Love & Respect - Part 1

amen I'm Emerson egg rich thank you for the invitation pastor Greg is so kind to ask me to come and speak I hope to be able to serve you as well as he does week after week and so it's real honor for me to be here we want to greet those who are the campuses and online welcome as well and my wife Sarah we've been married since 1973 she and I always travel together but we have a daughter and her husband in Paris France and they have a new little granddaughter so Sarah has gone to Paris France to be with the granddaughter and so she sends her greetings as well as her regrets but thank you for the invitation a wife says I have nothing to wear what she means is she has nothing new her husband says I have nothing to wear what he means is he has nothing clean I love that it's an innocent illustration but isn't it fascinating that we say the very same thing but we mean something different we say the very same thing but we mean something different you know male and female communication is fascinating we had a couple come to our love and respect conference and as they were leaving she was in the car with her husband and she was saying you know how do you how do you feel about me in this relationship and he said well you're very critical well she was about to rip into em verbally and and and but then she remembered the conference you know and also I wrote a book called before you hit sin so think before you you think think before you speak and she said well what did you mean by that he said well I've been thinking a lot about you lately and if you died I don't know how I would survive you're very critical to my survival may I suggest you it's important that we understand what our spouse means by what they say I liken to the fact that a woman looks at the world through pink sunglasses pink hearing aids pink megaphone and and she speaks that way she has that particular perspective he has a blue perspective blue sunglasses blue hearing aids blue megaphone and I like that word picture although there are some who don't like the pink and blue but when you put pink and blue together it's purple the color royalty the colour of God and Jesus asked the question matthew 19:4 have you not read who made them from the beginning made them male and female didn't make him human human per se we are both human but there's a distinction xx x Y chromosome there's an egg and sperm these come together that create you are here as a result of that difference and we know that biologically the question is does that expand beyond that but not debating that issue as much as when you put pink and blue together it's the color of royalty the color of God together husband and wife reflect his image it's a beautiful thing it's the way he's designed it and it's powerful and and a person who is single devoted fully to Christ gets what we call the gift of celibacy or a eunuch for the kingdom and it's what we call a compensatory gift it allows them to express the image of God as a single person there's an added grace that they receive it's beautiful so that they too can reflect the image of God it's a special extra gift but if you don't have that gift and God intends for us to be together Adam was in paradise alone and it wasn't good he had a need that only Eve could meet it's a beautiful thing and in marriage we need one other Paul in 1st Corinthians 7 which is about marriage not first Corinthians 13 first Corinthians 13 is about spiritual gifts first Corinthians 7 is about marriage and there he said a husband must have his own wife and a wife must have her own husband why we need each other beautiful thing it's a beautiful thing and in the bedroom actually we have equal Authority the husband does not have authority over his own body but the wife does the wife doesn't have authority over her own body but the husband does in the bedroom we have final say which is interesting because who makes the decision on Tuesday night whether we're going to be intimate the answer is yes in the bedroom both have equal Authority and final say first corinthians 7 verse 4 later it's interesting paul says in 1st corinthians 7 28 if you Mary have not sinned that you will have trouble and I said Lord every text has its context so is one of the reasons that they have trouble is that on Tuesday night they can't decide whether they're going to be intimate or not mm-hmm lord have you have you designed trouble mm-hmm see some of you are in the center of God's will on Tuesday night didn't know it because you have this difference if there's a lot of crossover but there is a continued on the sexual emotional continuum and we kind of land a little bit different places on that continuum just enough to create holy fellowship and what I call heated fellowship and so this tension arises because we're equal but we're not the same and this is one of the foolish conclusions some of us have drawn that because we're equal therefore we must be the same and because I feel this way and my feelings are the voice of God and my spouse difference with me then my spouse is abnormal but that's a huge mistake and one of the reasons this is a mistake is because Paul says in first green in 7 33 and 34 the husband is concerned about how to please his wife and the wife is concerned how to please her husband I find that fascinating the Apostle Paul pin Romans the