Love For A Lifetime III and IV, Wisdom For Women and Compatibility and Conflict

This is part three in the series, Love for a Lifetime. This message was presented on January 28, 1990, by Dr. J. Passavant, Senior Pastor of North Lake Christian Community. The title of this message is Wisdom for Women. Mannequins, and we wanted to wait for the appropriate moment to disclose them to you today. Now, these mannequins represent a fantasy. And men, I want you to just nod or at least smile if you've ever had this fantasy. You arrive at the door, somewhat weary after a long day's work. Your wife is dressed casually but attractively. She smells inviting and comes to receive you with a warm smile and a passionate kiss. Each of your children have heard that you've come to the door. They leave their activities and likewise act glad to see you and welcome you to the comfort of your well-cleaned and maintained home. Your wife continues to look after you, urging you to sit down and relax before taking part in a tasty dinner, the aroma of which is already wafting throughout the house. Dinner conversation is lighthearted and fun. Later, the family goes out for a stroll with the dog. Then you return to put the kids to bed with no hassles. Then you and your wife relax together, talk just a bit, watch a little TV perhaps, and then go to bed and make passionate love. And it's all before 10 o'clock. Go ahead, Ben. Let me see the heads go, all right? Now the women are laughing as much as the men, which typifies the essence of my problem here today. I knew by Tuesday that I was in big trouble for this message. And I began to send up signals for help. All the staff kept reassuring me, go ahead. And I said, but I can speak to men and I understand men. But a woman should speak to a woman. That's one reason why I want to thank Arlene and Mimi for doing such a great job with Julie, to give you some wisdom from a woman's perspective. And I really wanted a woman to do this whole message. So I asked the obvious woman, my wife, who last night heard this message. And I think she'll be back today. I'm praying for the second service. But she said, honey, about 20 years ago, we knew our roles. Your role is to be up there and my role is to be down here supporting you. And we're not changing it for this subject. And so she stood her ground. And I'm the one to go on and share what I believe is God's word for today to the ladies. I want to say a couple of things in qualification. Primarily, this message is going to be helpful for the younger women. Now, I mean by younger, married less than 30 years. 40? Should I keep going? Mainly because I recognize that I don't pretend to have the insight that those of you who have been married a long, long time might. But I know that a lot of you here today could add to what I'm going to say. I just give you that going in. I had some people add that after the service last night. If you're a divorced woman, I want to say something to you. Please don't let this message discourage you by reminding you of something that perhaps you didn't do very well and therefore blaming yourself again. That's not the intent of this and I don't think the Lord would have that. And I also want to say to the single gals, those of you who have not even any prospect of being married, much of what I'll say today in some cases will apply to just general relationships. And I think you'll find it helpful. And if you're certainly a young single gal hoping to get married sometime, then you too, I'm sure, would want to take some notes concerning how you might best prepare yourself for the man that God brings into your life. Now, as we read in God's Word, Jeff already read for us 1 Peter 3. It's the basis, the text for today. The first word we have to deal with. Folks, you can't escape it. Arlene introduced it, I think, quite well. But it says in 1 Peter 3.1, Wives, in the same way, be submissive to your husbands. The word in the Living Bible was translated, fit in with, the plans of. Now, if you've been in our church any length of time, you know that I do not preach submission from this platform as some kind of a heavy-handed dictatorial stance, man over woman, or leader over follower. I don't, in fact, believe that submission has anything to do with superiority or inferiority. In fact, the Bible says in Ephesians 5 that men and women, husbands and wives, are to be mutually submitted. So that's very clear to me. But it does say here that wives fit in with the plans of your husbands. Look at this Greek word. Can we have that overhead, please? The Greek word for submission is hupotasso. It's really two words, hupotasso, which means to come up underneath and give support. You've heard the story or the phrase that behind every good man is a great woman. Really, in that sense, submission means being up there to hold up, to fit in with. It's a very positive statement. And I want us to look at this message today, Wisdom for Women, in terms of what men need. Really, you need, if you're a man, someone to come alongside and hold you up to be that establishment, that support that you know that you need in order to please God and live according to His word. And so, as I share these things today, I can't help but use some of my own experience as a basis of need along with the Word. And I ask you, in a particular fashion today, to forgive that if it sounds a little overly