Today with Jeff Vines

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is where following Jesus makes a huge difference. And
if you want your life to be better, you don't
need to meet a new somebody, you need to become
somebody new.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Today, Today, Today, Today with Jeff Fines, pasta apologist and
Bible teacher.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Welcome back to Today with Jeff Finds. My name is Aaron,
and we've started a new series called Powerhouse. Pastor Jeff
says it's about building your home into a powerhouse based
on God's plan. He's talking about the idea of finding
your soulmate and the challenges that are faced in marriage.
We're part way through, but you can catch the whole

(00:46):
message wherever you listen to podcasts. Just search for Today
with Jeff Finds and you'll be able to listen to
part one of this episode. For now, let's join Pastor
Jeff in Ephesians chapter five as he finishes this message.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
If marriage is the beginning of a new family, and
if the health of the new family greatly impacts the
lives of everyone involved, and the two who come together
to form this new home are incredibly flawed, what chances
of survival do we have? What chance of creating powerhouses?
Is there really and the answer is without a roadmap
and a plan from the Marriage and Family designer slim

(01:34):
to none. If you go the way of everyone else,
you're going to go the way of everyone else. And folks,
here's what I'm concerned about with a present generation. A
promise and a party is not going to do it.
It seems that in today's culture, the wedding is the
climactic point of the relationship. It's all downhill from there.
We make promises somehow thinking that the promise is the

(01:56):
same as preparation. You can promise yourself an a on
a file exam. That doesn't mean you're going to get it.
I can promise to be an excellent husband. My wife
can promise to be an excellent wife. But that's the
easy part. And we know this in every other area
of life, and I'm not sure why we think it
will be any different in the marriage. The three rings
of marriage, the engagement ring, the wedding ring, the suffering.

(02:18):
It's been around for a long long time, and people
who attend weddings know that they mean, well, it's a
great ceremony, great party, But they also know that most
people are ill prepared for what's coming next. Now there's
a great line that Andy Stanley has. Andy Stanley says,
saying I do makes you accountable but not capable, and

(02:39):
when you're accountable but not capable, you are miserable. I
was just recently in New Zealand and I spent some
time with a good friend of mine, Steve Denny, who
was a police sergeant in the city of Taupo. He
took one look at me and he said, and this
is something no one wants to hear. He said, Wow,
I'm not going to the gym anymore. Huh. I hate that.

(02:59):
And I said, yeah, I'm going to the gym. He goes, well,
what are you doing in there? And I said, well,
it's just so happens that I'm doing a lot of
running right now, and my body type is lean, so
when I run a lot, I'm trying to lose the
Christmas gut. So I'm running a lot so the weights
don't have the impact. No, no, no, no, He says, you're
doing it all wrong. If you're going to the gym
three times a week and you look like that, you're
not doing it right. He introduced me to super sets. Now,

(03:20):
I've always just done the typical workout. I've got five
or six exercises, you do three or four sets. You
rest in between. He says, that's your problem. You're doing
too much resting not enough working out. Leave your phone
in the locker room and get at the gym and
get serious. And the superset is where you work one
body part and immediately move to another body part, and
immediately move to another body part, and immediately move to
another body part, and then you go back. You have

(03:41):
one minute rest and you do it all again. And
by the time we were on the second super set,
I thought I was gonna die. I literally thought I
was gonna die. But I had a problem. Now I
have the plan, and now I'm gonna have accountability because
Steve says, I'm gonna text you every day to see
if you're doing what I told you to do. Well.
It's a little frustrating, especially when he said, and don't

(04:03):
forget to finish every super set with failure. Failure is
when you get whatever weight it is and you just
do it until you can't do it anymore. And then
he sent me a text and he says, after you
do that, then go curl up in the corner and
cry for mama. So when you're accountable but not sure
you're capable, you're miserable. And when it comes to relationships,

(04:26):
common sense is not that common. Okay, pastor Jeff, then
help me. This is where following Jesus makes a huge difference.
And if you want your life to be better and
life to be better for you, you don't need to
meet a new somebody. You need to become somebody new.
The problem is not that you married the wrong right one.

