Keeping Love Alive - Volume 3 - Challenge #2 - Temptation, Part 1

It seems like every day we hear about another relationship or marriage that if someone fell out of love lost.

So what causes so many couples to break up: and how can you make sure it doesn't happen that welcome to this edition of living only with chips or a Bible teacher.

This daily discipleship program evading Christians to live like thanks for joining us as we continue chips in series keeping the love alive in this program he unpacks the next challenge. Every marriage faces which revolves around our understanding of love will explain why it's so right and follow Hollywood's model relationships before we begin, let me encourage you to use chips message notes while you listen.

They'll help you get the most out of what you're about to hear download under the broadcast tab@livingontheedge.org Listeners Fill in well with that here strip with today's talk from Ephesians chapter 5. If you will plot your notes challenge number two all marriages have great challenges priorities and when they're out of whack. They sort of tumble other things.

The second one is the challenge of temptation and I like to ask a couple questions just to get started. So here's the first question.

What's it mean to be in love right mean is it that the whole goal of why you married personally but but to really ask and answer what does it mean to be in love and how do you know when you're in love second question that might be interesting is why is it that most relationships don't last anymore and they don't. I mean, I have all kind of research and statistics on separation and divorce. And what's happened since 1960, and all the rest. The other thing is that you do understand that the patterns of things. Kids that have been abused grow up to be apart from intervention abusers when when divorce is an option because that's what your parents did even though you don't want to see and by the way, sometimes divorce is unavoidable right does apply unmerited divorce person and she was divorce because of the breaking of a covenant and she was left so don't don't hear that there's biblical divorces, nonbiblical divorces, but it doesn't matter how it happens. I mean it is painful.

It's painful for the couple. But the longitudinal studies say 20 3040 years. I have a big thick file on the stuff and a lady who did research. To this day. Children of divorce always unconsciously have some sense of when will the other shoe might drop concerns about security deep-seated fears about abandonment because it impacts kids not this idea that it was probably better. It's amiable were still friends all all that is whitewash can people make the best of it, yes.

Can they treat each other nicely, but some of the issues that happen in the human heart.

Some of the things that get imprinted in the child. Some of the fear some of the struggle.

Some of the wounds that you think they last and they need healing.

So what I want to do is I want to give you the biggest lies that you are fed by movies by music by romance novels by social media by self-help by magazines and I want to give you Hollywood's prescription for a lasting relationship ready and by the way most of us this kisses unless you grew up as a very strong Christian all describe this you think will what other way is there to have a relationship and so there's four steps to Holly, but if you listen to music. If you would watch any movie number one is you have to find the right person. That's why there's websites and bundling again I'm not saying websites are wrong or bad, but you used to go like depending on your background. You went to a bar to find a guy or gal or maybe some of you grew up different.

You went to church or you went to school, whether it was college or whether it was military and basically if you can find the right person to things your antennas up. You're always looking man and she is super hot minute duty to honking right you know and then if you're, you realize that you're not only looking but some is looking for you so you gotta be good bait and so the way to be good bait is enough.

Your guys like depending on your error, I'd like you to get that creatine start start pump and that ironing you know and and you know Sen. by way when you walk in you always hold your stomach in you know things like that. And then there certain things.

How you dress and what looks cool.

What does it look cool in different eras and different things like that. And if you're a woman you need to be good bait. Depending on the air unit little bit low-cut here little higher up here will push up there and and.come on now. True or false right and you are looking for. You want to find the right person and so in our day of things you might need him that night or at a party or at something and in terms of the Hollywood's prescription.

This seems to be good connection you go home together to sleep together and and and you say stuff like, you know, we just hooking up, there's no relationship there's no connection and maybe that's it. And there's a string of hookups which each time you do that part of your soul gets left with another person. According to Scripture, but that's that's sort of what were taught and then if if you know like there's more to it like you know we've all been attracted to someone and maybe they're very beautiful he's very handsome and then you you sit down to talk with them and as you sit down to talk with him. You know you're looking for substance.

Now when you're looking for a real relationship and and you know you sit down with this and this very handsome good-looking well-built guy and after about 20 minutes of him telling her older couple in the football team after I did that I did this in undergrad and I mean he's just so full of himself.

You're going you know what the outside looks good but the inside you dinner just like you want to politely get away or hear this unbelievable beautiful beautiful girl and you're sitting in your trying to get you know maybe this is something here and she does this, and she does this business in Shinto is like this is mostly space between your ears and and and where she shops and what happens in all of what you knows we all hunt. We all look but then there's that person and then you fall in love and and it's hard to explain the actual words not love is called infatuation chemicals actually in your brain your endorphins fire you feel this sense of overwhelmed attraction.