done. But let me share, first of all, what men need and what women can do to truly be supportive of them. Number one, men need women to be positively loving, to love positively. And I see that in three ways. Let's just highlight those. Through acceptance, encouragement, and positive expressions, as Mimi alluded to, positive expressions of love. Let's talk about acceptance, shall we? Men, I don't see you writing these things down. I'm sorry, you're short-sighted if you don't write these things down. Women are not. They're already writing them. They're going to see how they're doing. Acceptance. I have begun to gain a perspective of most women, and that is that they are highly qualified to be missionaries. Many women in our church are missionaries. But since most women cannot go to the foreign mission field, they marry one. And they undertake to make that man their mission field. And they do everything they can to become to them sort of the backup Holy Spirit in their life, you know? There's the his and the hers Holy Spirit now. And I've seen this and observed it many, many times where a woman decides what her man needs to really be more godly. Now usually, most men find one Holy Spirit is quite enough to bring a measure of conviction and so on when needed. But women tend to have a very persistent spirit about them and decide that it's absolutely appropriate to bear down on things that they know should be changed. And this is when the problems begin to occur. When men don't make enough progress or their rate of change is too slow, then women have a way of deciding how to turn up the heat. You know, what her image of a godly man should be. What her priorities for successful living would be. What she feels the expectations of a good husband should be. Now, if the personality types are similar, some of this stuff goes pretty well. I'm looking at a couple here who I know whose personalities are really different because I married them. And when that's the case, like it is, if you know Carol and I, we are really different personality types. That kind of makes things a little interesting. Remember the illustration of conflict resolution, the Eskimo and the cowboy? She's the Eskimo, I'm the cowboy. And we always have those times when it just doesn't seem to happen very well. And though Carol really hasn't tried to change me a whole lot, there's a few areas where, you know, she's decided to take some shots at it. I've gained permission for these, I have to tell you. But, you know, one of them is Carol tends to be really a frugal person. I mean, she looks out where everything goes. I tend to be a little more enjoy life, hey, let's go for it, have fun, and, you know, that kind of a thing. On big things, that difference is really healthy. You know, I'll want to go in and buy a whole, you know, set of furniture. She'll say, honey, we just need one piece. So we'll balance each other off a little bit and those kind of things. But on the little things, this is where it doesn't work all that well, trying to change me. She has this thing about turning off lights and appliances and stuff. All right, watch the elbows. Okay, watch the elbows, man. See, with Carol, I mean, I'll be in the den watching a little news after dinner. You know, I'll have a little light on and watching the news on TV. I'll get up to go out to get a cup of coffee or something after dinner. I'll come in and the TV will be off and the light will be off. Just walk out the door. It's like she's hovering, waiting for me to... You know, one morning, I was in the shower, right? And where the light's on in the bathroom and all of a sudden the light goes out in the shower and the light in the bathroom. I said, what's going on? She said, it's almost sunrise, you can see. I kid you not. These are true stories. Now, despite our best efforts to change my attentiveness to those details, I'm really not moving much in that direction. It doesn't really work. Women have to understand there's going to be some things that you just can't change, even though you'd like them to be different. And it's best to not press too hard on those things. It's better to learn to live with them and adapt a bit to them. And, you know, I've observed this. Some of the things that we dislike about our spouses are the flip side of the things that we like. Do you know what I'm saying there? I mean, the fact that Carol doesn't particularly like that I'm not sensitive to lights and stuff, that's the flip side, though, of the fact that I don't mind going out and buying a new lamp with her. Do you see what I'm saying? I'll go out and spend the money and get a lamp. She likes that part of it. Maybe you don't like the fact that your spouse is inflexible and rigid, but you do like the fact that he loves discipline and is responsible in his job. Maybe you don't like the fact that he'd rather play ball than do yard work, but you love the fact that he gets together with the kids and has a good time with them. You see? Maybe you don't like the fact that he's not very aggressive in his job and doesn't seem to get very far, but you love the fact that he's sensitive and tender and caring towards you. And ladies, it's difficult. You can't have things both ways. You need to be able to see and appreciate the flip side of that same coin in your man. I've learned that with my wife. There are some things I've tried a long time to