great treatise on human depravity that we need to be justified through faith in Christ that we can't be good enough to be accepted but Christ was and he died in our place he paid the penalty for what we did wrong we know that but you would think then Paul was in 1st Corinthians 7 hey you're just totally depraved human beings your sinful you're selfish get over it no the husband is concerned about how to please the wife the wife is concerned about how to please her husband what's Paul saying there's good will there isn't always good follow-through but he sees the residual of creation still there that we are still creating the image of God that isn't such that we are good enough to be able to meet with God's approval but we're not so wicked that we can't act on that beautiful design God's not truncated so the challenge for us is to come to a point where while I trust the good will of my spouse will I trust their good will why is that important well I came across the pink and blue verse I had the privilege of studying the Bible 30 hours a week for nearly 20 years as the pastor of Trinity Church in East Lansing Michigan college town Michigan State University's there and had a great time studying the scripture I also have my PhD in Family Studies and I saw some things in Scripture and I saw some things in the social science that just really whoa this was right around 19 1998 1999 and I saw some things that just really I hadn't seen before they were very helpful but one of the things I saw was in Ephesians 5 in fact it's the Ephesians 5 is considered the greatest treatise in the New Testament on marriage and verse 33 is the summary statement it is though this is God's last word to the church on marriage not chronologically but most would say in terms of progressive revelation this is God's final word well what is it that Ephesians 5:33 says let's take a look at it up here each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband now when I meditated on that there was no debate about a husband loving his wife happy wife happy life I mean they we have been pumped in marriage conferences men you know just do your thing love your wife and everything and so it was just and so a lot of men are just feeling beat up feel ashamed you know you can only exhort men so long and they'll just kind of shut down on you and men are and we've concluded that because men don't want to go to marriage conferences that they're indifferent to marriage when I wrote love and respect of the the editors and the publisher said we want you to write this marriage book to women and I said why because I knew where this question was going but I said why well because women are the ones that buy the marriage books I said did it ever occur to you it's because you keep telling people like me who write to write the books to women let me write this in a fair and balanced way where in the scripture does it teach that men are indifferent to marriage in Malachi he breaks the covenant proverbs 3 she does I went through every verse dealing with marriage not just principles that could apply first Corinthians 13 it's wonderful it could apply but it's not about marriage I looked at every passage dealing with marriage and I realized there's no indication that he's ninety-nine percent of the reason for the breakup of the relationship in fact right now did you know the epital the the walkaway woman women are leaving marriage 3 to 1 more than men are your son will not leave the marriage your daughter-in-law will but in terms of sensitivity and sentimentality in terms of nurture and care and love you women are off the charts there's no question about that you are just incredibly wonderful all the research on caregivers and love and giving and we'll make comment about that in just a moment you're just incredible and we'll explain though why there's a huge misunderstanding I don't believe though here's the point that he's indifferent to marriage but he is not speaking the same mother tongue that you speak he has a different mother tongue it's what we call respect talk or the whole idea of honor and what we are but even that's been labeled as narcissistic so what happens all this gets filtered through a pink grid rather than letting blue address it and this has been a huge issue the love side has been a huge area of study for me but also respects I Pat Riley for instance had me come speak to the Miami Heat Pat and I spent four hours talking about issues of Honor how men are motivated by honor and when men are treated justly and honored they'll serve when men feel that you're treating them unfairly in a dishonouring way you'll lose their heart every time and so one of the keys is how do you how do you motivate a man to be loving by appealing to a sense of honor just as you appeal to a woman to put on respect we'll talk about in a moment by appealing to her instinct to love if you talk about meeting his need to feel respective for who he is apart from his performance that you have unconditional positive regard toward the spirit of your husband not toward his behavior men don't respect bad behavior in our own world but we respectfully confront bad behavior there's a difference you don't motivate someone to change and become loving with on the heels of contempt no husband feels fond feelings of love and affection his heart toward a wife he thinks