, to think that he really treasured me. And that's when you get down into the third stage, and the fourth stage. You know, the resentment and the rebellion. Men, if we had any idea what happened in the minds and hearts of the women that we love, when we close that book in courtship, if we had any idea, I'm convinced that we wouldn't do anything less than repent before God and ask forgiveness of our wives. Now wives, listen up. Okay? You need to be able to tell your husbands what it is that they can change. And single folks, listen carefully. I'm going to share with you on two levels of what you can see in advance. Ladies, if you're praying about being married sometime, what to look for in the mate that you believe God is sending you. And men, what you can kind of grow in your understanding of, so that when you do enter into marriage, you know what you're getting into. It's not just a task along the line in your life. Now, the first level is, to me, the most important. It's the level of the heart. It's the level of what I feel most men violate in the women that they love. And there's what it is. To me, it's the foundational attitude that goes wrong from the start. And it's this. It's the inability to continue to honor, to honor, to honor our brides. Let me confess something to you. I know, in my life, one of the things that I struggle with is a certain form of pride. It isn't really pride of accomplishment, because what has been happening around here is really the effort, result of the efforts of many hundreds of you, and wonderful elders in the staff, and so on. It's not really the pride of ownership of stuff, because lots of people have a lot more stuff than I do. It's not the pride of feeling that I'm better than somebody. But you know what it is? I struggle along the way, because it's as though I have this sense of what's sort of knowing what's right and wrong. I just have this, you know, I can see a situation from afar and say, this is what's really happening there. And it's, you know, and I kind of know the currents that are underneath things. And I know the difference between good and bad, and even better and best in lots of cases. This frustrates people, and most especially my wife, because I don't give her room to be herself, you see. Her room to give expression to the things that she sees and perceives, and so I kind of cut her off even before the fact. And I began to realize how very wrong, how very sinful an attitude this was in our marriage. How really what I was doing was not honoring her as a special person God created her to be. And brethren, I may be pushing it a bit, but I have to say that I think I'm not the only one in this place today that suffers from that same sinful attitude. We have an inclination as men to kind of categorize the women in our lives, and sort of narrowly define what it is about them that we can predict, and sort of even preclude if we are given the opportunity to do so. This is sin, and brethren, we need to see that if we take that attitude, we are not honoring our wives. And when we don't honor them, we don't give them the privilege of being the helpmate that God intended for them. 1st Peter 3, 7. Can we have that overhead, please? Here's what the Bible says, "...husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor," or the same word could be translated easily, "...respect upon them as the weaker sex." It's a commandment of the Lord to honor the women of our lives. Dishonoring, you see, is not really a conscious thing as much as it is a subconscious letting go of our superiority. That's what it comes down to. Now, Gary Smully mentioned ten of the top dishonoring acts in the home. Here's a way, if you can judge men, if you are kind of falling into this subtle posture of not honoring, okay? Ladies, sharpen your elbows. Are you ready? Number one, ignoring or degrading another person's opinion, advice, or beliefs. Burying oneself in the television or newspaper when another person is trying to communicate with you. Creating jokes about another person's weak areas or shortcomings. Making regular verbal attacks on loved ones. Criticizing harshly, being judgmental, delivering uncaring lectures. Treating in-laws or other relatives as unimportant in one's planning and communication. None of us, so far no one's even moved, that's good. That's the nine o'clock service, I forgot. Alright, ignoring or simply not expressing appreciation for kind deeds done. Distasteful habits that are practiced in front of the family. There we go, we got one. Even after we're asked to stop, you know. It's like flossing right after dinner at the table, you know, those kind of things. Over committing ourselves to other projects or people so that everything outside the home seems more important than those inside the home. Power struggles that leave one person feeling that he or she is a child or being harshly dominated. An unwillingness to admit that we are wrong or to ask forgiveness. The top ten dishonoring acts in a home. As you can see, a lot of these are subtle. A couple of them are a little bit obvious, but and if we're honest, it's easy for us. It's really easy for us. I mean, I could go down that list and probably highlight several for myself and maybe you can as well. Brethren, we have to realize that this thing won't happen. The next thing I'm going to share, the second level, really won't matter if the issue of honoring has not been clear. It's got to be clear in your hearts. And men, you know, we tend to want our wives to honor us, don't we? One of our staff members bought his wife a license plate for her car that said Proverbs 31 on it. You