change about my wife in terms of initiating projects and stuff like this to do and all that, but the Lord really spoke to me a few years ago and said, look at the flip side. And the flip side is a tremendous amount of stability and a tremendous amount of peace that she brings. And so I've learned to accept that thing as sort of a trade-off in our relationship. The second thing on this list is encouragement. Positive loving means affirming the strengths of the one that you love. It amazes me how much I value my wife's opinion. It really does. I'm going to take my jacket off because I'm getting warm. If you'll forgive me for this. Okay. When we first were married, it seemed to Carol that I was the kind of person that was directed and really intent on getting on. And she said, well, the best way to go with this guy is just to let him go, hang on. And she often would just let me do things and get into things and that was fine because she preferred that. We discovered along the way that she really made a big difference in how I felt about the things I was doing. I began to value her input so much that I made a point of bringing her along and saying, honey, tell me what you think about this. How am I doing? Here we... Is he about to fall over back there or what's going to happen? You see, I have come to realize it's not just the woman's intuition that I appreciate about her, but it's the fact that I need to know that no matter where I go, no matter what I'm trying to do for God or for anything else, that she's there with me. Women, you don't know what it means. I don't know if you really know what it means for you to be the one that's giving that positive reinforcement and encouragement. It is so vitally important. It doesn't take long to say, honey, I really appreciated what you did to provide this particular weekend for me. I really love the way that you spent time with the kids last night because it meant a whole lot to me. Honey, I appreciate the fact that you're stepping out in some ministry and taking some leadership. You did a great job leading home group. You'd be amazed how just one little word from you can mean a whole lot more than anyone else saying something. I'll tell you what, when I leave worship, if Carol doesn't say something about my message, it doesn't matter what all you have said. You know that? I value that so much. It's so important that you take the time just to find something and say, well, I don't want to make anything up. Well, you can find something. Proverbs 25, 11 says, like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word fitly spoken. It's a treasure of what it is. It's a treasure when you say something appropriate. Women say to me, not infrequently, you know, my husband loves to be at the office too much. He's there too much. I want to submit to you one reason why a lot of men work in the office or in the shop too much is because that's where they're hearing, hey, you're doing a great job. That's where they're hearing, hey, you're number one in the company and keep going. They're given an affirmation that they may not get. No man wants to go home and hear all a long litany of things he's doing wrong. He'll go where the affirmation is. Number three, positive loving means learning to express it in a way that is positive to him. Something he'll appreciate. Something that he has come to value. You know, you can do this in very simple ways. It doesn't cost a lot of money, but be sure it's something that he likes, something that to him says I love you. Honey, I spent all afternoon making these wheat germ oat bran whole grain muffins that you love, you know. Well, that wouldn't go for most guys. Carol knows if she really wants to get me racing, she makes this yellow cake with this special recipe chocolate icing. I mean, you know. And I'll come up the steps and look and see that baby on the... It doesn't matter what kind of day I had. If that cake's sitting there on the countertop, I'm excited. And this is it. You know, she knows it. I got one of those last year, in fact. She knows. And you, ladies, listen. You may not know, and if you're more of a newlywed, you know, you may think you're doing some things that he really likes, but maybe he's just saying he likes them because you like them, if you know what I'm saying. Make sure you communicate. Talk about it. If you've been married a long time, chances are you know. But if not, talk about it. All right. That's important. It's a little thing, but it's so important. I mean, Mimi said it very, very well. Look for the things and do them. No big fanfare. You'll be appreciated. It will mean a big boost in your relationship. All right. Second major category. All right. Men now are flipping notebooks, I see. Men need clear communication. Now, I've said quite a bit over the last few weeks about the fact that men are less verbal than women. On the whole, they speak half as much. But that does not mean that they communicate less. Now, listen to what I'm saying. It doesn't always take words to communicate. I find, in fact, that many women find it difficult to communicate in ways that men understand. It may be that they normally require, you know, 15 or 20 minutes to get to the point sometimes, and a man usually is tuned in right away to hear it, and a woman doesn't know that, so she's working her way up to say what she really wants to say, and it never