despises who he is as a human being he's not gonna open up you're not going to connect with him he'll call every time just as a woman will not respond sexually to harshness and anger and hostility sexually she just is she's an integrated personality she's not going to respond God is hardwired to certain ways but the culture of intimacy has become pink almost 80% of it's pink in its orientation if not more and and it's and the male behaviors interpreted through that pink grid it's not that there's anybody who's mean-spirited everybody's sincere they're just trying to figure it out based on their own experience and and we we know what we feel we know what we think we know we're trying to do certain things and I'll explain that as I look at this but as I meditated on this verse there was no question that the husband was commanded to agape love there are three Greek words agape phileo and eros and only the husband in the domestic marital portions of scriptures commanded to agape love his wife no wife is commanded to agape love her husband now the tightest to passage in the Greek the older women are to encourage younger women to love their husbands love their children it's not a copy it's phileo your to fillet oh your husband not fillet and fillet or your children ever you guys say the children is your mom you love you oh yeah loves us a lot does she like you know even bad hey Harry did your wife love you oh yeah absolutely does she like no not today and I remember saying Lord why have you not commanded the wife to agape love and in this inaudible voice I don't hear voices I put it within the nature of women to nurture women love to love at the level of intimacy you have to wound a woman at the level of intimacy to get her to stop loving and I'm not going to command her to do what I created her to do because I'm not into redundancy how many times have you said I love you today already ladies is within your nature and this would be a bad place as a world if we didn't have you your virtue of love is just off the charts it's God's gift to humanity in fact there are those who are telling children if you get lost in the amusement park look for a mommy has three children hanging on her she's sweating hot she's got a person and go tell her you're lost you don't know where your mommy and daddy it's the only safe haven in our culture right now it's the only island of virtue it's a precious reality but as I thought about this I realized well no one's really debating the love side yeah love your wife but then I came across this respect husband enters and she's not commanded to agape love her husband in fact Peter hits the same thing in first Peter 3 you win a disobedient husband through your respectful behavior Paul and Peter no two small Apostles and I wasn't raised in the church I didn't have a Christian background and I had to come to a point do I believe in a revelatory worldview because Paul says in Ephesians 3 that which has been hidden in ages past has been revealed as holy apostles and prophets in the spirit and I had to come to a point where I did I or did I not believe what Christ said man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God and I came to a point intellectually where I said I by trust Christ I believe this I understand the arguments against it but I understand the arguments against those who argue against it and so I came to a point where I said I'm all-in but as I got in on this I realized there's some controversy women say well Emerson I don't feel in respect for him you'd be hypocritical for me to show respect if I don't feel it and I know you don't want to be a hypocrite and everybody says that respect must be earned he hasn't earned it doesn't deserve it it's not as loving to me I'm not gonna give it to him till he's more loving and and the dictionary says you shall respect your superiors he's not superior to me I'm not inferior didn't I'm not gonna be treated like a doormat I'm certainly not gonna walk on eggshells hey you know what I really think the profile on him on our system is correct and you're asking me to feed his ego and narcissism and I'm simply not gonna do that I'm not gonna give him a license to do whatever he wants to do come when the palm palms is worship the guy I'm not gonna do that I certainly am NOT gonna be following what I think is your real agenda here and that's return to male patriarchy that's really what you're all about male patriarchy and I certainly not going to subject myself to emotional views but other than these things I'm really open to hearing what you have to say about how many of you have sons would you raise your hands what I just went through is what I call the mantra in your sweet daughter-in-law who will be loved itself is gonna say every one of things that I just said to your boy probably within the first year of the marriage and he's just gonna shut down he's gonna get angry he's gonna go off by himself why because in the man's world you don't badmouth your wife most guys I got enough problems with myself I don't need to hear yours that's our our heart well that's our the rules my head I don't do unless there's a guy's walked out on his five children and his wife for some blonde bimbo that's when we'll talk about it can you believe what her II did but up to that point don't do I have enough issues my designer so and I'm art we