It's the Relationship, Stupid: The Right Well for Your Bucket
Watermark Community Church
Todd Wagner
Series: The Visible Image
February 13, 2011
http://www.watermarkradio.com/index.php?id=153&channel=-1&series=227&message=1
It's the Relationship, Stupid: The Right Well for Your Bucket
John 4:4-20
It is great to be here with y'all. We are making our way through the gospel of John, and if you've been tracking with us, you know we are about to dive into John 4. But we've been racing through John, so I want to slow us down a little bit this morning…kidding. Most of you guys are already wondering when we'll finish this book.
But what I want to do is take a moment and just show you at the very end of the next major section in John, is a really interesting conversation. It's one where Jesus is talking to a woman that he is telling, "Look, I've got what you're looking for. You've been trying to find life in all kinds of places." And Jesus uses a metaphor of water because he is by a well. It's in the middle of the day, and it's very hot. So he says, "Woman, if you knew the water that I had to offer you, you would ask me for water, and you would never thirst again."
Now he is not talking about physical water, but like sometimes we're prone to do, we always look for an immediate and almost a literal experiential, tangible, right now way to find everlasting fulfillment, satisfaction and promise. And Jesus is alluding to something much greater, which is restoration to her Creator. And she says, "Where is this water? I'm not familiar with that kind of water," when she kind of clues into what Jesus is talking about. And he says to her as an illustration that he understands her brokenness, he says, "Why don't you go get your husband and bring him back, and I will tell you about this water, both of you."
She says, "Well, I don't have a husband." That's where Christ says, "Well, you speak the truth. You've already had five, and the guy you're living with right now is not your husband." That's when she says, "Sir, I perceive you to be a prophet, all right, because how else would you know this about me?" Well God knows all about her just like he knows all about all of us. The Scripture says that he knows the words we're going to say even before they're on our lips. He knows all about the things you're sure if he knew about, you could never be in relationship with him.
So if you're here this morning, and you're concerned that you could never be restored to God because you could never tell God what it is that you've done, you need to know God already knows what it is you've done, and God loves you and seeks you in the midst of that brokenness and that thirst that still is in your life, and that you're still trying to satisfy by pursuing anything other than him. He is not mad at you because you've been married five times, and the guy you're living with now is still not your husband. He just loves you like a father loves any kid, and he's just saying, "Would you please come drink of the water that I want to give to you so that you could have life?"
So as we get going here in John, chapter 4, what I want to do is just pause. Obviously today, as John kindly reminded all of us in this room, the day before our world wants to celebrate romantic love with one another, and I want to just tell you that God is a fan of romantic love, but he knows a romantic love is going to be fleeting unless you understand how to really love. And if all you do is live for romantic love, then you're going to have a lot of short bursts of ecstasy and then you're going to have deep hangovers of despair. It's just another, if you will, fleeting way to get through moments while we're largely defined by an ocean of loneliness and hurt.
And God wants you to sail differently than that. He doesn't want you to have to live from just some passionate experience and then crater to wondering if you could ever get there again. He wants you to live with a sense of joy and abiding peace, such a better way to live. Even in the midst of that joy and abiding peace, there are clear moments of wonder and ecstasy, but there isn't that deep despair. So this morning we're going to talk about relationships. And what I want to let you know is that God is a fan of relationships.
There is a verse, that if you've ever been in a failed relationship that I'm sure has been thrown at you, or that you might have heard somebody even whisper to you if you were around religious communities when you were thinking about moving on, and that is this one from Malachi, chapter 2, verse 16. It says, "God hates divorce." And you kind of go, "Oh great, see man, I knew it. God hates now me." It doesn't say, by the way, "God hates divorce…" Excuse me; I just got through saying it did say that. Very confusing this morning. It doesn't say, "God hates divorcees." Thank you.
What it says is that God hates divorce. Why does God hate divorce? Let me say it again. God doesn't hate women who have been married five times and the man who she is now living with is not her husband. Those are the kind of people God seeks and says, "I love you, and I want you to quit throwing your bucket down the wrong well coming up tired and thirsty and beaten down by the noon day again. Drink from this well, and you'll stop living in a land of mirages and brokenness and shattered dreams. I'll teach you how to love. I'll teach you how to find forgiveness."
God doesn't hate divorcees. He loves divorcees. He hates divorce because he loves people. Now let me just show you something. Someone has asked me before, "Todd, what are the seven deadly sins?" And I go, "Well, I don't know if there are, actually. That's a title of a book, but there aren't really seven deadly sins. I said, "The closest you can find to things that God, in one little section, says he despises or hates is in Proverbs, chapter 6."