gets said because he's already checked out, you know, 15 minutes ago. Some women don't communicate because they fear rejection. They really do. They don't communicate because they in the past, they tried, and they were hurt, or they were ignored, and nothing happened. Some are just quiet that way. I mean, sometimes it's just an accumulation of things. One woman was trying to communicate to her husband about the fact that she was not interested in him sexually because of things that he had done along the way, and he was trying to figure out why she wasn't more interested, and she finally hit upon a way of communicating. She said this, Let's say I'm your favorite fishing reel. And, of course, he loved fishing. I mean, right away, fishing. When we were first married, I was in beautiful shape, fresh from the factory and wrapped in a gift box. Well, as soon as we got home, you took me out, and you could cast me a mile. It was wonderful being together. But then you began to use me in salt water, and you used me day in and day out, and you never rinsed me off and never cleaned me and took care of me. Now the years have begun to take their toll, and I'm rusted, and the salt has corroded me, and there's knots in my line, and it's beginning to fray, and even the eyelets on the edge of the rod are starting to bend and twist. And now, whenever you go in the corner of the garage and pull me out and go to cast me, it doesn't work. Boy, he was stunned. You see, that woman found a way to communicate to him. Ladies, I know that men aren't always the best receivers. Sometimes you're communicating great, and the men just, you know, he's on the wrong frequency. You know, I know that's true. But it's important that you work at being honest and clear and open in your communication. This is a, listen, it's important, not just in, you know, little things, but big things, and even sometimes the hurtful things. A lot of women have a tendency to take the things that maybe hurt and just sort of push them back down and repress them and keep them down there. And I know of more than one relationship, in fact, a number over the years, when really little things built up and became big things because there was an inability to communicate those unspoken hurts, those frustrations, those disappointments and resentments. You'll never have a spontaneous, warm, affectionate relationship if you're carrying along a big bag load of those kinds of things. Don't let it happen, ladies. Communicate. Find a way to get through. You hurt me when you said this. Honey, can I explain to you how I feel? And then use a word picture, like this one that I just shared with you. I've just drafted a few principles. If we could have those one at a time, please. A few principles to follow in communication. First of all, ladies, don't assume that being a positive wife means that you hide your needs and hurts and tears. James Dobson said that hostility grows out of hidden hurts. Hostility grows out of hidden hurts. So don't hide them. Share them. Number two, don't stockpile your hurts and grievances. In other words, if it's been a week since you shared, it's been too long. I told you last week, I shared with you how Carol and I try to get one time a week when we get out of the house and say, alright, how are we really doing here? Some people told me, that's unrealistic. No, it isn't. Your relationship's worth it. You can find the time to do it. Number three, how you say it is as important as what you say. You know? One couple shared with me how the wife was just really frustrated about the fact that her husband was always coming home late, either from work or from ministry things. Always coming home late. So one day he got home at quarter of eleven, having left the home at six in the morning. She was there, and we opened the door. She just, boom, went into him. You never get home! You're always... Even though she was absolutely right about his insensitivity, how she said it, what happened? How she said it became as big an issue as what the problem was. So ladies, if that's a struggle, step back a little bit. Find the moment when what you're going to say can be communicated in a way that'll be received. And that leads to number four, which is pray about it. Now I shouldn't have to share that with most of you, but it's amazing how sometimes you just let your emotions go instead of praying, Lord, what's the best way? And then number five, ladies, don't stop. Don't give up. Don't think that we got it the first time around. Amen? How many of you know men take more than once sometimes to hear it? So don't give up. Don't just say, well, you know, I told you once and you didn't hear it, so that's the end. Come back again and persevere a bit because it's worth it. Don't assume that he rejected it. Sometimes he just didn't hear it. You know, sometimes you were just right and he didn't hear it. It's not even unwise, by the way, to have him play it back to you. Say, honey, what did you think I just said? Let me check my notes. Really, see if that communication's happening. Alright, now once we've got those things kind of addressed, and I admit that this is just sketchy, thirdly, men need women in their lives for fun and fulfillment. Alright, we're at the good part here. For fun and fulfillment. You know the saying that men are really little boys in big bodies is true? Pretty much what it is. And