stay quiet and you know one a bad month your wife anyway because she's a good woman he doesn't have a problem with the fact that you're not good he has a problem with the fact that you think he's not good and so your son will walk off by himself and your daughter-in-law will go on a talk show getting that social support in the social media right now it's just unbelievable you got trolling women out there that are just kind of they men are always wrong men are never right women are always right and women are never wrong and so your daughter-in-law will go out there and they'll just say your son is abuser it's just it don't-don't-don't you don't need to find abuse he's toxic you nota divorce him there it is we've had when we have almost 2 million following us on Facebook 70% of which women there'll be women who just say my husband I got in a fight today he didn't give me some insight on and the women just pile on her and we've had women just pull from the threat because they just get beat up by other women men are always evil so this whole idea of male being toxic and yet look at if al Qaeda came in here somebody opened up firing here every man would throw himself on the woman and take the bullet and die Jesus Christ said no greater love as a man than this that he lay down his life for his friend according to Jesus your husband's very loving but we all acknowledge as men were not as sensitive as you not as sentimental as you were not as loving as you why we're under divine command we don't do it by nature like you do we struggle with it more we salute you because you're wonderful but Jesus Christ isn't saying that because we don't write poetry that somehow we're not loving it's important for us to understand how Jesus Christ defines love but one husband said his wife I love you so much I would die for you she said Oh Harry you keep saying that but you never do so what's going on with us as Sara nice as I mentioned we've been married since 1973 you know as I got into this I began to realize this is this very fascinating but apparently Sara has a need for my love is like she has this love tank connected by an air hose and when I failed to be lucky and I stepped on our air hose and she deflates and I apparently have this need for respect for who I am apart from my performance let me again it's unconditional regard unconditional positive regard toward my spirit as you're confronting issues that you find unloving or are not respectable this isn't rocket science but we have this mindset that if I don't feel respect for you I can show you contempt I can be filled with disgust and today the University of Washington studied 2,000 couples for 20 years and they they recognized when women upset the eyes dark in the face turned sour hand on the hips scolding finger the rolling of the eyes the head goes back the sigh and when estrogen kicks in the word choice of contempt is incredible it's called gestures of contempt now you're doing that because you're trying to get him to understand that you're feeling unloved and insecure and I I'm gonna help him decode your deepest heart because Paul said in first Corinthians 7 33 that a husband is concerned about how to please his wife and the wife is concerned about how to please her husband here's the deal she's not trying to be disrespectful she's usually reacting this way because she feels unloved but if we misrepresent ourselves we're going to be misinterpreted as simple as that but as I got into this apparently I need to feel respected for who I am as a person because I know Sarah loves me but I don't think she always likes me she once chased me around the house with my love and respect but what would you say to a husband who was treating his wife the way you're treating me right now don't don't write a marriage book people so the idea here is what in the book I'll talk about what respect is most women's I have no idea what you're talking about I said you know what disrespect is when say oh yeah I got that down but he should know I didn't mean it that's exactly right cuz you don't you're trying to awaken him and I'm gonna tell you something your husband's not trying to be unloving he didn't get up early this morning the storyboard ways to be unloving today that's not as intent his intent is he's concerned to please you he doesn't want to be uncaring or displease you but what we end up doing is reacting a ways that sends the message that that seems to be the case because the way we as pink and blue react during heated fellowship isn't the way the other would react so we tend to interpret that through our own pink and blue grid because we wouldn't react that way and we know we're right and therefore my spouse is wrong no not wrong just different unless it's an evil unless your husband's saying have been thinking about selling the kids for our cocaine habit that's evil that's immoral that's a illegal less you know we're talking about clashing preferences in what I call the gray areas and it's very important that the pink and blue differences in the gray areas do not escalate to black and white issues but this is what happens it's not a moral issue read Romans 14 there's so much stuff this day holy that they eat me not a whole series of areas that God hasn't said thus saith the Lord this is absolutely how you know you've got the freedom so he said stop judging each