So let's just take a look at this together. In Proverbs, chapter 6, verses 16-19, it says, "There are six things which the Lord hates, yes seven which are an abomination to him." Now look Bible scholars. This is not going to take a lot of great insight. We're just going to read these seven things, and I want to just ask you what you think the common characteristic of these seven things are. Okay, here we go. Are you ready?
1. Haughty eyes, which is to say people who discount the actions or words of others. They are invalidators. They just kind of go, "Whatever. I know better than you, and if you thought like me, this wouldn't be a problem."
2. Lying tongues.
3. Hands that shed innocent blood.
4. A heart that devises wicked plans.
5. Feet that run rapidly to evil.
6. A false witness who utters lies.
7. One who spreads strife among his brothers.
What is consistent with all seven of those things? The answer is every one of those things bring death to human relationship. What God hates is broken relationships. Now why is that? Because he created you in his image, and that means that you are created to live in community and connection and intimacy and oneness. You're meant to experience love and togetherness and anything that threatens or breaks or shatters that oneness, that unity, that is there when God is there, that peace, God hates it.
Why? Because he loves you. God doesn't hate peace breakers, he hates a lack of peace, and therefore, he is against those who want to break peace. But in the end, what he wants to do is to make them peacemakers, not peace fakers, not peace breakers, but peacemakers.
You know if you go back and look at the fall, the state of the world after we left God, who is himself eternally unity and community and intimacy and oneness and love, the very first thing to leave was all those things. If you go back and look at Genesis 3, we won't because of time, but you'll see that right away, the first thing that goes after we leave God is relationship.
Our relationship with God is broken. Our relationship with each other is broken. Blame starts to be assigned. There is no cherishing. There is no honor. There is no mutual concern. There is no other-centeredness. There is no intimacy. There is no peace. There is blame, self-protection, pride, denial. There is broken relationship. It's the first thing to go at the fall. That's why God didn't want you to leave him because you're made to be together.
So what I want to share with you this morning is just some truths about relationship more than I have already shared, and just give you a reminder of what God would encourage you with as you seek to live back in that restored place that has in it that which we all long for so that you can stop throwing your bucket down the wrong well and start to experience life again.
Let me just make some very obvious observations. I just sat down and thought, Okay, what's true about relationships? Because you know I think back to the Clinton campaign when James Carville and George Stephanopoulos kept telling Clinton, "It's the economy, stupid. Don't get out there and talk about anything else. Talk about the economy. It's the economy, stupid." Really what I'm going to do this morning is just say, "You know what the world…it's the relationship, stupid. Talk about the relationship. Don't talk about the rules and regulations and the laws and the darkness." And really if you take a look at the gospel of John, it's God saying, "It's the relationship, stupid. I'm not concerned about homosexuality, or abortion, or pornography, or materialism."
Let me just say those things are all things that God isn't fond of. Why? Because they are the things that break relationship. But God said, "It's about the relationship. I have come to restore the relationship. I didn't come to judge pornographers and adulterers, and women who have been married five times and now live with another guy. I came to restore the relationship. It's the relationship, stupid, and the lack of relationship with me is what causes all the problems."
And one of the great problems the church has today is that we keep trying to get people do to things and stop getting them to understand the one thing…that God is good, that he is loving, that he is filled with grace and compassion and mercy, and he cares for them. And he says, "Would you quit throwing your bucket down the wrong well? And would you just come home? Because I love you."
It's absolutely correct and right to say, "Look, that well of pornography is the wrong well. That well of abortion is the wrong well. That well of materialism is the wrong well," but it's about the relationship, stupid. Your relationship is with the wrong wells. Let me tell you about this well. We have to start celebrating the depth of the glory and the goodness of God and give testimony to where we drink, and then walk around as if we are not ourselves dehydrated, desperate people. What confuses the world is when we say, "God is where life is," and we take our buckets and we go where they go.
They go, "Look, I know this well if I drink from it is going to make me thirsty again. The question is you're the one who tells me you know where the other well is, why are you throwing your bucket down the same well?" Which we should say, "Good question." And repent. Now it's appropriate to be by the wrong wells at times to love people and say, "Come over here." But you don't go to those wells with your bucket hoping to find a little bit of refreshing water there. You have to be people who know where the well of life is. But it's the relationship, stupid.
Well let me just say this about relationships. Relationships are the source of our greatest joy, or the source of our greatest pain, aren't they? Let me just run you through just a very cursory set of Scriptures that talk about relationship. If your relationship… In fact, let me say this. It's the source of our greatest joy.
Third John, verse 4 says, "I have got no greater joy than this, than to see my children walking in the truth, that they love what I love, do what God says they should do and we have no bitterness or hatred or angst with one another and they're not destroying themselves by throwing their buckets down the wrong well, and there is no greater joy that I have than to be in intimate relationship with my kids."