men really need women who will help bring a measure of fun and spontaneity and recreation into their life. Don't minimize this, folks, because I think sometimes we tend to see men simply in their spiritual headship roles or in their ministry roles, and sometimes a man just needs that woman to be a fun partner, to laugh with them, to do things with them. If he's always out there in the war, he doesn't want to always necessarily come back and be heavy duty. You need someone there to just spark him along. I'm amazed at how women so easily get into stuff when they're courting. If the guy that she likes is into basketball, she suddenly goes out and buys pairs of Nike Airs. Look at this. If he runs the park and she's never run in her life, she just says, well, I can do it, and she gets some pretty duds on and her new shoes, and goes out and runs the park. If he's into golfing, she takes golfing lessons. If he likes bicycling, she buys a bike. I see this all the time. They'll come into my office and say, oh, we like to do all these things together. And then two years later, she sells the bike, sells the Nike Airs, stops the golf lesson, and says, I'm not interested in this stuff anymore. Most of us men would be honest and say, we love for our wives to do things with us, to be partners with us, to have fun with us. Be careful. Ladies, if you're sending your husband out to have fun all the time, there's something wrong. You should be going out to have fun with him. And that's not always easy to do. Men tend to like things that are a little more active and rough and so on and so on. But you can adapt. This summer, we went up to the Rockies for a vacation with a friend who used to be from Pittsburgh. And one of the things he told us to look forward to was riding these four-wheeler Honda motorcycle dirt bike type things. And I told Carol, this is going to be great fun. And she said, sure, great fun. You and the kids have a great time. And I said, honey, they had six of these things in this cabin we were going to, so there was enough for everybody. I said, there's enough for everybody. We're going to have fun. She said, sure, we're going to have fun. Well, that stop was the last part of our trip. And on the day we were supposed to get there, my van broke down. So Carol went with Jim Morrison's wife, Beth, and their kids and our kids all in Jim's van. And Jim and I stayed with mine to fix it. And they went on up ahead about a two-hour ride up to this cabin where we were to meet them later on that day when I got my van fixed. So we went through this long day. It's another story in itself. And so about 7 o'clock at night, we arrive up this long mountain, beautiful, high, about 8,000 or 9,000 feet, and all these rough trails and a lot of pine trees. And I drive up, and we're talking to Jim, and I can hear from a distance, I can hear these four-wheelers going, and I said, boy, I sure wish, you know, I wish Carol would be more fun with these kind of things. She's always setting this stuff down. We're going up, and we go around this bend, and this four-wheeler comes dashing out of the trees and up this end. And I look, and here's this helmet, and there's hair coming out. And it's not Jonathan. And it's not Amy. It's Carol. I said, this is great. We had a good time those three days, going out and running around together. I guarantee that was not something she really thought she wanted to do, but, boy, she was wonderful and adapting. And that's what we need to see. Give a little bit. Ladies, it can be something simple. Maybe just a little candlelight dinner after the kids go to bed. When you make it happen, you suggest a walk, or you suggest something that doesn't have to cost money. You can just do it. Now, I wanted to talk here today about another side of fulfillment, and that was sexuality. Time isn't going to permit it. In two weeks, I'm going to talk about that when I talk about keeping romance alive. I'm going to talk about sexuality because there's nothing in a man's perspective that really has more weight in terms of a need than this one. And I would be really unfair to you if I ignored it, but I don't have time today. I do want to end, though, talking about one other part of fulfillment, and that is spiritual fulfillment. Ladies, you have so much to do with the measure of fulfillment that your men rise to in their spiritual lives. And this Scripture in 1 Peter 3 tells us so clearly how this is to happen. It doesn't happen by you setting a standard so soaringly high that your man looks at that and says, I'll never be as good as her. You don't know how many men I've had tell me in my office, I'll never be like my wife. And it's usually because they've lived with her for a few years, and they feel that she's just in another planet spiritually. And sometimes, women, I know that your intent is to do what's right and what's best, and you want it so bad for that man to be all that God wants him to be. But ladies, listen, you can even tell him to do the wrong things. Do you know someone in the Bible that told her husband to do the wrong thing because she wanted him to be happy? That's right, Sarah. Sarah told Abram, well since I can't have a son, and God wants you to be the covenant bearer, then you go have a son by my maidservant, Hagar. What a tragedy. That brought along Ishmael, and Ishmael, as you know, became the progeny then of the race