Married, But Not Best Friends, Pt. 3
Song of Solomon 5:16
3 Key Words to unlocking the door of marital friendship:
• Companionship—time together. New info: wives—share in your husband’s work…he finds much of his identity in his job
• Conversation—talking together. Women need more of this, so men have to grow in this area.
3rd word tonite:
• Commitment—trying together. We talk much about this, and often, because it’s so important, and so lacking.
For our friendship to continue and grow, there must be a mutual respect for each other. This is true for any friendship.
I’ve done my share of marriage counseling, and often when I see troubled relationships, I see people who don’t respect each other. And just the opposite is true in strong marriages—they have a very high degree of respect for each other.
There’s things I can do to lose the respect of my wife, and there’s things I can do to gain respect…and the same is true in reverse.
There’s many symptoms of lack of respect, but a very common one is “name calling.” The names hurt, but they’re not the real problem…the real problem is the lack of respect which led to it.
Ill.—TV has us programmed to call names [Everybody Loves Raymond—“idiot”].
I worked 6 years for Steve Proctor, and made some fine mistakes during that time. He probably wanted to strangle me at times, but didn’t because I was pretty quick back then! Seriously, I could get him mad for sure, but never once did he lower himself to call me a name. Know why? Because he always maintained a basic respect for me, seeing the potential even in the midst of a problem. Working hand in hand, spending hours together all the time, I could get pretty frustrated w/ him, but I never resorted to calling him names. Know why? Yeah, I wanted to keep my job! But more so because of my respect for his position.
Your spouse should have a position of respect in your mind. They’re your only spouse…right? And no matter what happens, their position should affect our disposition.
I have never once called my wife a name…[that I didn’t come to regret it!]
6 areas of commitment that will help build mutual respect:
[All the verses we’ll look at deal w/ friendship in marriage. And true friends will have commitment to these 6 things.]
1. Commitment to sacrifice
John 15:13
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Think about this: if a true friend is known by being willing to lay down their life for someone they love, shouldn’t they be willing to sacrifice their time for them? A hobby? Compromise on a disagreement?
“When Time is no Longer”--By Jack Hyles
When I give you my time, I am giving you my life, for time is life. If one takes the life of another, actually he takes only time from him. Murder is simply taking from a person the amount of time that he would have lived anyway. So in a real sense, when I give to you my time, I am giving to you my life, for time is life.
How much more could I honor you than to give you my time? How much more could you honor me than to give me your time? My time with you is an investment. Your time with me is an investment. Let us care for each other’s investment wisely.
If I spend some time with you, I am giving you a gift that can be given only to YOU! The moment that I give to you I will never have again. Once it is given, it can never be given to another. Such a realization should cause us to appreciate moments spent as friends, for a moment given to me by a friend is not only his giving to me of his life, but also something which he can give to no other person and which can never be given again.
For you to give me a moment, or for me to give you a moment, is to exchange the only moment that we actually know we have. We are only promised the present. When we share the present with each other, we are giving to each other the only moment that we have for sure. There may never be another.
The giving of a moment to a friend is a greater gift than Heaven can give. If I spend a moment with you in Heaven, it will not be subtracted from time, for there is no time there. In Heaven I will not be giving you my life, for life is eternal there. Here is an earthly gift that I may give you that I cannot give you in Heaven, for to spend a moment there is not a sacrifice. May I then never take lightly the time you give to me, and may you never take lightly the time I give to you.
We should be willing to make sacrifices mutually for one another.
Joke—old married couple, really up in years, got out of car, he opened door for her, she took his arm, they walked slowly into McD’s, she sat, he went up to the counter, got 1 hamburger, 1 order of fries, small coke, walked over and sat down, cut burger in half, gave her half, counted out fries and gave her half, then he started eating his half as she just watched, never taking a bite of her half. A man, watching, said, ‘this is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen…can I just buy you another meal, my treat? You shouldn’t have to share.’ ‘Oh, we share everything’, they replied. He continued eating, she just sat there. Man came back and said, I’m gonna have to go soon, just wondering why you haven’t started eating ma’am. She said, ‘Don’t worry, I will, we share everything.’ Ok. 5 more minutes went by…the man nervously glanced from his watch to the lady…finally he burst out, ‘what are you waiting for?’ ‘The teeth!’
[We share everything!]
1. Commitment to sacrifice…
2. Commitment to closeness
This doesn’t happen by accident…only on purpose!