know that passage in Proverbs, the virtuous woman does all these things. I don't know if he bought it because she was, won it because he wanted to be one. You know, like get in the car and just remember, Proverbs 31, you know. And I was wondering, what would she get him, you know? Ladies, what would you, I was going to have a little bit of a contest here. What license plate would you like to have for your husband? Philippians 2, you know, humble yourself as a servant of God and those kinds of things. What would it be, you know? But we tend to want the women to be this real godly, virtuous, you know, all things kind of person. And I wonder, do we honor them for just who they are? It's really something that God has got to touch your heart about. And I'm reluctant even to go on until I know that deep inside you're answering this question honestly, brothers. And if you're not a married man today, remember that honoring begins when you recognize the glory of God in a woman. That she's created in God's image and that she's to be honored simply because of what God has brought into her life. And we need to repent if we slipped on this, we really do. And we need to ask forgiveness and we need to say, honey, help me to honor you. What can I do to honor you more? And that leads me to the second level, the level of treasuring. Now in Ephesians 5, why don't you turn there since you all have your Bibles today and I want you to be able to follow along with me in Ephesians 5. There's a verse here that I think is very familiar because it's sort of the wedding passage. You hear this at most every wedding you go to. Verse 28 and 29, in the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies, for he who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he, and I'm gonna use the words in the RSV, nurtures and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. Husbands love your wife. Let me give you a little tiny short Greek lesson here. The word husbands love your wives is in the present imperative tense. Let's put that up please. The present imperative tense in the Greek, which means to keep on loving, to continue to love, to never stop doing it, never stop treasuring, never stop loving your wife. Brothers, if I could only impart that. Never stop it. Don't draw back. Don't assume that the job's done. Like the guy, woman said, why don't you ever tell me that you love me? He said, I told you we got married. If I ever change my mind, I'll let you know. You know, that doesn't work. Doesn't work. Never stop treasuring. Now, I've noted here six ways, level two ways. If you're gonna honor your wife, that's the beginning point. If you're gonna honor the woman that you love, if you're gonna build a laugh, a relationship that lasts for a lifetime, honoring is at the basis of it. But number two, level two, how do you treasure? Number one, court your wife, court the woman of your dreams creatively. You see, boredom is death to passion. Let me say that again. Boredom is death to passion. And predictability breeds boredom. It's true in worship, isn't it? And it's true in your love relationship with your spouse. You know, it's true in sports. The announcer comes on and says, well, the Steelers, they're so predictable, they're gonna throw, have two running plays, throw a pass and punt. They need to mix it up and try something. They need to pass on first down. Translated for men, men, we need to fake the run and make a pass. See, creativity inspires. It brings surprise, it delights. It causes sort of the unexpected to happen. It brings about a spark that does wonders for your relationship. And dear ones, you know what we often do with our creativity? We start at 8 o'clock in the morning and we pour it all out until 5 o'clock in the afternoon. We get home and we're just spent out. That's it for my creativity. We need to realize that our relationship is worthy of that. You know, men, call your wife from work just to tell her something good, you know. Not, honey, did you do this? Did you do that? Tell her that you love her. Tell her something that's positive. Write her a note, you know. Leave it. Not a list of, did you take out the trash? You know, not that kind of thing. Take your wife for a walk. Someone's thinking, where? Where do I go? Just go around, you know, the yard or take her down to the park or, you know. Go for a walk. Take some time to court creatively. We're gonna have here in a few weeks, if you didn't see this little slip on your chair, this invitation, we're gonna have a little evening out that you could bring your wife. It's a creative way to celebrate together. You might want to consider that as an expression of your love. You see, we need to do some things. Bring some flowers unexpectedly. Do some things that say you're special. I treasure you. Number two, learn the power of meaningfully touching, all right, or tenderly touching. Learn to touch in a positive, caring way. You know, men, because of our drives and our desires, we easily forget the power to a woman of non-sexual touching. Ah, someone said right there. You see those two words? They don't go together. You know, non-sexual touching. It's like airline food or military intelligence or short sermons. Those, they don't go together. But they do. See, men, women have a different need for, for touching. I've read these statistics a number of different places, so I assume that they are accurate. In surveys of women, 70 cent, 70 percent rather, 70 percent preferred hugs and holding and caressing to sexual activity. I mean, if they had to choose, that's what they said. I'd rather have that. Now, see, men just don't relate to that