It's a spark in the chemistry that you can't hardly describe are usually when this happened your IQ dropped somewhere between 30 to 40 points.

You do very stupid things that don't make sense that make absolute sense to you. I remember a play basketball in college.

We recruited a young kid that could really play 67 kid out of Ohio and they put them with me, a little bit older roommate and dinner. He was little homesick in sort of a bit of a hometown guy and then he met this girl and I mean I was too young to get ready for practice. I just feel like practicing to subdue durable scholarship. We need to get out there and get practice and you need to get up go to class and it was like this, like his brain cells. It was just not enough. It was like the first time he ever fell in love or something but I mean it was just unbelief.

He actually ended up dropping out of school to scholarship. There is a young guy when I lived in Santa Cruz California.

He was friends with them. My older boys at the time and good-looking big strong guy you know and he fell in love with her, so he thought he met her once, but I mean the chemistry was just and so he'd talk on the phone like hours and hours by we've all done at some point right now and just goes like evaporates and so that he just had this urge.

So he goes and he buys some flowers. The drive I've I've made it from Santa Cruz to Phoenix is about the 10 1/2 hours. If you only stop for gas. It's about 12 1/2 or 13 if you stop and grab a bite to eat or get out and stretcher for your car up a few times he gets in his truck drives all night knocks on her door gives her these flowers and said I was just thinking about you Mrs. two days of work ends up eyelash of losing his job. I said what were you thinking because I just had to so if you've ever watched a Hallmark movie. What I love about them as I never know what's can happen. I'm always on the edge of my seat going. You know, and they're all beautiful people that live in the suburbs in unbelievably nice houses and and then it's almost somewhere between the first 2 to 5 minutes this person. This person's and their eyes meet and then and and so here's all I want you to get you are bombarded by nearly every show a culture TV and if you listen 87% of all the songs that you hear that are ever made about what love. I can't live without you really all die if you leave me. Here's an old classic but it's it's it's one of the best lies if loving you is wrong I don't want to be thinking about that. See definition of love, high emotion sparks connectivity infatuation. If it's wrong, like I'm married and I don't want to be right because my emotions and my feelings dictate my life. So you fall in love and then the third step as you fix your hopes and dreams on this person for future fulfillment. All life is wrapped up in him or her you are shattered when the breakup happens, you lose weight you lose your appetite you can. You feel listless because this person this person is your life as some of you have been through and engagement and someone walks out close to the wedding.

It's devastating. And then Hollywood's would say if failure occurs. Repeat steps one through three, and the reason I'm sharing this with you is this. This is embedded in your psyche and and here's how here's how it works.

You have different seasons and some of them are hard and you would like your mate to meet all your needs and be loving and kind and romantic and him take out the trash and and what ever it is, and then over time because your human and your mate is human you do things that disappoint one another and you say things and moments that you wish you would have said and you damage one another, and pretty soon what happens is there's hurt and there's pain and and depending on your personality type.

Some of you I call turtles when you get hurt or show goes in and you withdraw some of us are sharks and when we get hurt. We lash out and so whether it's an and anger at explosion or withdrawal or withholding affection. We now we just don't talk. There's all kind of different ways once were wounded, and then once you're wounded, or your part for a long time then then there's this whole and in here's how it starts. I don't feel as connected to my mate.

I don't feel in love those sparks that we used to have.

I'm not feeling that anymore.

It seems like it's a grind it's a hassle were arguing about money where I can about the kids were arguing about this when you come home you not sensitive.

I had to do all this stuff. Hey, I come home and you know like I miss you all this time and unity and and you get all that kind of stuff and this starts to happen and here's then here's what you culture has told you Hollywood says what's happened is you've fallen out of love.

So we need to do all and we put euphemisms we've just drifted apart.

I'm not the same person anymore. We got married when it was the season of our life, but were now so different, so I need to find someone new.

So it goes from a 50% divorce rate to 75% divorce rate. If that doesn't work, find someone new again.

In fact, what you can do it now is doing more about getting married is just live together what we what we note that longitudinal studies arming the Scriptures clear about all this.

People who live together prior to marriage unless they come to Christ and start working on things.

10 years later, whether they eventually marry her.

