What’s Missing In Marriage?Welcome To THE PENN-NY BIBLE CONFERENCE of BARAH MINISTRIES Rory Clark Pastor-Teacher www.barahministries.com
Good Evening!
Welcome to Barah Ministries…a worldwide Christian Church based in Mesa, Arizona…my name is Pastor Rory Clark. At Barah Ministries we are “pursuing the truth through the study of the Word of God.” We are committed to learn how to live our lives God’s way because we believe God’s way is the ONLY WAY. We teach the Word of God from God’s perspective and not from the human perspective. We want to know what God has to say to us though His Word, because we’re convinced that God knows exactly what He’s talking about. And our God is the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
TONIGHT’S LESSON What’s Missing In Marriage?
This lesson is being repeated so you’re able to hear the lesson from the second annual Pennsylvania-New York Conference of Barah Ministries. When we were doing the conference live we weren’t able to record it, so we thought you might want to hear the lesson, especially in light of the subject matter…what’s missing in marriage?
Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 27 says…
GENESIS 1:27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Genesis, Chapter 2, Verse 15 says…
GENESIS 2:15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. Genesis, Chapter 2, Verse 18…
GENESIS 2:18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone…I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
Genesis, Chapter 2, Verses 21 to 23…
GENESIS 2:21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept…then the Lord took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.
GENESIS 2:22 The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib that He had taken from the man, and the Lord brought her to the man.
GENESIS 2:23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Then the first wedding ceremony…Genesis, Chapter 2, Verse 24…
GENESIS 2:24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife (to cleave…to have a sexual relationship with his wife); and the two shall become one flesh.
Marriage.
It’s a simple word, but it is not a simple relationship…at least not to human beings. In the United States, six of ten first marriages end in divorce… seven of ten second marriages end in divorce…eight of ten third marriages end in divorce…and by the time the fourth marriage rolls around, who cares about the statistics? It can’t be good. And as quiet as it is kept, there are many people who have been married more than three times. That would be an interesting statistic to see, but it is never published and it probably isn’t tracked. After all, if we tracked it, we might see, through the idea of “misery loves company,” that those who have been married three or more times aren’t that bad as people! And there are a lot of them! They’re simply marriage veterans. They’re not quitters! The world is not interested in you multiple marriage folks feeling good about what the world calls your “failures.”
Then there is the other side of the statistics…many have celebrated decades together in a single marriage...if six of ten first marriages end in divorce, four of ten first marriages last. Yet those who are in such marriages have no cause to be smug…for many of these marriages, divorce would simply be a formality…because the divorce happened long ago. Many are simply married singles that have long ago forgotten about the two becoming one flesh. They don’t operate as if there is unity…many who are married simply “cope” with one another…they simply tolerate a lousy situation, and they operate solo.
To the Lord Jesus Christ, the Sovereign God of the Universe, marriage is simple…Second Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verse 17…
SECOND CORINTHIANS 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in union with Christ, and all believers in Christ are, he is a new creature…the old things passed away…behold, new things have come.
At the moment we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are gifted with baptism by means of God the Holy Spirit, who places us into union with Christ. We become one with Christ…we are in unity with Christ…in effect, we believers in Christ are married to the Lord Jesus Christ. I am quite certain this is not a relationship the Lord Jesus Christ dreads. I am quite certain this is not a relationship the Lord Jesus Christ copes with. It’s a relationship that the Lord cherishes, just as human marriage is to be cherished. Luke, Chapter 15, Verses 3 to 7…
LUKE 15:3 So the Lord Jesus Christ told them this parable, saying…
LUKE 15:4 “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?” LUKE 15:5 “When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.”
LUKE 15:6 “And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’”
LUKE 15:7 “I (the Lord Jesus Christ) tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (who changes his mind and believes in Christ) than over ninety-nine righteous persons (believers in Christ) who need no repentance.”
The Lord experiences rejoicing and never ending joy when He marries a lost sheep. As humans, do we experience the same thing from our marriage… rejoicing and never ending joy? Hardly. There are too many jokes about marriage…like this one…
JOKE ABOUT MARRIAGE I once gave my husband the silent treatment for an entire week. At the end of the week he said, “Hey, we’re getting along pretty great lately!”
Funny…but it isn’t funny. Marriage is really no laughing matter. Welcome to a place where you can learn the secret of what is missing from marriages all over the world.
MUSIC AND REFLECTION Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ Enjoy the Singing of His Praises
BORN AGAIN June Murphy
Let’s begin our reflection with a song…the opening song is BORN AGAIN... sung by the woman of iTunes fame…June Murphy.
OPENING PRAYER
Let us pray...
