"When Your Marriage Is Failing" - Pastor Wayne Cordeiro

hi welcome to our home I think one of my favorite stories about marriage is from a Dear Abby column a man says dear Abby I'm confused I'm married I have two kids but I'm actually not living at home I've fallen out of love with my wife and I'm living with her best friend but that's not the problem I'm actually in love with a third woman and then he says what would you say and he finishes with a PS don't give me any of that morality stuff I don't believe in it sine confused well Dear Abby writes back succinctly dear confused the only difference between animals and humans is morality so please consult a veterinarian ever hear those words my marriage is failing we always thought that sour marriages only happen to other people but now it's happening to you but you didn't marry to be miserable you married to be happy forever but that ideal that shine often fades but now those words apply to you in the marriage that's in trouble lives in your house and that marriage is your marriage you know in all my years of counseling couples I've never come across a problem marriage nope but I have to say I've seen boatloads of problem people who get married you see the reason that's so important to make that distinction is because marriage is not the problem in fact marriage is your hope see people's problem might be really a lack of maintenance on their marriage and that's how problems result I have seen those with unresolved character flaws that marriage seems to surface and those flaws Booya from the bottom with such a rush that they flood their marriage and threatened to swamp we think the marriage is failing when it's really not the problem is simply that character flaws are surfacing there may be character flaws in you or your partner but your marriage is your greatest asset actually it's not the problem it's your greatest asset the story is told of a man who was laying flowers on his mother's tombstone when right next to him a middle-aged man was crying like crazy wailing he wouldn't stop and he between whales he could hear him say why did you have to leave me I can't live like this why did you have to die why and the first man turned and said excuse me sir I don't want to intrude but what's a cause of such deep grief is it your mother that died a child he said no it's my wife's first husband you know we all have character flaws and if we don't deal with them we're gonna carry them into every relationship as I've always said we can teach people what we know but ultimately we're gonna reproduce what we are now let me pause for a second and let me share with you do you know what's worse than losing a marriage what's worse is never resolving the issues that led to losing that marriage because if those character flaws are left untreated we only sentence ourselves to repeat the same mistakes next time and each of us must learn to resolve our own flaws so that we can change for the better along the way and then we can avoid repeating the same mistakes no matter what stage our relationships we're in we all need to hear this message some people might say well I'm not married yet but when I do bursting into that Nat King Cole classic goes because when I fall in love it will be forever that's nice song but someone once said that on the way to the altar you're gonna discover there's three rings in each ceremony there's gonna be in the engagement ring and the wedding ring and the suffering but regardless of where you are God's highest and utmost desire is always to heal and to restore that's his greatest purpose for any of us in any stage of life in any problem he especially though wants to restore and heal marriages that seem to be sinking the greatest miracle we can ever hope for is that marriages be restored to wholeness and God especially has a desire to do that but we must first recognize the faults that surface regardless from whom it originates and we've got to deal with the faults starting with our own and resolve them without losing the marriage and you don't want to ignore the faults we would rather ignore them because to be truthful in order to resolve them it'll require some emotional labor and we'd rather avoid that but you cannot you cannot make believe it's not there those flaws won't just disappear it might be ignored but ignoring it doesn't do anything all it does is transfers a problem from your past into your future and when you do it stacks up with a corrosive effect and now realize that the process of restoration isn't going to be nice and comfortable and pleasant and there's going to be the ugly painful flaws on both sides however restoration is our not only gods but it has to be our ultimate goal and that's the core of marriage that's the divine reality so to help us recognize some of these faults that will arise in any marriage or in any relationship I'm going to give you three guidelines to follow and so follow me as we go inside and we'll take look at the first of these guidelines because life is going to be a long trip together you'll want to make some agreements right at the beginning in other words you've got to prepare in advance it's a lot like setting the coordinates on a plane flight before you take off you set some coordinates and if you set the wrong coordinates at the beginning you'll end up somewhere you never expected however if you set your coordinates well you'll have a much better chance to end up arriving exactly at your desired destination the scripture says a house is built by wisdom and becomes strong through good sense through knowledge its rooms are filled with all sorts of precious riches and valuables that's out of the book of Proverbs if you have a faith in God then you've chosen the Bible as your guidebook for living another person may come along and say you know I love you but I really don't want to follow the Bible as much as you do so just let our love be stronger than anything else if you listen to that you're dreaming if you think it's going to work it's not because there's no love that is stronger than God's love think of marriage like building a house let's say you agree on the big picture and you happily get started but each of you starting from a different side of the house and you're gonna meet in the middle and you're building problem is you're using different sets of blueprints one starts on one end and your significant other starts on the other end and you just meet somewhere in the middle right not quite and it doesn't even matter how sincere you are in your efforts it doesn't even matter how good a builder you are it doesn't matter how much time invest money or resources you're putting into the building of this house if you're building from different blueprints when you come to the middle there's gonna be a huge rift and a huge fault line so make sure that you both build with the same blueprint you've got to start with the same architectural design and then you work hard at sticking to those designs so