I mean the Song of Solomon is an entire book that is written about the joy of a relationship of a man and a woman. Psalm 133 says, "How good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity." The reason we love beer ads is because they go, "Look at the great relationships! The joy! Everybody is having a ball there." Now it's the wrong bucket, all right, it's fleeing relationship, but we go, "Wow, wouldn't that be great if that's what real relationships were like?" Relationships can be the source of our greatest joy, there is no question, when they're done well. They can also be the source of our greatest pain.
I asked my wife this question this week, and I knew the answer going in, but I just said to her, "Hey, what male in the history of your life has caused you more pain than any other male?" I mean I led with my chin, and I knew the answer because I have now, for 20 years, I know I've watched the deep sorrow that I have brought my wife when I've thrown my bucket down the well of manipulation and anger and self-will. And just the dirt of life that has brought her at times underneath my leadership.
She said, "Really?" I go, "Really." She goes, "Other than you, or just anybody?" I go, "Well, you've already answered my question. You realize that." And I was also pleased when I asked her, "What male has brought you the greatest joy?" I was at the top of that list, and I would tell her the exact same thing is true about her. She has brought me more joy than any woman I have ever known. The greatest moments in my life have been with my wife, and the deepest, darkest moments of my life have been with my wife.
The difference is not the relationship; it's what we do in that relationship. There are times that I have brought darkness and pain and emptiness into that relationship and it caused me great pain because I have given my heart to her like nobody else. So this is again why God hates broken relationships. He goes, "Todd, this thing I have given you is a gift. A prudent wife is a gift from the Lord."
And what does the enemy want to do? He wants to steal, kill, and destroy. So what do you think he is going to do? He is going to try to convince you that my greatest gift for you is your greatest source of pain. That's why just note to self, okay, your mate is not your enemy. Your mate is not your enemy. Your mate is God's gift and provision for you. What the enemy is is a liar, and so what he tries to do is if he can make you think that God's greatest gift is your greatest problem, he has you whipped from the get go.
Now there are times, okay, that I sit and I go, "Well you may not be my greatest enemy, which is Satan, but you're at least his sister." Okay, I want to think that way to her. But again, that's where he has got me beat is when I label. I go, "Look, we are lovers that want oneness, but there is an enemy that is capturing our hearts and our minds, and breaking what God intended. And so let's work together to fight against a common foe instead of making each other the foe, and let's learn to love and let's go to battle together."
That's why, by the way, when you go to look at Ephesians, it's laid out beautifully. It just says, "You have to restore your relationship with God, and when your relationship with God is restored then your relationship with each other can change. This is what I intend for your relationships with each other to look like." But then it says at the very end of that in chapter 5, it says, "But be aware, you are in a battle." So it tells you how to dress yourself with a spiritual armor so that he won't defeat you who have been restored to God, which would then break your relationship with him that would then break your relationship with each other again.
I was sharing this with couples that I was doing premarital counseling with. That's why one bride-to-be said, "Well man, we shouldn't get dressed in white if that's the case, we should get dressed in camo because we're ready to go to war." I said, "That is really, frankly, a great idea. I dare you. Go for it."
But you know what? Because I want to tell you what, the enemy is trying to destroy that which God says is going to be the source of life. That's why he tries to convince you that God is your enemy, that all he wants to be is a cosmic killjoy, a ruling policeman, an overbearing landlord, a distant king, all these lies. Where do you think they come from? From an enemy who hates you and hates God.
And if he can convince you that God is your biggest problem, then he has you beat from the get go. I tell my wife, I say, "Look, I don't want, you know the last thing I want to do is hurt you. It's still on my list, okay, but it's the last thing I want to do." When I go through everything God has me do, if I abandon God, then what I try to do is hurt her and wound her. I go, "I'll teach you never to treat me like that again." What I'm trying to do is get it off my list, and lean not on my own understanding.
You see the way that I, gang, ultimately you know roll is that I am self-protective and self-loving, and I destroy relationships. But by the grace of God, he has shown me that left to myself, all I will do is bring heartache and despair, and he has restored me into relationship with him, and he has forgiven me for all the brokenness and being an active participator in the things God hates. He has taught me to love.
So I try now to increase it and go, "Okay, this is not about me," but I want to lean not on my own understanding, but in all my ways acknowledge him, and then he will make my paths straight. He will restore my relationships. He'll take ashes and make them beautiful. That's what God has been doing in my life these last years, but I have to learn to walk with him.
Relationships can be our greatest source of joy and our greatest source of pain. Amen? Absolutely. Absolutely. Relationships ultimately are what define us. Let me just say to you that I can look at the history of your relationships in life and I can tell you who you are. A better way to say it is I can tell you whose you are. Now look, you could take the word relationship out of this entire little message and plug marriage in. But it's bigger than marriage. All marriage is is the pinnacle expression of relationship. So this is especially true of everything marriage.