We’re grateful, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…
Father…thank you for marriage…thank you for making a statement to us about unity through the marriage relationship…thank you for telling us that it is not good for us to be alone…yet there are so many of us who are alone…some as a result of divorce…some as a result of estrangement from each other while still married…
Help us Father, to hear Your thoughts in this lesson today…show us, in our hearts, the power of marriage…keep our hearts and our ears open to Your thoughts rather than tuning out when we aren’t hearing what we want to hear…help us know that even if we don’t have the key to a successful marriage relationship…You do…give us the key…
We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit in Christ’s name...Amen.
TODAY’S LESSON What’s Missing In Marriage?
What’s missing in marriage?
It’s such a simple question…it is almost ridiculous. And the answer is equally simple. I asked a friend this question recently, and her answer was both simple and quite true…God. God is missing from marriage. The Lord captures the secret of marriage, with more specifics, in a single bible verse… Ephesians, Chapter 5, Verse 33…
EPHESIANS 5:33 Nevertheless, each man among you also is to love his own wife unconditionally, even as he LOVES himself unconditionally…and the wife must see to it that she RESPECTS her husband.
If you’re wondering what’s missing in marriage, there it is…and it’s that simple…RESPECT is missing in marriage. R-E-S-P-E-C-T! Respect. We don’t need anyone to tell us that LOVE is important in marriage. We know. In fact, the Beatles told us that in song, didn’t they? “All you need is love!” We may need someone to tell us that it’s UNCONDITIONAL love they’re talking about. But have you ever had anyone talk to you about what is missing in marriage…UNCONDITIONAL RESPECT? Believe me I haven’t…at least not someone I was listening to.
My father-in law in my first marriage, a Mexican…when he heard that his Mexican daughter was dating a black man said, “I don’t want no niggers in my house.” Now mind you, his oldest daughter was married to a Yugoslavian…his only son was married to an Italian…his second oldest daughter was living with a Columbian…his youngest daughter was married to a Serbian…his prodigy were married to the United Nations, yet some races were not welcome. Needless to say we didn’t get off on the right foot.
At a point, we turned the relationship around. He started liking me, or at least pretending to like me, shortly after his daughter and I were married. He took me out for a beer to give me some fatherly advice. The advice was hard to hear…and not for the reason you might expect…it was hard to hear because he mumbles with an accent. I did my best to tune in…here’s what he told me…
FATHERLY-IN-LAW ADVICE ON MARRIAGE
“Mi-ijo…if you want your marriage to work you gotta have love and respect.”
So simple. But I didn’t listen.
I’ve now been on the planet for six decades and a year…I’m sixty-one years old…and my conclusion at this point is that I have been a slow learner. Because it has taken me until now to learn a lesson I was given as a gift back in 1984…“Mi-ijo…if you want your marriage to work you gotta have love and respect.” It was too simple a message from too simple a source…a laborer who worked from nine to five at Brach’s Candy Company…a poor man with broken English and an empty bank account…a man with five kids who rented a two-bedroom apartment. His simple message about marriage is the same message that is snugly nestled into one powerful and simple verse…Ephesians, Chapter 5, Verse 33…
EPHESIANS 5:33 Nevertheless, each man among you also is to love his own wife unconditionally, even as he loves himself unconditionally…and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
The key to marriage? LOVE AND RESPECT. What’s missing in marriage…UNCONDITIONAL RESPECT.
My life has been spent pursuing truth. I know that in every area in life there is a single truth and there are a bunch of lies. Recently, I discovered the truth about nutrition. It was a truth I learned in 1995, a truth I finally decided to implement, and a short time I have lost more than twenty pounds…down from 245 to 222…from a 40 waist to a 36 waist…from 2XL to almost XL…and the truth is, I have discovered a truth about nutrition that I can live with for the rest of my life. There is a truth about God…a simple and amazing truth…it only took me fifty years to discover it. DO IT GOD’S WAY. That’s the truth. When you do, everything works out. There is truth about finances…a truth about how to invest in the stock market risk free…a truth it only took me fifty-eight years to discover over a dinner with a friend who was reluctant to tell me this truth for fear that it was so simple I would reject it.
And now…with one divorce under my belt and a second trip into the marriage arena, I have discovered the secret of marriage. It is so simple, and it only took me six decades and a year to discover it…LOVE and RESPECT. It is simple…it is profound…it is from the Lord Jesus Christ…who is a Person you can LOVE AND RESPECT because what He says is always true.