Not only 1/10 will be together. And the reason people live together is not willing to make a commitment and and the reason they're not willing to make a commitment is partly because of fear and partly because they want an opt out clause and so we've now created a world where we have serial monogamous relationships, but pretty soon just begin to destroy the connection and the commitment of what love really is and by like God understands how prewired we have emotional connection needs. We have physical sexual connection needs. We have spiritual connection needs and you all live in a world where it's more challenging at times impossible to fulfill those needs with your mate and God would say my grace will be sufficient for you, and do it my way back. That's the whole point of wisdom and so you live in a world where when it gets hard. This one thing good about getting older I'm not ready to say I'm old you could say that, but I'm not going to say that, but as you get older white you get to see things from a little bit different perspective and I watched I watch almost 4 decades of people fall in and out of love and tell me the same stories with the same excuses and by this lie that it's about finding the right person falling in love and I would just this is just an aside, and and you need to hear this is not a criticism at all, but have often wondered, it seems that the finding the right person.

Like if you were super beautiful and super wealthy or super handsome and super wealthy and super popular when it seemed like then it would be really easy to have a relationship like mom and you've got it. I do great research. You know when you're checking out at the grocery store, there's the unit. The research magazines.

You know us in any other something like while these are the most beautiful people in the world who have almost unlimited financial resources can do anything, go anywhere in the change partners like we change underwear infatuation a by large can last anywhere from six months to about 18 years max. So the feeling of being in love, the excitement, the energy then what you learn is you still have those feelings but what you have to do to get the date your mate, you have to cultivate romance yet to keep doing the things that you will that so I still date my wife. We still go for romantic weekends away. I still I get up and I make coffee for her took me 20 years to figure that out. That meant I love you to her. So I get up. First, I make coffee night and I either bring it to her. What I've learned is there certain things that she if she feels loved and cherished and cared for. She wants to make me feel loved and cherished and cared for and she has different love languages than me hers are about service like when I learned to vacuum and take out the garbage without being asking and doing all these menial things filling her car up with gas and I'm like, what's this got to do with love. That's her love language unthinking forget all that junk just wanted to take darling darling darling. I was waiting for you to get home. LF love baby get up and then we can sit and have a good talk. Because our book. Both our second love language is deep communication Wyoming first five years we were like this all the time because he doesn't love me when I don't love you, my cars, empty gas. God help me did I do all the laundry and I care about you and because here's what we do we give the kind of love that makes sense to us, but it's so different, so very very different. But if you believe the lie. Once those wounds start I'm falling out of love, you unconsciously start looking for, you know where and how. But, by the way, we've never been more sex saturated in our culture and never have. We had less real intimacy to see the whole the whole deal behind pornography. Those are not real people.

Those are people that have been injected and they turn on fans and it's all hypothetical. It is not an experience that is real and it does create chemistry in the brain.

The addiction to pornography is is is is as strong as crack cocaine, left unchecked, and and so it creates. That's why it is always higher levels in a higher need of it. But the Bible, more perversion and and so, but what it isn't it so it's a longing for intimacy, but real intimacy means there's got to be risk real intimacy is I have to open my soul and open my spirit and open my fears because this is what happens due to it doesn't say R1 to become one and when you're getting closer and closer to another person, that's real intimacy.

Sparks fly to have to learn how to resolve conflict. You know implanted in your mate is pictures of what real love. A real man, a real woman looks like, and when you don't fulfill those pictures and you have this What I would say to you is that no one falls out of love its incremental drift and we stop doing the things that created this and by the way, there is no relationship that's here it's either this direction or distraction of the success rate of the above is abysmal and the pain on the fallout and the damage despite all the talk for children one third of all women to go through divorce, live below the poverty level. It is devastating. What happens when relationships break up, and for many of you that I don't have to tell you that. So let's look at God's prescription, you find it in Ephesians chapter 5 verses one and to let me make a couple observations and with your pen.

You might jot a line or two in your notes as we walk through this passage and will give you the context as well. This is therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God. A fragrant aroma. There are two commands in the passage.

One is to be an imitator of God, our English word is mimic mimic God. How will says therefore be a mimic of God, therefore, is there for a reason. So therefore if you move back to verses 29 to 32 we get a description about how were supposed to treat one another says do not let any wholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only such is good for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with, by whom you were sealed for the day of her death.

Adaption get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice I could describe each one of those words but it's it's internal it's I want to pay you back. It's I'm holding a grudge. I've got resentment it's exploding in anger of one of them is holding things and it's a slow burn different word for anger there. We just hold it and hold it in. And there's resentment and then verse 32 but be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you, so when he says therefore be imitators of God, he saying in in our relationship. Be kind to your mate, be tenderhearted, the only cause for divorce. According to Jesus is the hardness of heart see when we get wounded when your needs are met. When they do something when they say something when you feel rejected is a little thin layer heart starts to get a little hard that it happens and then it happens and that it happens it doesn't have to be some really big thing but but a lot if you are like Patrice and myself. We didn't know how to resolve conflict and we didn't know how to share that I'm hurt or I'm angry without attacking the other person so we just didn't say anything and so she would withdraw and I would feel hurt and and because we were committed to the Lord.