But I'm just going to let you in on a little secret. We have this little ministry here that a couple of years ago that I thought, I want to start this thing called ReEngage. And so we put together some material that we really think will help you. But you know what ReEngage is? It's to tell you how to have successful relationships. And the one relationship that brings us more pain than any other is the marital relationship because it's the extreme relationship. But here's the gig. I'm just going to tell you a little secret, all ReEngage is is principles from Scripture that will tell you how to have successful relationships, and especially with the one you've covenanted with to love the way Christ loves the church.
So it's a tremendous set of principles to apply across every relationship you've got, with your children, with your coworkers, with your parents, with your friends and your neighbors, the whole conflict series. I did a series called Conflict, Our Constant Opportunity. Can I tell you what that was? It was a series on relationships. The whole series is on relationships, how to have successful relationships, and what you do in life relationally defines who you are. Better said, it defines whose you are.
Are you defined by bitterness, a lack of forgiveness, isolation, divorce (both in the context of a legal agreement and in the sense that if you look back, there is not a long string of healthy relationships in your life, ex-roommates, ex-family members, ex-coworkers)? Broken. Broken. Broken. Divorce. No longer talk. No longer talk. No longer talk.
Well let me tell you whose you are if that's the case, and I just want to tell you God loves you. And he wants you to throw where you throw your bucket down, what well so that you can start to change that in your life. When you look at John, chapter 13, verses 34 and 35, it just simply says this, "A new commandment I give to you that you love one another, even as I have loved you, so you also ought to love one another." And then look at this in verse 35. He says, "By this all men will know that you are learning from me, that you are drawing wisdom from my well, if you have one another."
You want to show the world that you're my disciple? Then have relationships that work. Relationships define who you are. You can give testimony all day long about your relationship with God, but if you do not have successful relationships with people, you are kidding yourself that you have a relationship with God.
John, we read, 1 John actually, just a couple of verses in our worship time, but here is 1 John, chapter 4: 7-11. It couldn't be any more clear. It says, "Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." Now this is not a set of rules that we're called to follow. This is John writing to people who say they're in relationship with God, reminding them how they should then live.
He is pointing out to them that no matter what they do religiously, no matter what kind of service they attend or songs they sing, if the relationships don't work, that is what defines who they are. Verse 8, watch this, "The one who does not love, does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation or the satisfaction against his wrath for our sins."
Beloved, if God so loved us, we must also love one another. So what John is just saying here, very simply, is this, "I'm going to tell you who you are. How are you doing at loving one another? How are you doing relationally?" And then God defines love appropriately, not with romantic love, but with real love.
The Scripture says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, "I don't care really who you are. I don't care how eloquently you can speak. I don't care how gifted you are musically. I don't care how professionally competent you are, if you are all those things and you have not love, you are nothing. I define you as nothing."
Then God, just so you wouldn't be confused as to what really love is, he goes through this and starts in verse 4. And he says, "Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous and does not boast." And then it goes through this little impressive list, "Love does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices always in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." Then verse 8 at the beginning says, "Love never fails."
Now just again, even as we read Proverbs, chapter 6, verses 16-19, if you read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, you would just find at a very cursory level, one specific fact and that is that nothing that the Bible uses to describe love has anything to do with how you feel. It is not an adjective, which describes how you make me feel, it is a commitment of the will to say, "This is how I will behave towards you." In other words, when you provoke me, I love you. I'm not going to be provoked. I'm not going to use that as an excuse to validate my now breaking relationship with you. I'm not going to seek my own. I'm not going to take into account a wrong suffered.
When I see you doing things that give me the right to call out failure in your life to other people, I won't do it because I won't rejoice in unrighteousness. It doesn't mean I won't confront it in your life, it just means I'm not going to celebrate problems in your life to justify how much better I am. I'm going to bear all things. I'm going to come alongside of you and do what I can to encourage you and admonish you and help you. I'm going to believe all things, which means I'm always going to believe that you are not my problem, that you are God's provision for me, and that I'm going to do everything that I can to help you be everything that God wants you to be because I believe in you.
And one of the greatest gifts that my wife…and I've told her, "Sweetie, whatever goes on in my life, when you see me acting inconsistent with God, know that is the enemy at work in my life and me giving myself over to a lie. Remind yourself of who I am. Listen to my testimony. I am a lover of God. And when you see me acting inconsistently with that, believe in me. Remind me of who I am. Remind me of the goodness of my Father, and if you must, bring others around me that will spur me on to love and good deeds, but don't you ever stop believing in me."