Those who have studied the Word of God with me through the years cringe a bit when I talk about relationships, especially the marriage relationship. Marriage has been a puzzle for me…a lousy, unenjoyable puzzle…as unenjoyable as a puzzle would be if it had too many pieces that you could never find a way to fit together. So it was with marriage for me. I could look at the pieces and know they were supposed to fit together, but I could never find a way to make them work. Duh! That’s the truth isn’t it…God is the only one that can make a marriage work…and when the two are on different pages, instead of being on one page, that is, the two as one flesh, then it becomes God’s job to fix it. I wouldn’t let Him. I was a do-it-yourselfer in marriage. I made God stand back and I would do try to fix my own marriage.
What I have learned the hard way, is that the following two verses apply as much to marriage as they do to the Jews getting across a parted Red Sea… Exodus, Chapter 14, Verses 13 and 14…
EXODUS 14:13a But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation (deliverance) of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today...”
EXODUS 14:14 “The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.”
While we keep silent? Wow!
Everyone thinks he has the prescription for a lousy marriage…the main one being, “If the other person would just, then I would…” That certainly doesn’t work. As Christians, we are commanded to love each other unconditionally…John, Chapter 13, Verses 33 to 35…
JOHN 13:33 “Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’”
JOHN 13:34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another unconditionally, even as I have loved you unconditionally, that you also love one another unconditionally.”
JOHN 13:35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have unconditional love for one another.”
Well in fifteen minutes, GEICO will save you 15% on your car insurance… just as surely as everyone knows that, every one knows that marriages need love. The Lord certainly thinks so…Matthew, Chapter 22, Verses 34 to 40…
MATTHEW 22:34 But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together.
MATTHEW 22:35 One of them, a lawyer, asked the Lord a question, testing Him…
MATTHEW 22:36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
MATTHEW 22:37 And the Lord said to the lawyer, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’”
MATTHEW 22:38 “This is the great and foremost commandment.”
MATTHEW 22:39 “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
MATTHEW 22:40 “On these two commandments depend the whole Mosaic Law and the teachings of the Old Testament Prophets.”
So let’s dispense with a lie that is circulated in some Christian circles that a wife is never commanded to love her husband. A wife is absolutely commanded to love everyone unconditionally, including her husband…just as the husband is commanded to love his wife unconditionally. The Beatles said, “All you need is love.” They’re wrong. Love is not enough. God says so...Ephesians, Chapter 5, Verse 33…
EPHESIANS 5:33 Nevertheless, each man among you also is to love his own wife unconditionally, even as he loves himself unconditionally…and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
What’s the missing part? RESPECT. UNCONDITIONAL RESPECT. More on that after a short music break.
MUSIC BREAK YOU DON’T HAVE TO BEG June Murphy
MUSIC BREAK WHEN I SAY I LOVE YOU June Murphy
TODAY’S LESSON What’s Missing In Marriage?
Welcome back! What is missing in marriage? RESPECT. Here is the longer passage about God’s viewpoint concerning marriage…Ephesians, Chapter 5, Verses 22 to 33…
EPHESIANS 5:22 Wives, be subject to (in submission to) your own husbands, just as you are in submission to the Lord.
EPHESIANS 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.
Cat fight!
EPHESIANS 5:24 But as the church is subject (in submission) to Christ, so also the wives ought to be in submission to their own husbands in everything.
Wives have been convinced by Satan, the enemy of God, and his kingdom of death (the world), that if they follow the Lord’s request in this passage that they will be doormats. Yet I am in submission to the Lord and I don’t feel like a doormat at all. Maybe it’s easier to be in submission to God than it is to be in submission to someone He appoints to protect you, right ladies? Not really. If you are in submission to God, you’ll have no trouble being in submission to anyone. If you are convinced that God’s way is the only way, then you’ll do what works. And when you aren’t convinced that God’s way is the only way then your way will have to do. But your way never works. Look at the marriage statistics. Picking it up at Ephesians, Chapter 5, Verse 25…
EPHESIANS 5:25 Husbands, love your wives unconditionally, just as Christ also loved the church unconditionally and gave Himself up for her…
EPHESIANS 5:26 …so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word (the gospel message)…
EPHESIANS 5:27 …that he Lord Jesus Christ might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
Husbands are commanded to love sacrificially…easier said than done when the person you are laying down your life for is disrespecting you and chirping with her mouth. It’s interesting to watch the dynamic between couples…to watch the resentment play out…the “terseness” between couples…the power struggle…the verbal flamethrowers…the woman, with her tongue tearing down the man, and the man, either with his fists beating the woman physically, or with his withdrawal of love crushing the woman’s spirit.
EPHESIANS 5:28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives unconditionally just as they love their own bodies unconditionally. He who loves his own wife unconditionally loves himself unconditionally…
EPHESIANS 5:29 …for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does nourish and cherish the church…
EPHESIANS 5:30 …because we are members of His body.