that at the point of contact when you meet together in the middle you'll meet squarely on target make sure you're reading from the same map especially when it comes to your faith now what if your marriage didn't start with following God's plans sometimes even Christians and difficult relationship will rationalize and say well because I didn't marry according to God's will in the first place therefore probably it's right for me just to end my marriage right now because the Lord would not want me to be unhappy but stop for a moment think about that again one bad decision is never gonna be repaired with another bad decision God places great value on the words spoken when you were married and he wants us to fulfill our vows to one another because he was present with us when we spoke the promise to one another and he's still with us to help us keep them see the Lord repairs our lives by starting right where we are rather than undoing what we have done trying to reverse the clock he wants you to trust him right where you are because you see marriage is more than words it's going to be action and God's going to help you if we value the gift of marriage then he is going to show you how to do this and there's two important things that he wants you to make sure that you emphasize the first is you've got to treasure your marriage here's a small illustration of what I mean some years ago I wasn't when I was in college I scraped together all the money I had and bought a beautiful and expensive Martin guitar but the melodious sound made it worth every penny I plucked out many songs with that guitar and put many miles on that guitar traversing throughout the globe as I carried it with me we spent countless hours together practicing songwriting performing I love my Martin guitar it's gonna be with me and my home until I die and then when I die I'll pass it on to my kids my grandkids well I decided that when the time came that it would need repairing if it did and it did I would take it to the best craftsman I could afford well later on the neck of my beautiful old guitar did get a little warped and I took it to the bass luthier around and although he told me it might be quite expensive to fix it I said the cost is secondary to me please do the best you can to fix it because this guitar is like my life you see the cost was secondary why cuz I treasured that guitar and whatever it would take to get it repaired I was willing to pay why because part of my life was soaked into the wood of that instrument you understand and the same is true with our marriages our relationships may require repair from time to time and they might even be a bit expensive to fix but if you treasure your love you will repair it at any cost your devotion must be so strong that you'll say I don't care what it costs because I treasure this marriage and when you treasure your marriage and commit to doing whatever it takes to repair it you'll be surprised how many miracles will take place you'll see how through your commitment that God will infuse his power and help you to heal your home now some people tell me Wayne you you don't know my wife she's a high-maintenance woman of course your marriage is high-maintenance if you wanted something low-maintenance I'd suggest you just buy artificial flowers you see fake flowers are low care and the reason it is because they're dead see that's that's what you get for maintenance-free flowers but if you want a plant that grows bears fruit has a beautiful fragrance then you'll have to water it care for it and there'll be times when you're gonna have to trim it back prune it shape it but you'll be willing to really work with it because it's fruitful it's alive its thriving and if that's how you want your marriage to be you got to accept it as high maintenance some men come to me and they've complained they say well my wife goes out and just buy so much yeah you can probably prune that a bit but you've got to be willing to pay a price I know when I walk through the mall with my wife I hold her hand a lot and people think oh they see that and say oh how romantic but I tell the Mac in actuality the reason I hold her hand is cuz when I let go she shops I'm like the husband whose credit card was stolen but he refused to report it when they asked why he said well the thief that was spending with his credit card was spending less than his wife married to the high-maintenance proposition and if it's gonna be a fruitful one there's going to be a price but it's worth it it's worth it mark my words let me if I could say something to the husband's men treasuring a marriage really starts with us not the other way around because we set the for our homes as the leader or the head of our families we provide the loving direction in our marriage and the way to treasure your marriage and to keep it treasured here's a simple tip speak value into your spouse and into your children I often say to men the best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother and to speak well of her in their presence you see wives and even children take their cue from dad or husband do you remember when you were dating you you'd say to your girlfriend or your fiance you're so beautiful or you did that so well what you just did was you infused value in to her she'll actually feel valuable in your presence but the problem is after the wedding men stopped passing out those compliments as freely and as a result wives feel less valued as time goes on the depreciation flows right on down to the kids as well can I encourage you husbands don't stop giving value to your wife and to your children because the way you treasure your marriage matters more than anything else you do if you don't treasure your wife you just might end up like the man who left church one Sunday feeling convicted that he wasn't doing enough for his other half so he stopped at a perfume store and he said to the clerk I'd like to buy some perfume for my wife well the lady it was the clerk said Wow if there were only more men like you so the clerk brought out this beautiful wonderful bottle of perfume it was priced at one hundred and fifty dollars I think I choked and he says whoa whoa whoa wait a minute that's way too much he have something cheaper she was she found a $50 bottle she said what about this one Oh too much the husband said shaking his head you have something cheaper and the sales lady mumbled on her way back what a cheapskate then she returned with another bottle marked down to $30 and she said how's this he said too much still I want something cheaper finally she said what do you want he said I want to see something really cheap so she pulled out a mirror you see don't let that be your reflection be sure to value each other in marriage and by treasuring each other you will cause everyone in your home to appreciate not depreciate appreciate like a house or equity or real estate you will appreciate in significance as the years go by in case you're thinking that this