See love believes that in the midst of my giving myself away to lies and self and death, that there is, in me, God at work. Okay, and I'm going to say this again, I am not good because in my deepest nature, I am good, I am good because of the grace of God, he has remade my broken nature. Because I have come aware of the fact that I am all the things God hates, and I've asked him to forgive me, and I've seen what love is. Not that we love God, but that God love us and sent his son to be a propitiation for my sins.
I'm trying to respond to that fully. I don't do anything to make God love me. The Scripture says God demonstrates love for us in that while Todd was still a self-willed imp, he sent his son to die for him. When I understood the truth of that, that it wasn't about my lack of following rules and regulations, but it was about the relationship, stupid, I couldn't believe it. It was too wonderful to be true. But then as I looked, I saw it was true, that God in his kindness made all of history pivot on that one thing that he said, "It's about this. It's about me dying for you, paying a debt for you sin that you might be restored into relationship with me."
And I've been trying to get over it the rest of my life, and my wife believes in me and she keeps spurring me on and pushing me back in that direction. That is what defines us, relationships and how we do with them.
There is great stuff that I've shared here before about how in the second century there was a man who wrote an apology or a defense of Christianity. It was Aristides, and he was writing it to Hadrian who was basically the Caesar at the time. It goes through a long list of the way that Christians love one another. He was giving a defense that these are people who aren't just following some new system and philosophy. They're living completely different. His entire defense of the faith was, "Look at how they love one another," as if John, chapter 13:35 was true.
I got an email this week from a sweet, young gal here who has just lost her mom, and it was the last living member of her family. But because she has been committed here, and she has connected here, and she has thrown in to follow Christ here with other people, she wrote me this email about how overwhelmed she was by the way she was loved, the way people were leaving Dallas to go sit with her until 4:00 in the morning in groups of three and four and some that had rested would drive back so that they could be here at work consistently as her mom spent her last days in Oklahoma, and how when things caved all around, there wasn't really anybody there to share in the mourning of that with her, how the friends showed up to be pallbearers when distant cousins and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles, for whatever reason, didn't want to make the trip.
She said, "My friends who didn't really know my mom showed up to be pallbearers. And all my friends who were Buddhist and atheists, who were skeptics kept saying to me, 'Who are these people who love you this way?'" And she had to say, "It's what defines us. And what you're seeing is a shadowy expression of God's great love for us. It's what defines the way we are, the way we love one another."
It's what defined us in the second century. It's what defined us at the time of Christ, and it's what defines us now. Relationships defined us, but specifically, our love for one another. Relationships are God's tool, folks, to grow and sharpen us. Now I need to let you know something, if you're in a relationship with another human, you are in a relationship with a notoriously broken person.
I'm just going to, very quickly, but just suffice it to say that if all you do is go, "I'm leaving this broken person because there has to be somebody else better for me," all you're going to run into is another broken person. You are marrying, when you marry, I tell folks all the time, a notoriously broken person, unpredictable, unreliable person. They're called humans.
I have this deal that I've kept forever in my, you know, little inbox or I guess really just in my hard drive in my storage, and every now…I go back and read it and it's just a very simple, little funny thing, and it's just called Recall. It says, "Important recall, the maker of all human beings is recalling all units manufactured regardless of make or year due to a serious defect discovered to primary and central component, better known as the heart. The defect is due to a malfunction in the original prototype unit resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units. The defect has been technically termed Subsequential Internal Non-Compliance, or more commonly known as S-I-N, as it is primarily symptomized by loss of regard for manufacture's wishes."
Then it says, "Some of the visible symptoms are…" And it listed these out for you:
A. Loss of direction or frequent confusion. You know anybody like that?
B. Foul vocal emissions.
C. Amnesia of origin and heritage.
D. Lack of peace and joy.
E. Selfish, violent, or a different behavior.
F. Depression or confusion in the mental component.
Wow! See that's who you're in relationship with. People that that is their nature. So why are we surprised sometimes when we leave our restored state? We drift back to these things. Whenever we operate in and of our own understanding, we break relationship. But the reason we were broken is because an enemy has convinced us that our original manufacturer did not have our best interest in mind when he made us, and he told us to break free and to operate on our own. He has corrupted. There is a virus in the unit.
But God, in his kindness and grace, has wooed us back. But you need to know that part of the way that God grows us by staying in relationship with one another. I will tell you the people at Watermark, the people that I know whose lives have been the most significantly changed, they're people who stay in relationships that are difficult, specifically, they stay around here when we hurt and wound and disappoint one another. They don't let guilt and shame drive them away, and they don't let somebody else's foolishness write them off. No, they keep bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things.
And they say, "I'm not going anywhere, man. It might change the way we experience life today, but I'm not going anywhere. And when you run away from me, I will have my tiptoes on the edge of the ranch looking for you to turn, and I will run to you." This is a grace-filled community. We don't ever celebrate unrighteousness. We're going to call it what it is. We won't laugh at you. We won't mock you in your sin. We'll let you know that isn't right. But we're not done with you.