other with contempt so there's a whole lot of stuff that goes on every day and every marriage that's not an evil situation we just have honest differences of opinion but we don't know how to do this dance so if I feel that I'm right I say you're wrong no your idea is better which makes their idea less better it doesn't make their idea bad it makes it less better it's what we call a comparative statement not a qualitative statement it's very important that you not escalate that to a moral issue but we do this because we want what we want or we're fearful that if they make that decision is going to go against what's best and we get all panicky and then we escalate then we wonder why we have problems it's not because the person is unteachable about the substance of the issue it's our demeanor we come across in a way that feels unloving to her and disrespectful to him and what I discovered then is a correlation here is that was meditating on this it became very interesting Sarah needs love but it's within her nature to react disrespectfully otherwise God wouldn't command her it would be a moot command why would he commander to put on respect if she did that naturally so it's within her nature to love it's it's her need is to be loving but it's within her nature to be disrespectful when she feels her need for love is not met and furthermore when she seeks to do the loving thing but ends up coming across this distresses talk to me talk to me right now so again we have this huge misunderstanding among people of goodwill and apparently I have a need for respect and and and and God calls her to apparently come across to my heart not my bad behavior but here's the deal it's within my nature apparently to be unloving when I feel disrespected and this gave birth to what I call the crazy cycle in 1998-1999 all the stuff just came to me without love she reacts without respect without respect he reacts without love without love she reacts without respect without respect he reacts without love without love she reacts without respect without respect and this baby starts to spin and it gets crazy and I call it the crazy cycle and when the issue on the table could be talking about money could be tied my sex could dog in law should we move from Houston to Michigan should we move from Michigan to Houston whatever these gray area issues are that are important they're real issues but at this point you see the spirit of your spouse deflate you've entered the crazy cycle and in most cases most cases she's feeling unloved he's feeling disrespected now we've asked 7,000 people this question when you're in a conflict with your spouse do you feel unloved or disrespected at that moment we've done this again and again and again the reliability of this question is 83% of the men say they feel disrespected 72% of the women say they feel unloved now I want you to think academically bell curve here they're exceptions everything we're saying because the first thing some of you are setting on is women because you've been conditioned through academia is we women need respect you've been sitting there with that the whole time haven't you you just have been conditioned we need respect RESP ECT yeah Otis Redding wrote that song to his wife and Aretha came along and took it one song we had gentlemen they took we had one song and they took that even I mean here's the deal yes women need RESP ECT I talk a great deal about it Paul our Peter says in first million seven honor your wives in the sixth chapter seal you pill e the e of couple is esteem honor respect women need it and here's the deal if you keep showing disrespect to your wife who needs respect she'll eventually say how can you say you love me and be so disrespectful toward me she'll land on love you keep showing your husband disrespect you'll say everybody respects being you I'm sick and tired of this disrespect why doesn't he land on love because he knows you love him unless you've said I don't love you that is an exception don't say you're an exception something is horribly wrong in your marriage for you as a woman to say I don't love then he's wounded you or you're in love with your highschool sweetheart and you've been texting them the whole time we're here this morning so let's be honest about the dynamics my mother was wounded my dad attempted to strangle my mother and my dad wounded my mother she just shut down and separated for five years we later came to Christ my freshman year at Wheaton I'd come to Christ at 16 in military school which I was sent to for five years because of family issues but what I saw then is this crazy cycle and and we get on that and there is this moment where we've all got to come to a place where we ask ourselves is my wife really trying to dis me is that really her mission or she a good willed woman who's reacting because I said or did something earlier that than loving to her and as my husband really trying to be unloving when he would die for me if I don't kill him first is he is he really unloving or did I say or do something earlier that was disrespectful the University of Washington said it those two thousand couples for 20 years and when men are in a conflict 85% of them 85 think bell curve 15% don't my mother withdrew but 85 percent of the men would draw in stone wall but they were monitoring the heartbeats and men during