(04:50):
The problem is you've got to become the right right one.
You've got to become the kind of person that the
other person is looking for, and that will motivate the
other person to become the person that you are looking for.
And your dream marriage is not with someone else, it's
with this person. And changing your relationship with another person

(05:14):
is just going to multiply all the things that you
bring with you into the new relationship. Are there exceptions
to this? Absolutely there are. I can't deal with all
of them in this message, but most of us, the
truth is, do not fit into that category. And even
if you've made a mess of your marriage, I'm telling
you that if both of you right here, right now,

(05:35):
are willing to start over to admit that you made
false assumptions coming into this marriage, to draw a line
in the sam and say, from this point on, we're
not just gonna promise, We're actually gonna prepare. And if
you're willing to do the hard work, I can tell
you that the dream marriage you're looking for is right
where you are. So if you want a powerhouse marriage,

(05:59):
it begins with something that's crucial, and then I'm going
to give you three postures. Just stay with me for
a second. The way I have approached this series is
very different than I have previously anytime I've talked about
home building or marriage life. But at this point in
my life, being married almost thirty five years, I am
in the best place that I've ever been to deliver

(06:22):
these messages. I have learned so much. But here's the
number one lesson. The number one lesson is that every
time the Biblical writers attempt to give us advice on
building marriages, and building homes and building children, it starts

(06:42):
with a recapitulation of the Gospel. And this is what
I've discovered has been missing in my life. I have
always been going to secondary resources to try to discover
how to build powerhouses when I should have been going
all along to the primary resource that the secondary resources used,
and the primary resource is the Word of God and

(07:04):
the Gospel. So that I have learned that when I'm
going to try to be a better husband, when I'm
going to try to create a powerhouse, the first question
I need to ask is not how are other people
doing it? How are they relating to each other? That
is successful, But the foundation from which I begin is
how does God relate to me? And if I know

(07:26):
how God relates to me, that's the way I relate
to my spouse. And that is how the apostle Paul
communicates that we can build powerhouses because I started to
understand this is the brilliance of the Gospel. God could
have saved us in any number of ways, but He
chose to save us through the good news of the
Gospel that Paul calls the power of God into salvation.

(07:51):
But it's not only the power of God into salvation.
It's the power of God to your confidence, the power
of God to endurance, the power of God in your relationships,
the hour of God in your homes. And so in
Ephesians chapter five, the apostle Paul gives us three postures,
and you begin to understand, even though he's talking about

(08:11):
the Gospel, he's talking about marriage, And even though he's
talking about marriage, he's talking about the Gospel. And the
first posture is this, if a marriage is going to work,
there must be the posture of pursuit. He says, husbands,
love your wives as Christ love the Church. Now I
used to think, well, he's talking about sacrifice there, and

(08:31):
that would definitely be included. But then I go back
to what Jesus teaches about the gospel. In Luke fifteen,
he describes a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son,
and on every occasion he says that the shepherd representing
God pursues the sheep, the one that is lost. He
leaves the ninety nine to go find the one, the

(08:52):
lost coin. The woman sweeps the house clean in order
to find that one lost coin. And then the prodigal
son who has lost return, and the father sees him
from a distance and chases and pursues and runs after him.
So that immediately I began to understand that Jesus says,
I came to seek and to save you, that the
God of this universe is so in love with his people,

(09:14):
that he chases hard after them, that he doesn't wait
for you to reach out to him, He reaches down
to you. And that becomes the difference between religion and
the Gospel. Religion says man reaches out to God through
his own goodness because he thinks he can merit his salvation.
But the Gospel says, no, God reaches out to us

(09:37):
through his goodness. Now do you't understand what that means
for marriage? It means that loving your wife or your
husband as Christ loves the church means that you go
hard after each other. You pursue each other. You don't
wait for the other one to change, and you don't
wait for the other one to come to you. You
go to them. And you know how many times I've