You know I just scribbled this down. If you constantly run from God's sharpening tool, which is other people, other broken, Christ followers, you will be a useless person, always taking, consuming, destroying. You will be sucking resources and life from others. You will be living in despair, darkness, hate, and bitterness. You will live in constant brokenness if all you do is say, "I'm out of this relationship. I'm out of this relationship. I'm out of this relationship." You will have five churches, and the one that you're in right now you won't be a member of. And you will never grow.
Do you want to know why we push community so much here? Because it's God's sharpening tool for you. And when you get around other broken people, you're going to see how much you need grace, how much you need to learn how to love because you don't know how to love, how much you need to learn how to forgive, because you don't know how to forgive, and we'll constantly remind you how much you have been forgiven much so that you can forgive. You have been loved much so that you can love, and you're going to go, "This is not in me to do." And I'm going to say, "That's right. That's why you need Christ in you. He is the hope of glory."
This is just a fact about relationships, and I just want to tell it to you straight up as I can. This is why the world sometimes mocks at us because we're throwing our bucket down the exact same well of you're not romancing me enough anymore. You're not erotically pleasing to me enough anymore. You're not giving me enough of what I want anymore. So we go right down the road of breaking off our commitments to one another the same way others do. But it's a fact that relationship problems are spiritual problems.
You don't ever have a marital problem. You need to know that. You have a spiritual problem every single time. I've had trouble in my marriage, and it has universally been directly related to my lack of yielding to Christ. And you know I had a guy tell me, he said, "Todd, from this moment on…" When I was getting married he said, "From this moment on, I will never have to wonder about your spiritual condition any more. I will just look in the eyes of your wife and I will know how you are doing in your walk with the Lord." He has been right 100 percent of the time.
I have never had a marital problem for the last 20 years in my marriage to my wife. I've had tons of spiritual problems that have led to relational issues, and I want to let you know straight up, if you've got marital problems, it is directly tied to spiritual conditions. Every relational problem is a spiritual problem. Look at James, chapter 4, I mean there are so many places I could go, but I just want to throw this out. James, chapter 4, verses 1 down until I stop reading. "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?" In other words, aren't you about your own selfish desires and lusts and wants?
"You lust and do not have; so you commit murder." In other words, your strategy is when you can't get what you want is, "I will wound you. I'll kill you if I've got to. I will own you. I will employ these techniques to manipulate you to get you to live the way that I want you to live so I can have from you what I want to have from you. And if I don't get enough from what I'm doing to get it, I'll eventually just walk away from you and go try and manipulate and murder someone else."
Do you want to know why you have relational problems? Because your strategies are wrong. You're envious, verse 2 says. You cannot obtain, so you fight it and quarrel. "You don't have," God says, "because you ask." The idea here is you don't have the relationships and the things that you want because you still think you know what well to throw your bucket down. You got the wrong bucket list. There should be one bucket list. Know God. Know that he is good. Enjoy him forever.
See I got to tell you guys, do you believe with me that the Lord God is the sun and shield, that he gives grace and glory? No good thing does he withhold from those who love him. If that's the truth, you don't have a bucket list. You've got one well. Now is there anything wrong with wanting to have different adventures and do different things? Of course not, as long as they are not that which ultimately you live for.
That's why it says, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all to the glory of God, whether you eat or drink, do it to the glory of God." So should you eat? I love food. Should you love adventure and competition? I love adventure and competition, but what he is saying is don't go after those things like they're life to you. Enjoy them for what they are, the gift of a loving God who loves you to experience these things on earth, but don't make them your god. That's the idea there.
James goes on to say, "You ask and you do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives so that you may spend on your own pleasures." In other words, what we're asking for is not for counsel and not instruction, and not leadership, but, "Lord, change them. Make my wife do this so that I can be happy." And God says, "No, no, no, you're getting it all wrong." What you should ask for is, "Lord, how do I make relationships work?" Don't try and change the world around you, try and change who you are in this world.
That whole thing goes down, talks about why God is zealous for his Spirit to live in you. Guess why God is zealous for his Spirit to live in you? Because he wants you to experience life, relationships that work. He says, "Look, he is opposed to the proud who think they know how to make life and relationships work, but he gives grace to the humble."
When you come to ReEngage, guess what the very first principle is that we're going to teach you? You want to know how to make every relationship work? The very first principle at ReEngage is this…recognize I need God's help. In other words, I don't know how to love. I swore to a woman I'd be able to love her. I don't know how to love. Then you expect nothing in return. Then you learn how to extend and seek forgiveness as you yourself have been extended and received forgiveness. Then you nurture and defend the relationship at all times. You give up yourself for the benefit of your spouse. You advocate for their life and their purpose. You grow in the adventure of knowing and being known, and you endlessly excel at pursuing oneness and unity with others.