is just window dressing for your marriage it's not but let's probe a little deeper how can you hang on when you want to let go here's another secret stay committed to the one committed to you stay committed to the one committed to you see the beauty of your marriage vow is that they were spoken not just by two people I was spoken before God himself stay committed to the one who's committed to you he's still working to help you fulfill that commitment God is and when you're running out of strength trust in the faith of Christ do everything you can to cooperate with the prayers that Jesus is praying over here marriage do you know that he's really praying for your marriage he's for you remember by the way the secret of a lasting marriage is falling in love again and again and always with the same person God's going to help you stay committed to him trust him well you say well what are some practical steps that you can take here's one become honest friends see people don't fall out of love initially they fall out of friendship initially if there's a struggle in your marriage and you lose friendship with your wife think about it it doesn't matter at that point who's right or wrong because if you fall out of friends if you don't like each other if you're no longer friends it really doesn't matter on the other hand if you are committed to be friends you can work out the problem because your relationship isn't based on performance it's based on friendship your marriage is worth far more than any issue that comes up if your friends for example if Anna and I fell out of friendship doesn't matter if she has the right answer to our problem doesn't matter even if she had a prophetic word from God I would not listen to her because I wouldn't like her then it is no longer a matter of who's right or wrong anymore and even if God has the answer you won't accept it because you stepped out of that relationship of friendship and when that friendship fails then I become a person that's impossible to please I resist any solution so work to be able to say that your husband or your wife is your best friend say it do whatever it takes pay whatever price is required and make the necessary sacrifices to regain the friendship of your spouse and if you make the choice to be friends then you can honestly say honey I know we have some problems but it doesn't matter because no matter what that's secondary I'm gonna be your friend we can lose this house we can live in a rental or sleep in a pup tent but whatever happens we're gonna be friends and I'm committed to treasure our marriage you matter to me more than anything else I remember Mary Alda saying she was a wife of Alan Alda she once said this she said in our society it's becoming easier and easier to leave your spouse but in any society it will always remain difficult to leave your best friend so keep your friendship with your partner confess false one to another do everything you can to apologize humble yourself whatever else you might need to do to maintain your friendship that's critical become deeply invested in your friendship of your spouse that will be your greatest treasure this next tip is a very important one and that is to seek and submit to godly counsel when you purchase a brand-new car you also are wise to take out a service contract because nothing always stays new forever so - in a marriage it's wise in the early days to plan in advance for what may take place we should have an agreement with our spouses that if anything goes wrong in our marriage we will seek and submit to godly counsel and if we don't plan this in advance then when things go bad and it hits the skids well pride sets in and at least one in the marriage will usually refuse to get counseling many times we really do need a third person to help us see things clearly and objectively we can become too emotionally involved to figure things out on our own and and so we really do need to seek and submit to counsel now remember it's not enough to seek counsel we have to make the choice to submit to it as well the Bible says it in this way listen to counsel and accept discipline so that you may be wise the rest of your days these two phrases are so important and powerful listen to counsel and then it adds and except the discipline necessary to do both not just one or the other don't ever say well I'm fine and if you want to go to counseling then you go right ahead I've heard that I don't need counseling the Bible describes you if that's your way of thinking describes us as a fool you see in every marriage there are three sides to the story yes three your side the other side and the truth sometimes only someone sitting on the outside can see what we're both missing on the inside of our home and to those of you are just getting married make a prenuptial agreement no not about money about getting counsel make your commitment if your marriage ever starts sinking and you can't pull it out on your own and a reasonable amount of time that you'll both commit to getting help what I'm about to say to you in this segment is not the ideal but it's the reality and that is this sometimes marriages don't survive but you must and you can if you'll hold on to your faith then even in the midst of everything spinning out of control around us God will still be able to lead you safely home Hebrews chapter 6 tells us this God has given us both his promise and his oath and that he would be there for us this is the confidence and it's like a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls an anchor you need to be able to say lord I know that you're the one that makes me whole my source for my anchor of joy is found in you and you alone not on how well my marriage is performing my soul must be anchored in you please grab ahold of that and you'll have your anchor now please hear my heart for you as I speak into this very rough situation some times you'll feel like the world is caving in on you you may feel like a drowning swimmer lost at sea in the midst of a hurricane but here's the life preserver that I want to throw out to you anchor yourself in Christ not the state of your marriage or finances or anything else if he's your anchor he will bring you through let me say it again he will bring you through so regardless of whether you have a great or not-so-great marriage your wholeness will never come from your marriage it will always come from Christ nothing ever can change that so keep your heart anchored in Christ so that you can find strength beyond yourself and he will help you to love more than you are able to feel and you'll be able to walk farther than you could ever imagine and if we can ever help please contact us here at the office and and we'll do whatever we can to help you navigate the season in a way that God will be pleased god bless you god bless you and your home you

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Length: 28min 18sec (1698 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 26 2016