(09:58):
sat up in my office and listen to somebody say, well, well,
i'll tell you what Pastor Jeff, I'll give him what
he needs when he starts giving me what I need.
That's not the gospel. Well, i'll give her what she
wants when she starts giving me what I want. That
is not the gospel. In the Gospel, God pursues you
when you're not even interested in marriage. We relate to
each other in the way that God has related to

(10:20):
us that is different than all of humanity. We pursue,
we go hard after the other from the get go.
That there are practical ways you can do this. These
are some of the ways, and there are many ways.
I really encourage you to read Gary Chapman's book on
the Five Love Languages that will help you tremendously. You
need to learn the love language of your spouse. For us, guys,

(10:42):
we're very simple. I mean we are our love language,
mostly guys in this room, physical touch and words of affirmation.
We want someone who will cuddle us, and we want
someone who will tell us how great we are. That's
who we are. But if I try to communicate love
to Robin in those two love language, it's not going
to get through her love language. Like most of the

(11:04):
women in this room, not all, but most falls into
one of three categories gifts of affection, acts of service,
and quality time. So if I cuddle Robin and tell
her how wonderful she is, that doesn't speak love to her.
That speaks love to me. And I learned a long
time ago that intimacy in the bedroom at night starts

(11:25):
with running the vacuum in the living room in the morning.
You have to learn what communicates love to your spouse,
and that's called pursuing them as God has pursued you.
You ask your wife or your husband about their hopes
and dreams, and then you listen to the answer. You
have date nights where you talk about your relationship and

(11:46):
about your children and about your dreams. You give up
things you love for something you love more, your spouse.
You put on the servants uniform and you serve each other.
And I've heard so many Christian men say yeah, but
the Bible clearly says wife, submit to your husband. Do
you know what the verse roy before that says submit
to each other out of reverence. For Christ, it's a

(12:08):
mutual submission. Your wife is not supposed to sit around
and just do whatever you wanted to do, and the
husband is not meant to make you successful, and you're
not meant to make him successful. It's about both of
you fulfilling each other, loving each other, completing one another,
and providing the things the other needs to be happy, joyful,

(12:28):
and complete. It is mutual admiration, mutual pursuit, mutual love.
Now stay with me for a moment again. Robin and
I are very different people. We really are. We were
laughing a lot about this. We even say to each other,
you know, if we weren't married, I don't think i'd
even like you. And Robin will sometimes say to me,
you know what, you're not my kind of people. You're

(12:50):
like the jock athlete and I'm over here out in
the smoking area or something. We're just very different, very
different people. I noticed very early on in the marriage
that Robin loves to be at home and she likes
me to be at home with her, but my person
ality wants to be out doing something golfing with my buddies, haying,

(13:11):
and very early in the marriage I realized this is
not gonna work. So there has to be a mutual
submission to one another where I set aside times that
I refuse to be out during the week because I'm
going to be with my wife. And there are times
that she's agreed to go and do things with me
that she would rather sit at home, but she said,
I'm going to go out and we're going to have
this mutual submission. So she goes out and she will

(13:33):
caddy eighteen holds of golf from me. Yeah, sorry, that's
a dream that just appeared. It just came out of nowhere.
But we do have this give and take relationship. The
Bible says that Jesus Christ supplies our every need. Right,
the God supplies our every need in Christ Jesus. That
is the goal of marriage. We pursue one another. If

(13:58):
both parties on endo this, it will never work. Second,
quickly a posture of full commitment. And this is a
process of stay with me. Okay. The Gospel communicate something
absolutely relevant to a good marriage and acts two. A
major part of the audience when the church begins is
asking the question, you know what, how can we have
intimacy with God? Because right now, intimacy and closeness with