It's a constant battle, but the very first thing, look at that, is you recognize I don't know how to love, and so you have relationships that aren't working? Here's the first thing you should do. "God, would you teach me how to love a woman? I don't know how to love a woman. Would you teach me how to love a neighbor? I don't know how to love a neighbor. I know how to love me. I am a broken human. There is a defect in me, and can you come in and heal what I have lost?" And he's like, "Yes. Yes, I can."
I love what, you know, Martin Luther's the guy that just said it again and again. He said that you know the state of marriage, or he said, "I learned more about my spiritual condition in marriage than I ever did in the monastery." So that's why you don't run away from relationships because you're running away from the finest school that God has given you to grow.
One guy said, "The state of intimate relationships, or marriage, is one that requires more virtue and more consistency than any other. It is a perpetual exercise of mortification, which is a glorious word for death to self." So you want to know how you can experience more life? It's John, chapter 3, verse 30, "He must increase (God). I must decrease." The more than I die in my relationship with my wife, the more that my life prospers with her. It's beautiful, but it's not what the world is selling. The world is selling ecstatic, fleeting moments of experience.
I think it's only fair to say this, you need to know this about relationships and God wants you to focus on this, the only relationship, the only person in a relationship that you can control is yourself. It's why the Scriptures tell us, instead of looking at the problems in other humans, focus on the problem that's in yourself. That's why Matthew, chapter 7, verses 3-5 is so central to any relationship really working. Get the log out of your own eye. Don't focus on the spec that's in their eye, get the log out of your own eye.
It says, "Look, as much as possible, as much as depends on you, you be at peace with all men. Don't take your own revenge. You just control yourself. God will take care of them. The only person you can control in any relationship is yourself." That's why God says, "You treat others the way you want them to treat you." It doesn't say what Confucius said years ago, which is, "Don't treat other people the way you don't want to be treated." God makes it proactive, and he says, "You do treat others the way you want to be treated."
Do you want grace? Be a grace giver. Do you want forgiveness? Forgive. Do you want somebody to believe in you? Believe in others. Love that way. Live that way. That is a full-time job for me to not worry about the insufficiencies of all that are around me, but to let God change the insufficiencies that are in my heart.
I think it's just such a lie and so easy to focus on other people's issues. And want I want to do is just share with you a little story about one couple here at Watermark that has been married three times, and the third time they finally got a marriage that works. So the first marriage failed. The second marriage failed. Now they found each other, and I wanted to let you hear their story. Check this out.
[Video]
David: Hey, we're David and Denise Renken.
Denise: David and I have both been married three times. For me, I fanaticized that if I cooked, if I cleaned, if I kept myself attractive, if I did all the things that I thought a wife was supposed to be and do, that I would have a happy marriage.
David: I'd actually modeled most of my expectations of marriage on the sitcoms because I was raised in a pretty rough home. So in order to see what a marriage looked like, I looked at television. So whatever they were projecting on Leave it to Beaver, or Father Knows Best, that's kind of what I thought it would be.
Denise: My first marriage ended very tragically. The first year we were so focused on working, or trying to go back to school, and having a baby. And then he was born, and that was our whole world. Then the second year, I discovered he was having an affair. He left, went with her, and the marriage ended. And the devastation of that, of that trust being broken, it just ripped me apart in a way that I didn't know was possible, and that was tough.
David: Yeah, the first marriage, we had gotten married very quickly. It was maybe, we had know each other 10 weeks. I was working hard, and wasn't a very happy person, basically. My wife, the one that was so attractive, whenever I started coming home was dressed in sweats every day, or something else, and my idyllic world really wasn't there, I mean this dream I had. And we ended up divorcing.
Denise: So my first marriage is over, and I am being pursued by husband number two, and I was hearing something different from this man. I was hearing that he understood the trauma I had been through, that he would never do something like that to me, and so we ended up marrying, but what I learned after a few years into the marriage was that he was having an affair.
David: The second marriage lasted for a lot longer, but I had multiple affairs during that relationship, and that was the end of that marriage.
Denise: So the marriage has ended, and I'm yet pursued again, and marry again. And this man is…he comes into the marriage and just telling me, "I know what you've been through, and I'm willing to give you whatever time you need to heal." For the first time, I was married to a man who was willing to shoulder family responsibilities.
David: After the second divorce, I called a few friends looking for advice because I was still pretty miserable. And I got the best advice I had, and that was that what I needed to do with my life was be the best godly single man I could be, that instead of looking for what I wanted in relationships, I really needed to look to God who is the relationship I had walked away from. That night after that confrontation, I felt like my world was over, and basically cried out to God, and I said, "Take my life."