conflicted moments maritally their beats heartbeats get to 99 beats per minute he looked stoic but his heartbeats are in warrior mode the woman looks like she's a fire flamethrower haha she's out of control her heartbeats are normal if the husband just says I'm sorry and humanely I'm sorry I'm wrong will you forgive me she'll go well I'm wrong - I was bad I shouldn't really said what I did I'm sorry - were you forget immediate sacks of attic kicking into the I'm sorry as well she doesn't want to control you she's trying to connect and once there's this apology heartfelt she will immediately be there cuz that's her goal that's what she's not out of control she looks like it that's why you say I'm sorry she immediately stopped but he can't immediately stop because his heart beats her at 99 beats per minute he's felt dishonored and he has to calm down so he walks way out of honor because that's what we do as men our best buddies we get in heated moments ahh we can get volatile so we have to protect the relationship the relationship is more important than the issue on the table so then we exit because it's honorable but in the world of intimacy it's called unloving and abusive your son will be called abusive as he walks away to calm down and he'll be completely blown away by this so here you have this dynamic so what do we have to do we have to decode we have to decode and this is a from Stephen Covey who and what I mean decode that your wife's not trying to be disrespectful she's say and I have a need that only you can meet and it's not a complaint that she's extending to you it's a compliment she needs your strength the question is are you willing to see I know no one talks to you in this disrespectful way so it's so easy for you to take up a fence against her but she's not trying to be test our mission permission is I need you I need you I need you I need your strength she's panicking and the question is are you willing to give her the benefit of the doubt or just resent her on this face value issue which isn't even substantive now if there was another man in your world talking to that way exactly but she's not a man she's pink and I hope that your son-in-law doesn't treat your daughter that little five-year-old girl that used to have on your shoulders he's now 25 and he's gonna take up a fence at her when she's coming at him why because he matters to her and so what does he do he resents her he doesn't decode and here you have an honorable man who would literally die for you but he's got to calm down and you continue to chase him and sitting you escalate to contempt rather than saying hey can you calm down for 15 minutes and then can we talk about this issue for 15 not for 16 or 17 but 15 and not for 15 hours but 15 minutes there are rules of engagement that I talk about and love and respect book there are ways you can move through this but if we don't have this common understanding of each other if we're filtering what we think the other person means by what they say or what they mean by what they do and we're dead wrong we're going to be on the crazy cycle for 38 years so one things we have to do is decode and years ago Stephen Covey he recently died but he wrote a book the seven Habits of Highly Effective People and he talks about this experience he had on a subway I'm going to take that experience that he on a subway and just kind of take that narrative and put it on a bus and it's a bus that sees 40 people it's a Greyhound bus and we're gonna go from Manhattan New York down to the tip of Florida and we are going to it's a red-eye special and so 36 of us are on the bus we're waiting because it's full of four seats are still empty we're waiting waiting waiting oh finally here comes an adult male well three kids oh there's the dad and three kids and he comes down the aisle you're seated by the window but he seats sits right in the seat in front of you and starts staring out the window the bus door closes the lights dim the bus starts rolling down you put back because you want to get a little red eye right now asleep and you hear one of the kids scream and then you hear one the other kids screaming you look up and they're running up and down the aisle they haven't even been seated yet and you think this is unbelievable then everybody meet one of the kids elbow somebody in the ear and it's chaos and dad just keeps staring out the window and then everybody looks back at you at the dad to get your attention to get his attention sir sir sir what what what your children they're running up and down the aisle is a 40 hour you know trip we've we want to get a little red eyes specially here whatever I mean we just need you to have them sit down would you do that pleat and he looks at everybody with daggers in their eyes he looks at you sir I'm so sorry everybody I'm so sorry please please forgive them please please forgive me I'm so sorry we just came from the hospital my wife of many years their mommy just died she's dead now where did your emotions go they flip-flopped I mean what just happened is everything just changed but nothing changed how's it possible how's it possible everything just changed but nothing changed well you just experienced it you were angry frustrated annoyed these kids are my kids that would this dad is one of these you know permissive parents I just and but then we got a