(14:19):
God lasts just a little while. Because in the Old Testament,
you would offer a sin offering and you would feel
good about your relationship with God until you sinned again.
And now you're brought back to where you started. And
so there's this thirst and hunger not by all, but
by many people to know God, experience God on a
more intimate daily level. So Peter gives this response when
they say, what do we need to do? And here's

(14:41):
what he says, And I can't believe I missed this
for most of my married life. He says, repent and
be baptized, every one of you in the name of
Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you
will receive. What can you say it? What do you
receive if you do this? The gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now what is the gift of the Holy Spirit? The
gift of the Holy sp Now remember, the number one

(15:01):
metaphor used in scripture to compare our relationship to God
is the one in broad, in groom, right, broad and groom.
The Holy spirit is when God penetrates you with his spirit.
But God says, I will not penetrate you with my
spirit until you first of all repent and be baptized.

(15:22):
Now what does that mean? You and I shan't have intimacy,
God says, until you come to me with the intention
of changing your life. If you come to me and
you're just looking for a loophole for salvation, if you're
just looking to add me to something you're already doing,
we'll never experience intimacy. When you come to me. You
come to me with the idea that you are going

(15:44):
to turn about one hundred and eighty degree direction. You're
going to change your life. And then if I know
that you're serious about that and that is your intent,
then I am going to penetrate you with my spirit,
the gift of the spirit, the gift of myself, and
I'm going to give you the power to be able
to do, to be able to transformed. And then he says,
once you've repented, I want you to be baptized. I

(16:05):
want you to make a public confession that you and
I are in an intimate relationship. It's kind of like
the marriage ceremony. Why do you get married in front
of people to speak the message to all of your friends.
You've got a new passion in your life. Now. If
you try to come to God in a relationship where
you're not repenting, you have no intention of changing your life.
And you really don't want to do the baptism thing.

(16:27):
You might do it, but you're really not into it.
You don't really want to publicly confess that you have
a new Lord and master. God says to you, don't
expect intimacy because there's a barrier. In fact, the Gospel
reminds you that God will not penetrate you with his
spirit until you've made a full commitment to him, full
commitment to change your way of living, full commitment to

(16:49):
be immersed into Him. And at that point, and only
God knows, he penetrates you with his spirit and you
become His bride forever. And this commitment is irreversible, this covenant,
you are eternally secure. In fact, this helps people understand
why the Bible teaches to penetrate someone with whom you've

(17:11):
not made the ultimate commitment is a violation not only
in the precepts of scripture, but a violation of the Gospel.
That's why monotheism and monogamy go together. You are faithful
to one God, and you are faithful to one woman
or one man. And when that commitment is made eternal commitment,

(17:33):
then the penetration of body and soul and spirit is
not only allowed, but encouraged as a gift from God.
And that's why the Bible says, when you fully commit
to your spouse, that penetration of body and spirit becomes
unbreakable and eternal. Therefore, the Bible says, what God has
joined together, let no man separate. So when God invites
you into a covenant relationship, when the heart and the

(17:55):
mind enters into a relationship with God through repentance. Genuine
repentance and baptism. The heart and mind of God grants
eternal security, not based on merit, but grace. That's exactly
what God expects from you in your marriage to your spouse.
Aren't you glad that God does not treat you like

(18:18):
we treat each other? Aren't you glad that God does
not expect perfection from you? Just intention And that's what
we should expect from our spouses. And if you enter
into the marriage and this is what I see, well,
we're gonna try. If it doesn't work, well, just divorce.

(18:38):
You will divorce if you enter into marriage without full
awareness that you are gonna have to change as a person.
You're gonna be different, and you're gonna have to rise
in a newness of life. And God is gonna work
on those flaws. If you don't enter marriage like that
and you're waiting for the other person to become the
right one instead of the wrong right one, your ma

(19:00):
will end in divorce. There are too many flaws. Are
there exceptions to the rule? Yes, But you better enter
into a relationship with your spouse in the same way
you would expect God to enter into relationship with you
fully committed, even when you blow it. So it's my
wedding day. The church building was a lot like this,

(19:22):
and the bride's maids are there, and the groomsmen are here.
And about five minutes before the groomsmen walk out and
they take their place, there's a little x where I'm
supposed to stand. Ride's maids walk out. They're here, Robin's
at the back. The music's beginning to play. That's my signal.
I'm back here with my father behind the curtain and
is I'm I about to walk out to make my vows.