EPHESIANS 5:31 For this reason (marriage) a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife (in sexual intercourse), and the two shall become one flesh.
EPHESIANS 5:32 This mystery concerning marriage is great; but I am speaking with reference to the marriage of Christ and the church.
EPHESIANS 5:33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife unconditionally even he loves himself unconditionally, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
Colossians, Chapter 3, Verses 18 and 19…
COLOSSIANS 3:18 Wives, be subject to (in submission to) your (own) husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
COLOSSIANS 3:19 Husbands, love your wives unconditionally and do not be embittered against them.
That’s God’s point of view. And His point of view is expressed in other passages that we don’t have time to go into tonight. Here’s the point. Everything we hear about the success of marriage revolves around unconditional love, forgiveness and grace. None of what we hear about marriage revolves around UNCONDITIONAL RESPECT…the job of the woman in marriage.
Whenever marriage maladies are discussed in the world, the man is always to blame. I have never liked this one sidedness, and not only because I am a man…more because I know that one sidedness doesn’t work for anyone. I didn’t feel this was fair…for example…the book on “love languages”… good idea to know we all speak different love languages…the right thing is you learn to speak mine, and I learn to speak yours, simultaneously. For women, that was distorted into, “Men, you just don’t get us.” “Men are From Mars and Women are From Venus.” We’re different. The right thing is, “Value the differences.” That got distorted into, “Men, you just don’t get us.” We look at the differences, and make each other wrong for the differences, thanks to Satan, the enemy of God and the great distorter of truth.
I see SELF manifested in these ideas…just as I see self manifesting in relationship breakdowns…couples stomping around…yelling…saying awful and hurtful things to each other…the cold war of the silent treatment… constant tension…walking away…unresolved conflict…separateness. Marriage becomes a thing to be “coped with” rather than a relationship to be enjoyed. When we conclude that something’s missing in the marriage relationship, we go looking for it…in the form of an extra marital affair. What is an “extra marital affair?”
AFFAIR A journey away from the marriage relationship to look for the thing that is missing in the marriage relationship.
What is God’s simple message to us? Ephesians, Chapter 5, Verse 33…
EPHESIANS 5:33 Nevertheless, each man among you also is to LOVE his own wife unconditionally, even as he loves himself unconditionally...and the wife must see to it that she RESPECTS her husband.
What do we want from the marriage relationship? I can’t speak for everyone, but I want intimacy…to feel close…to feel loved…to feel respected…to feel heard…to feel understood.
So what’s missing from marriage? We know about unconditional love, but who is talking to women about their part…UNCONDITIONAL RESPECT. Wives are made to love and they want love. Husbands are made to respect, and they want respect. Just as it is with sex, each person wants something he doesn’t have…husbands want respect from the woman, who specializes in love…wives want love from the husband who specializes in respect. The truth is, in sex and in the marriage relationship, we deny the other person the thing they need from us.
Women…who has ever taught you or told you about the man’s need for UNCONDITIONAL RESPECT…that men have an honor code, and when it you violate it, men withdraw the very thing you need…LOVE. Who tells you women that when your men aren’t respectable that God has commanded you to respect them anyway? I can point to a lot of women I know who are doing just this very thing…respecting their men in situations where the women are getting no love in return. And men, who tells you that when you give UNCONDITIONAL LOVE you get unconditional respect…and when you don’t get unconditional respect, you are commanded to love unconditionally anyway? I can point to a lot of men I know who are doing just this very thing…loving their women in situations where they are getting no respect in return.
Marriage requires a different approach than any other relationship we have. The different approach is doing it God’s way…the biblical design for marriage. First Corinthians, Chapter 7, Verses 1 to 5…
FIRST CORINTHIANS 7:1 Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 7:2 But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 7:3 The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife must fulfill her duty to her husband.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 7:4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does… and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 7:5 Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again (have sex again), so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
That’s what we do…we withhold unconditional love from each other…we withhold unconditional respect from each other…we withhold sex from each other…and we destroy our marriages in the process.
Men are Rodney Dangerfields… “I’ll tell ya…I don’t get no respect at all!” Women are the Beatles… “all you need is love.” If we want marriage to work, we have to start giving LOVE and RESPECT to each other.
LOVE and RESPECT…a great topic of conversation…the missing ingredient from great marriages.
CLOSING SONG COME SEE A MAN June Murphy
Thanks For Coming!
THE PENN-NY BIBLE CONFERENCE of BARAH MINISTRIES Rory Clark Pastor-Teacher www.barahministries.com
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