little piece of information that enabled us to decode what was going on on that bus he's in shock he just lost his lover of many years his wife he's in shock and children they haven't lost their mommy before so they don't know how to act out and they are acting out once we got that information we move from anger to empathy from wanting to confront it to compassion but now really there's nothing more we can do but we have a perspective that's changed everything you're on a marital bus right and one of you is stonewalling looking out the window the others running up and down the aisle spasmodically wild but we're taking up offense and what happens when you feel unloved you react in a way that feels disrespectful and when you feel disrespected you react in a way that feels unloving and and you you were taking up a fence instead of decoding that her deeper cries for love that is deeper cries do you respect Who I am apart from my performance I know you love me but I don't think you can stand Who I am as a human being create an image of God you know even Jesus when the three disciples fell asleep with him and then on him in the Garden of Gethsemane he said your spirits willing but your flesh is weak he doesn't show contempt toward their inner man he never did that who do we think we are that we can show hostility toward the spirit of our wife we can show contempt in our faith toward their spirit you think that's gonna what what we do is I'll be unloving to motivate you to be respectful I'll be disrespectful to motivate you to be loving but you can't use unholy means to achieve worthy hints but we live forever continue to negatively react with the hope that if I continue to be negative it'll motive my spouse to be positive that's what we call stupid but we're fearful that if we do the loving a respectful thing that they'll take advantage of it or some wimmer thing will you're just saying be nice I've tried be nice not talking about being nice as quickly it's interesting how some quickly dismiss what this is what this is saying it means you courageously and respectfully speak the truth Ananias and Sapphira Peter said you win a disobedient husband through your respectful behavior some people think you just got to get men license no because it was Ananias and Sapphira in acts 5 who both lost their lives they were first Post Pentecost discipline they receive the Holy Spirit but they lied to the Holy Spirit and lied to Peter Peter hoop in first Peter 3 says to Ananias why did you lie and he dies and then sapphire he didn't say Oh sapphire you know you're a dutiful wife you respected your husband you went along with a lie that's what I teach the church so you get a go no no she lost your life there are boundaries and you don't step into sin or evil been teaching that for twenty years but some take this superficial view and somehow say you're respecting bad behavior you're being nice now I talk what that means but here's the deal you can't be disrespectful to motivate love and you can't be unloving to motivate respect because without love defensively she reacts offensively without respect without respect defensively he reacts offensively without love and we live our whole life defend see defensively reacting but we're offending in the process and we don't see it because we look through blue and we look through pink we don't put on the other sunglasses so it raises this question how do we really get off that crazy cycle would anybody like to know what Sarah and I try to do to get off the crazy cycle nobody here okay so I well for those out there in the radio land tonight at the five o'clock service I'm gonna explain how we jump off the crazy cycle let's pray together Lord you know our hearts and we feel two things we feel like a voice and vocabulary has just been put to what we feel deep in our souls and it is such an encouraging and inspiring revelation about who you've designed us to be but we also feel a measure of remorse because in our attempt to meet that need it's as though we try to motivate our spouse to meet our deepest need by depriving them of their own and we just acknowledge that we've used means that are really ineffective and tonight we pray that you give us wisdom to know how to jump off that crazy cycle it maybe there's some husbands wives here today and you know I'm gonna invite you to come forward for prayer and it's not a statement there's something wrong but was said in the earlier service it's really a declaration that something's right that you're listening to God's voice to you and you have not because you ask not James says and so you're in that position to ask because if you don't you don't receive James says so I'm gonna invite you to come forward because it's the right thing to do and you're you're declaring to the rest of us as a great example you're better than us you actually are better than us as you come forward for prayer you're better than us because you're listening to your heavenly father and he will honor you for this and he will I believe envelop you in his love hey thanks for watching to find out more about houston's 1st you can subscribe to our channel or you can go to Houston's first org you [Music]

Channel: Houston's First

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Length: 37min 6sec (2226 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 06 2019