I asked him at that time to… I surrendered control. It was the first time where I really surrendered control to God. I was going to church for maybe three or four months, and I began to date, and pretty soon we ended up getting married. But this time, that marriage wasn't based on what she could do for me, or what I could do for her, and I wanted to make God the centerpiece of our marriage. All three times I was married to the same person.
Denise: That's right. We've been married three times to each other. Wow. David and I went through ReEngage as a couple.
David: And the ReEngage program took God's Word, took his plan for our marriage and made it simple so that we could understand.
Denise: And then we are now in the process of facilitating our third couple. Every time we go through that, it takes us another step forward.
David: I tell you, the joy that I've had, I wouldn't trade it for the world. There is nothing too big that God can't handle.
[End of Video]
Todd Wagner: Well, when we shot that thing, what I wanted to share with you is see some of us think the problem in their marriage is they haven't found their soul mate, and two times the issue was not that they weren't with their soul mate. The issue was that their soul wasn't right, and they couldn't mate until they realized they didn't know how to love, and now they're together in the same relationship with the same person that is completely different because they know now how to love because they have been loved and received grace.
You see the problem is not with your spouse. It's not with your neighbor. It's not with your employer. The problem is with your heart, and learning how to love. As much as you're able, be at peace with all men. There are some people you can't be at peace with, but that doesn't mean there aren't individuals you can't love when they don't want to be at peace with you. That's where you need the body of Christ to remind you and encourage you how to walk and navigate through those very difficult waters.
But know this, there is no relationship that is so far gone that God can't restore it. It's what he wants to do. So I don't know where you are this Valentine's Day, but God wants to restore your relationship with him so that he can give you the means through which you can restore your relationships with one another. The marriage that you're currently in is the marriage that can be the marriage you've always dreamed of, but you have to be the man or the woman that God calls you to be that will make it work.
The greatest example of relationship and how to make it successful is God's love for us through Jesus Christ. Simple as this, God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. For God so loved the world in its broken, rebellious, sinful state that he sent his own son, initiating with us love and grace and mercy and forgiveness, that whoever receives that love, grace, and mercy, and forgiveness should not continue to live in a constant state of broken relationship and despair, but start to have life again because you're connected again to the author and giver of life.
If you're here this morning and your life is a string of broken relationships, you need to know something, God is not angry at you. He just wants you to take your bucket and throw it down the right well. It's the well of Christ and his provision for you. It's the community of saints who can remind you where to keep being refreshed continually as you learn to exhibit and experience grace with one another.
We'd love to help you ReEngage. You want some tips really quickly? Here's the deal. Guys, you want a great Valentine's gift? It's free. Write a little note to your wife that you want to improve your relationship with her and say, "I'm going to give you the next 15, 16, 18 Wednesdays from 6:00-8:00 where we're going to just focus on the things that God says will allow us to be the people we need to be, me to be the man I need to be, so that you can have the husband you've always dreamt of. Let me ReEngage with you this season." Jump in with us and hundreds of other couples on Wednesday nights, and come ReEngage.
I'll give you one last little tip and place to go as we just celebrate and close. We recently just shared a story there at ReEngage by Tim and Emily Loerke, and Tim and Emily…Emily is on our staff, and last year, 2010, Emily just started writing down their story in a little blog called Today's Letters. You want to bless yourself, in fact, do you want to vomit at a loving relationship that is so over the top, great, that you just can't believe it? Go to www.todaysletters.com.
Now here's why I'm going to send you there because the first place I want you to go is to their talk where they shared about their story. And the first several years of their marriage almost ended in absolute disaster. And then they started to execute on God's program for restoring relationships, and it has so completely restored what is there that you look at and go, "That can't be possible." But instead of breaking their relationship and moving on, they restored their relationship with Christ and restored their relationship with each other.
You want to be blessed? Go to www.todaysletters.com with your wife for Valentine's Day. Start asking the same four questions they ask each other every Tuesday. Start implementing the biblical principles that they implement in their marriage, reengage, reconnect, resurrect, have life.
Father, I thank you for great examples of people that have walked with you and have restored what has been lost. We thank you that in everything you are our great example and that we can be reconnected, that we can be reengaged with you because you have met the need for our sin to be satisfied in your son, Christ, and he has been resurrected to life where he now offers that opportunity to live to us.
So I pray this morning that we would be individuals that would heed your instruction, that you would say to us, "Hey look, I'm not angry at you. You just keep throwing your buckets down the wrong well. I just want you to come and find where life is." That we would believe it, and receive it, and walk with you. May we dream deeply of relationship with you this week so that we can be restored in relationship with one another. For your glory and our good I pray, amen.
You guys have a great week of worship. We'll see you.eHe has