of the Arabs. So you see, you can push something the wrong way. And this scripture talks in 1 Peter 3 and 7 about an inner beauty of a quiet and gentle spirit. I want to end with this thought. A quiet spirit is not that you sit around and don't say anything. A quiet spirit, the word quiet is that beautiful Greek word that I've talked about, praos, which means strength under control. It means that all those gifts and all that insight and intuition that the Lord's given you comes under the control of your will to be entered into at the appropriate time. And then it talks about a peaceable spirit, a quiet and gentle spirit. And that word for peaceable means not full of rebellion and antagonism. I read in Proverbs this morning that it is better to live in the corner of a rooftop with a toothache than with a rebellious woman. And that word rebellious is the word that would be the opposite of a quiet and gentle spirit. The best way you can encourage your man to go on in Christ is to do some of the things that I shared today, to accept him, encourage him, and express your love positively, to communicate clearly to him, to have fun with him. And in the midst of that, I want you to know something. I've made some jokes about my wife today, but one thing I deeply appreciate about her, and I don't say this in a boastful way, and I'm sure she wouldn't want it, but I believe that God's allowed her to have a quiet and gentle spirit, which is more often than I can tell you, been a great conviction. You know, I'm up here, the man of God and the point man in this body, but her life, in lots of ways, has been an inspiration to me because God's enabled her to be that way. And I believe by the Holy Spirit in all of you ladies as well, you can encourage your men to be all that God wants them to be. Let's stand together, shall we? This message is part four in the series Love for a Lifetime. This message was presented on February 4, 1990, by Dr. Jay Passavant, Senior Pastor of North Lake Christian Community. The title of this message is Compatibility and Conflict. Conflict and compatibility. James chapter 4 verse 1. What causes fights and conflicts among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something, but don't get it. You're murderously jealous and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God, and when you ask you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. And then verse 7. Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. A number of years ago, as I was serving in the Marine Corps, I spent a good bit of time being trained in the use of explosives. I was assigned to an engineering unit and part of our job description was to learn how to handle C4 and all other different kinds of explosives you might imagine that are in the military arsenal. After some study and handling of these things I learned two important lessons. Number one, all explosives have two uses. One is a positive one or a constructive use and the other is a very negative or destructive use. That is to say, the same explosive could be used to clear a trail of some boulders in order to get a convoy through. It could also be applied to the supporting beams of a bridge over which some enemy troops were going to pass. Every time you used those explosives you had to decide, was it going to be positive or negative? The second thing I learned was that I didn't know the first thing about handling them. That if I wanted to live a very long life I better get my act together, I discovered, or else I could easily blow myself up. Something I considered a negative use of those explosives. Amazing how that little, just a little handful of this stuff in the right conditions and with the right detonator could make an awfully big mess. Very explosive. Dear ones, it's not really a surprise to most of us that God has endowed every person in the room today with an explosive power. When not appropriately applied, that power can be incredibly destructive. That power is the power of your will. Nowhere more than in marriage, along with other relationships, do we find the potential for either constructive power being expressed through conflict or very destructive power. Now what I want to talk to you about today is the fact that most people don't have any idea how to use that power. They're not given any guided tour through the minefields of marriage beforehand. There's no demolition expert teaching them how to diffuse and dismantle highly explosive kinds of situations. There's no special training on how to build a relationship using that will to construct something positive. And I know that if you're like me, you've always seen people who come to that point in their romance when the eyes, you know, are full of stars, and there's nothing but dreams coming down the road, and they think, I'll never fight with this person. I love this person. I've had so many counseling times. You know, people have been together for six months, and I'm saying, oh, we're in love. It's never going to be a problem with us, and I know full well, sometime down the road, those two individuals are going to get to that moment when their wills are at odds, and the conflicts come, and the explosion goes off. Is there anyone here that's married that would say that's true? Absolutely. The problem is, because we don't have any training, we do what comes natural to us. We do what most of us learn t