Proverbs 18:24
A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
Apart from my Savior, I have no closer friend than my spouse. But I hear wives say ‘he’s closer to his mom than to me’. [buddies / coworkers] Or,
‘she’s closer to her girlfriends than to me’. ‘She tells them things she doesn’t tell me.’ ‘She cares more about our children than she does me.’
Remember, of no other relationship does God say, ‘they two shall be one flesh.’ Children suffer when mom and dad aren’t right w/ each other. The best thing we can do for our kids is to nurture our marriages!
How close are you to your spouse? Rate it on a 1 to 10 scale. Amazing indeed is how many guys say ‘8’ and their wife says ‘2’. The only way to do it is on purpose. Left alone w/out a goal, married people drift apart.
Marriages don’t fall apart, they drift apart.
DEAR ABBY: I am a 42-year-old man with three wonderful children. They are all grown and in their 20s. (Yes, we had them young.) I have been married for 23 years and things have been good between my wife and me.
About a year ago, my wife -- who is an accountant -- decided she wanted to try real estate. She took a class, got her license, and now sells real estate part time. She’s doing so well at it that she plans on quitting her accounting job soon and concentrating on real estate full time.
My problem is I have been having empty nest syndrome, and now my wife is working every weekend. On week nights, I sit and watch TV by myself while she works away on her computer. On the weekends I try to keep busy doing jobs around the house and cleaning, but I’m bored, lonely and depressed. I have mentioned this to my wife; she says I should find a hobby.
Abby, I don’t want a hobby. I want to be with my wife. She absolutely loves her new job and talks about it constantly. I don’t want to ask her to quit her job, because she would resent me for it. (And no, I don’t want to sell real estate with her.) Any suggestions?
-- MISERABLE IN MICHIGAN
We must stay on guard not to allow this to happen to us!
1. Commitment to sacrifice…
2. Commitment to closeness…
3. Commitment to honesty
Proverbs 27:6
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
What a powerful and great verse! Some people sugar coat everything, and gloss over the truth. They say what you want to hear, not what you need to hear. A friend will tell you the truth, even when the truth hurts. Speaking it in love helps. Many pulpits are saying what people want to hear, rather than what they need to hear!
Friends are always honest, even when it may not be easy, comfortable, or pleasant. Nothing will undermine respect in a marriage like dishonesty. Openness and honesty are such important qualities in a marriage. If your spouse discovers they can’t trust you to tell the truth, they will not respect you, period. It’s so disappointing to find out someone has lied to you.
3 types of liars:
• Born liar—like Lucille Ball, habitually lying about everything—the money, the kids, dinner, new clothes…and Ricky doesn’t respect her because of it. It seems funny or cute on TV, but not in real life! A compulsive liar has formed a habit of constantly deceiving, almost a subconscious power trip of holding the truth away from others. They lie when it serves a purpose, and even when it doesn’t.
Joke—Principal tries reverse psychology on little Johnny, who claims he shot 10 twelve point bucks while hunting. Principal thinks to himself, ‘I’ll show him how dumb he looks when he lies’. He said, ‘I was walking thru the woods the other day and a little Chihuahua started following me, then a bear jumped out at me, but the dog attacked and killed it, do you believe that?!’ ‘Sure I do, he’s my dog, and that was his 3rd bear this week!’ [Now that’s a liar!]
It’s easy to spot a born liar, during the dating process. But some say, I’ll change him after we’re married. Nope! You need to drop him like a hot rock. Dishonesty will torment your marriage!
• Band-aid liar—lies to try to fix situations or get out of trouble, when the pressure is on.
Ill.—Wife calls up the stairs: ‘Honey, did you remember to set up babysitting like you said you would?’ She can’t see the look of horror on his face, and then he replies calmly, sure did! Then he thinks to himself, ‘I gotta remember to do that!’ [that was a close one!]
• Protector-liar—ie. lying about finances saying, I don’t want my spouse to have that kind of pressure. Some people can’t bear to let their spouse know the hard truth. I’ve known of spouses who don’t know there’s a problem until the police come to enforce their eviction notice! We hide behind the fact that we don’t want to hurt them, but it hurts even worse when they realize you have not been honest!
We’re getting pretty practical about commitment, and how to earn and keep respect:
1. Commitment to sacrifice…
2. Commitment to closeness…
3. Commitment to honesty…
3 more commitments next week…
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All 3 parts of this message, and some helpful PowerPoint graphics, are at:
http://gbcdecatur.org/sermons/MarriedBestFriends.html