(19:42):
My dad grabs me by the hand and won't let
me come out on stage. I look back, I said, Dad,
I gotta go with time. He goes, no, you're not
going anywhere, and he holds up my car keys and
he says, son, now is the time to flee. Honestly,
what are you talking about? Son? Take these keys and

(20:04):
run while you can, and I'll make some kind of excuse.
I said, Dad, I can't do that. He said, I know.
I'm just making sure you know when you walk out
on that stage it's for life now. Because I entered
the marriage with that kind of teaching. Robin and I
have had some tough times, but there was never an

(20:25):
option of ending it. We were going to make it
through for our sake, for the sake of our kids,
and for the sake of powerhouses. Are there exceptions to
the rules, Yes, they'll talk about those in the future.
But your attitude going in should be to pursue your
spouse and full commitment to your spouse to make this
thing work. And then, third and finally, a posture of repentance. Now,

(20:47):
this is the most important part. I'm going to cut
to the chase here. In Ephesians five twenty five, husbands,
love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave
themself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her
by the washing with water through the world. Now again
for a long time, how does that apply to marriage?
Because the Bible tells us that we had to be

(21:07):
cleaned and purified before God would penetrate with us with
his spirit. And in order to cleanse and purify us,
he had to do two things. One, he had to
forgive us of our sins and die on the cross
to save us from our sins, so that he could
see us as pure, But he also put his spirit
in us, and the spirit works in conjunction with the
word of God to continually make us clean and presentable

(21:30):
before the Father. Now what does that have to do
with marriage? Everything? There has to be a constant repentance
in the marriage relationship every single day. If you want
intimacy and marriage, and if you want to build a
powerhouse you as a wife or you as a husband,
you must ask yourself every day what role am I
playing in the frustration of this relationship? Stop saying I

(21:53):
wish my husband would stop doing that. I wish my
wife would stop doing that and start turning inwardly? What
am I doing? What barriers exist between me and my
spouse that are preventing intimacy? And I'm part of the problem.
And how can I change and how can I work
on me? In order to be a better husband a
better wife. I must posture myself in such a way

(22:14):
that my spouse knows that I'm working on me, that
I'm making serious efforts to improve as a husband or
a wife. Some of our most intense times of romanticism
between Robin and me is when we are both realizing
that we're both trying to improve. We're not perfect, but
we're trying to work on us so that we will
be a better husband, a better wife. And I tell

(22:35):
you again, your spouse is not looking for perfection, just
to effort. Just effort. That is the gospel. Folks, we
need powerhouses. If you want a powerhouse, sooner or later,
you must submit to the word of God and treat
your spouse the way God treats you. Father, I think

(22:56):
and praise you for the power of your word as
we begin this series. Pray that it would be life changing.
I pray for every single man and woman in this
room that through this series their eyes would be open
to some truths that just cannot be violated. I pray
for marriages that are in trouble. I pray that you
would open their eyes that no marriage is ever too

(23:18):
far gone that it cannot be restored. If we're willing
to go past the promise into a plan. Instead of
asking our spouse to change that we change ourselves. First.
We work on us and pray for the transformation of
the one we love. And I pray that we would
build these homes that would change our community and world
in Christ's name. I pray.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
If you've been listening to Today with Jeff Finds. Next
time we'll bring you a new message from pastor Jeff.
You can listen to more messages like this just search
for Today with Jeff Finds wherever you listen to podcasts,
make me a.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
One a day say with every single brand, I won't
bring this up.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
You, Myron, you be your

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Run Today, Today, Today, Today with Jeff Fines