at all. That doesn't make any sense. Then we just need to learn that there's, there's a real purpose in a touch, you know. We were told six months ago that, what was it, Scott? Twelve to sixteen times a day, you should meaningfully touch your wife. So don't, don't go out there and, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about an expression that you consciously make, you know. Holding is just such an important thing. You can do all kinds of things, you know. Just reach for her hand, you know, where it is. It's right where you left it ten years ago. So right down there, you can pick up and walk with it. It's right there. Now, on the nurturing side of things, those are cherishing kinds of things. Let me talk about the nurturing things. So nurture, you know, the nurture is kind of like the caring and, and here's how you can do that. Number one, actually this is the third thing of the six, communicate meaningfully. You see, again, the needs are really different here. Men usually prefer not to talk all that much. Now, I know there's exceptions, and by the way, I'm not trying to stereotype every couple. I know that. There's some men who talk and their wives just kind of sit there and listen, and it's, you know, you might have to flip these things a little bit in some respects. But most women go through their day with little meaningful communication, especially if they're locked at home with little loved ones, okay? You know, Carol asked me the other day, she said, is there anything wrong with not wanting to hear your name ever again, you know? Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, you know, and experts tell us that most women need about one hour a day of meaningful communication. Some of the men I'm looking at just went, oh my God, there's no way, there's no way I'm gonna do that. Well, you know, chances are it won't be all one sitting, you know, some in the morning, and then, you know, but maybe it's not even reasonable to do that, but let me suggest something. I think it is appropriate, and I think it is very achievable for every man who's married to take his wife at least one time a week out of the house. If that's where she spends all of her time, if she's in the workplace, maybe to be in the house, but take her out of her normal environment and spend a chunk, an hour or two of uninterrupted communication time. I'm astounded when I talk to people who've gone years without ever taking their wife on a date, years without going away, years without talking to them outside of the home. Brothers, if that's happened to you, wake up. Invest a little bit. Now, your wife may not ask it, and you say, well, she doesn't really care. She may even say she doesn't really care. You know what I found? She cares. Just get her out there and let her talk about it a little bit, you know. She needs to believe that you mean it. You say, well, do you do that? Well, you know, I have to say, I probably have a reasonably busy schedule, and yet I try every week to take some time. Usually it's on a Monday. I'll take some time with Carol. We'll get up, get the kids off, and then we'll be together around the house, and then we'll come out. Usually at late morning, we might stop here to see what's, you know, needs to be tied together, and then we'll go out to lunch, most Mondays, and spend about two hours together. And I'll look over the table, and I'll say, all right, hon, what's really happening? How are you feeling about this? Sometimes it's just sort of light. We don't get into things real deeply, and sometimes, you know, we'll have four milkshakes. We'll just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. And it means so much to us, and not just to her. It means something to me, too. We need to give time to communicate meaningfully. Brothers, let me just mention something. I've discovered that, you know, lots of men complain about the sexual responsiveness, and many times what women are looking for is that soul communication first. Usually, if that's being attended to and nurtured, then the physical dimension of a relationship comes quite a bit more easily. And I just urge you to consider that as something that maybe you've overlooked. Another part of nurturing is learning to inspire your partner regularly. Inspire your wife. You know, one of the things that often contributes to a woman's low self-esteem is the steady barrage of deflating characterizations she receives. Despite that little element in our culture that's, you know, pushing the women up into the forefront in a rather, you know, almost militaristic kind of a way, most women are still victimized by the idea of society that, you know, well, you're just a mom, or you just do this, or you're just a woman. Dear ones, that kind of thing just bears down on the self-esteem of a woman. James Dobson wrote a book 15 years ago, 1975, What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women. Principal theme of that book, it's an excellent book, is women struggle with their esteem because no one really tells them that they're valuable. And men, when you don't do it, you are opening the door to those lies just continuing to barrage the woman that you love. You need to be able to assure her that you love her as she is, that her potential in Christ is incredible. When I say inspire, let's put that up again, when I say inspire, I'm saying urge her to reach beyond where she is. Tell her that there's some things that maybe are latent down there that have never been brought out. I look up here and see these banners. Now, seven or eight years ago, we didn't have any banners. Mimi Lodek and the gals who work in these