I would focus more and more of my energy into work because that was a safe place and I got a lot of pats on the back and felt valued and she put more and more of her life and her energy into the kids as this was happening and I mean it was a me know. Sparks weren't there. I stayed married because I made about before God.

I think you keep your word and then it got to be where if there's no way out and by the way, that's what's so important to keep about because if I had made a vow and have made before God and I didn't keep my word. I just would, I would've followed Hollywood's formula listening to Mark Jim's message challenge number two temptation will be right back with his application for the stitching from a series keeping love alive.

Volume 3. If you were able to press pause on life.

Take a step back and really evaluate your marriage. How does it look is it just a little out of sync, or there are a few areas that need some work or is your relationship on the verge of completely falling apart through his newest volume of keeping love alive ship reveals a humbling truth. Every marriage has its challenges, even the ones that look perfect.

So how can you get your relationship where it needs to be will join Chip as he shares profound biblical truths that will help you in your mate tackle these worlds together and build a stronger, Christ centered marriage. For more information about keeping love alive. Volume 3, or are series resources go to LivingontheEdge.org or call AAA 333-6003 that's AAA 333-6003, or LivingontheEdge.org Apple stores Special offers. Chip, you said before that communication is the highway upon which love travels a what you mean by that. What I mean by that is, you can love your mate with all your heart and with the very best of intentions and do what you really think is communicating love and let me just tell you from personal experience, you can absolutely miss it for years and years. I mean I was trying so hard in my marriage and I was kind of speaking Italian info and and she only spoke French yet what I mean by that is that there is a language that communicates to your mate but you may not use the same language. So for me verbal affirmation physical touch those things communicate. Wow, I really feel love will to my wife.

It was it was acts of service I mean it was like vacuuming the floor taking out the garbage and then meaningful time together were hers and so I was doing one thing and she was like hey here's a great dinner.

Look how clean the house, it's I'm going to okay thank you very much and so we had to learn the other person's love language and then for us having the tools that when there is conflict.

How do you resolve it without attacking the person, and so out of that, let us do marriage counseling and out of that led us to a number of tools that really helped us learn how to speak the others language and how to resolve conflict and how to really communicate and that developed into a small group series called experiencing God's dream for your marriage. Let me encourage you watch it by yourself. If you have to, but better yet to retreat couples and I will guarantee one thing you get deeper, richer and better. They want to tell them how to get thanks Chip will whether you're a newlywed or been married for years.

This resource will make a significant difference in your relationship to be blown away by how much you learn about your spouse just by investing some time in the study.

So let me encourage you order the small group guide or the DVD and get ready to enjoy your relationship the way God intended for complete details on experiencing God's dream for your marriage go to LivingontheEdge.org or call AAA 333-6003 that's AAA 333-6003 or visit LivingontheEdge.org Apple listeners type special offers chip you spent a lot of time in this message talking about the failure of the Hollywood approach to love and relationships. If you would share some specific ways couples can begin to follow God's model. I'd be glad to Dave. I think the first thing is recognizing how bombarded we are and being aware that it's Hollywood's model recognizing that, like, 80, 85, 90% of all the romance or anyone at that's pictured having it deep or even sexual relationship in movies or television. There was someone who's not there mate and so where were really living in a world where while you fall out of love. It's normal. You gotta find the right person. Step number one is just recognizing wow that is a lie that is not God's plan and therefore it doesn't work I think.

Secondly, is to be intentional in our own marriage to talk much more about how this plays out in our next broadcast but I mean knowing your mate's love language dating your husband or wife regularly putting into practice this crazy idea of putting the needs and the desires of your mate ahead of your own.

What I want to say is this starts with little things and guys I have to tell you I'm not pat myself on the back. I did not catch on to this in the early years of my marriage and learning her love language in choosing.

I mean just choosing to put her needs ahead of my own and I watched her do that with me and and so let me just encourage you to take some baby steps and stop asking what is it that my mates not giving me so I don't feel as loved and fulfilled as I want to be. And just today one or two actions in a phone call and note a word of affirmation to your husband something that says in a language that would make sense to them. I love you. I value you and as you begin to do that you can see some really exciting things just before we close.

I would think each abuse, making this program possible through your generous giving 100% of your gifts are going directly to the ministry to help Christians really live like Christians a few friendships teaching helpful, but you're not yet on the team.

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