banners, I mean, there wasn't anything to do. And look at this wonderful gift now that, not just here in Pittsburgh, but other parts of the country are enjoying. That's been in there, you see, and it just needed to be cultivated and brought out. And she receives wonderful support from Adam in doing those things. I mean, it's part of what he's done to help her to reach her potential in Christ, inspiring her. It's a rare thing, it really is, when a man is secure enough to say, honey, I want to be your primary cheerleader. I want you to be all that God's created you to be. And I don't want to overdo it here, but another couple in our church that so exemplifies this principle is Paul and Jan Sherman. I watch Paul behind the scenes, you know, he's just a behind-the-scenes kind of guy, servant heart. But he's Jan's biggest fan. And he's out there, Jan, you know, you can do it, and I'll help you do it. Well, that attitude blesses me, because that releases fullness in her life. And finally, on nurturing, men, we need to learn to guard our wives faithfully. Security is like sunlight to your relationship. It really is. You know, we've been going through some interesting weather patterns. We just had an ice storm yesterday. I tried to walk up there on the, up in our offices, and there was a coating of ice as I walked in. And it's an interesting thing when there's ice, even different than snow. When there's just ice, what happens? I mean, even if you try to be directional, you start sliding, and you're afraid to really, you know, set a course, because you go out just like that. Well, when you're not ministering security to your wife, when you're not giving her the kind of thing that lets her know where she fits, lets her know that you're not, you know, one day here and one day not, it brings the warmth of love. And just sort of like the sunlight that melts away the fears into her life. Men, many women, many women need to be told that. They need to be affirmed in that. When I do a wedding, I always end the ceremony by reading Romans 8, verses 31 through 39. And it says that nothing will ever be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And I always say that because I want them to know that Jesus Christ has said He's never going to leave them, and that's what you're saying to one another. Nothing is going to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It needs to be a commitment. It needs to be something that's very evident. Carol and I made a commitment to each other 20 years ago that we would never use the word divorce in any of our arguments. And we never have in 20 years. Murder, I've brought up a few times. But we're committed, and it's made a difference. It really has made a difference. Now, as I end this message, I'm aware that there are a number of you that are sorting through where you're at with this. Let me mention number six. Sort of the ground of it all, the basis of living out the rest of these, and that is to follow Jesus passionately. You see, men, I've discovered that a wholehearted commitment to walk in the ways of the Lord is the best thing that you can do to build respect and honor of the woman that you love. Most women say to me, I just want my husband to follow the Lord. Now, sometimes they say that because they know it's going to be better for them. But sometimes they say it because they know that that's what he really needs in his life, and he's looking for all these other answers. You see, men, as you seek the Lord, the Holy Spirit's going to transform your character. He's going to instill integrity into your life. He's going to sharpen your sensitivities to things that are happening. He's going to clarify your values. He's going to give you a sense of purpose and peace and joy that you can't manufacture and bring into the relationship any other way. It's sort of what God does in every man who will let Him work. And that very characteristic is the thing that women respect the most. And you cannot love, you cannot be passionate, you cannot exude the kind of treasuring that I've been talking about today, unless you respect the person that you're with. You can't love a God that you don't respect. Men, that's what we really want, isn't it? We want to be respected. We want to be honored. We want to be assured that we are of value. There's a little bit of Rodney Dangerfield in all of us, you know? But by learning how to honor our wives, our fiancées, our friends, whatever we're talking about, whatever level you're on, learning to treasure them in these six ways, we can open the door. To an incredible release of the grace of God in our relationships. A strengthening that will lead to joy and fulfillment that I think God intended for every man and woman to know together. I pray that if you're here today and you're somewhere in discouragement right now in a relationship, some of your marriages may be really at the stress point, the fracturing point. Some of you know that some things have to change. Some of you are here and you're not married and you're saying, well, I just would like someone to be able to do all this with. Well, it begins, it really does begin, by following Jesus passionately and trusting Him with the rest. And He'll be faithful to honor you. Let's stand, shall we? Father, I thank You today for Your Word and that it is the rock-shore foundation of all change, all transformation in our hearts. Lord, for every man that's here today, I pray that the Word would dwell richly in their spirit, that they would see how to honor the woman of their lives and then to treasure them by the grace that You released to them. In Jesus' name, amen.