RUN LIKE A CHAMPION

Family Life – 2
Sammy Tippit: As we continue to talk about marriage and the family relationship… I think that for me, one of the greatest passages of Scripture on Marriage is where Paul wrote and said, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church…” Then he said, “This is a great mystery…” of how Christ’s love for the church compared to the relationship of the husband and wife.

The reason that’s so important to me is that my father died before Tex and I were married, and when he died, I didn’t know how to be a husband. I didn’t know how to be a father. I didn’t know. I remember praying one day, and the Lord just spoke to my heart. I felt so inadequate in it. He said, “Just look to me. Just look to me, and I’ll show you.” So my faith in Christ has really helped me to build how I’m to love my family.
I’ve not always been good at it, but I have a model, and that model is the way Christ loves the church. I want us to talk about that commitment of marriage, and the commitment begins with our commitment to Christ, I think. I want us to talk about that a little bit and just ask this question. Tex, I’ll just begin with you because I know you have an illustration. How has our relationship with the Lord helped us in our marriage?
Tex Tippit: I like word pictures, so I look at it like a triangle. One end at the bottom is Sammy, and the other side is Tex. At the top is Jesus. The closer we get to Jesus if our focus is on Jesus, the closer we get to each other. Sometimes we’re lopsided, though. Maybe some of us are closer or farther away, but that’s what draws us together: Jesus.
Sammy: Yeah, it definitely has been that relationship with the Lord and finding his love, his grace, his forgiveness, and all of those things. The understanding that goes along with that has helped us. What about you guys? How has your relationship with the Lord helped you in your marriage?
Dave Tippit: I think it goes back to what Kelly said in the previous session. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Philippians 2:1-11. It’s that ancient Christian hymn they used to sing, and it’s just all about the servant heart of Jesus, the humility of Jesus. Though he was God, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he took this form of a servant. He didn’t come to be served but to serve others.
He did what the lowliest task was in that society: he washed the disciples’ feet. He did what a master couldn’t require his servant to do. He showed them through that demonstration that that’s how we’re supposed to treat everyone, especially our wives and husbands. If we have that heart of humility, if we have that heart of the other, if we’re thinking of them above ourselves, emulating Christ… I think that is going to go the longest way in helping to nurture a healthy marriage.
Sammy: One of the interesting things is that when we were in our sessions where we were talking about discipleship, we came to that passage in Philippians. That was kind of like the key passage of what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus. Then when we talk about marriage and how humility and servanthood…
I mean, it’s so critical to the Christian life because it’s the essence of who Jesus is. Tell me… Let’s be honest here, guys. What is it you expect of your spouse? Tex, I’ll let you start and say what one thing you want from me if I’m to be a servant and I’m to have that… What one thing is it that you’re expecting from your spouse or that you would like to see?
Tex: I think one thing for me is communication. It’s like how God communicated to me through Jesus Christ and I responded to him. With us, I think keeping those communication lines open in the spirit of love for one another, as the Bible says… To me, that’s important. When the communication breaks down, that has a trickledown effect in every area of our lives. It’s a barrier.
Sammy: Yeah. We’re going to talk about communication a little bit later, but there are two things about communication: one is the quality of communication, and one is the quantity of communication. Both of those are really important. You just have to have time to do it, and then the quality comes in the spirit and the attitude. That’s probably the most difficult part of communication.  Tex: And I think forgiveness is important. Just as Jesus loved us in our sin when we did what he had asked us not to do, just learning to accept forgiveness and ask forgiveness of one another…
Sammy: So you mean you have to forgive me? Yeah. You’re right. That communication for you…
Tex: That breaks the communication.
Sammy: That communication is what’s important to you.
Tex: Mm-hmm.
Sammy: What about you guys? What’s the important thing you feel like you need from one another?
Kelly Tippit: Well, I think something Dave is really good at that I don’t think I knew I needed until I was married is giving encouragement. I am naturally kind of hard on myself, and I may not do things or attempt things, just because I feel like somebody else could probably do them better, and I just kind of sit back and watch other people do them.
But because he’s such an encourager and because he believes in me… That helps me to step out and become who I think God would want me to become instead of just sitting back and watching it go by. His belief and encouragement help me in that area.  Dave: I think the way God has made us up as men is to need respect…not respect in the way of feeding the ego, but just genuine respect. It has to be earned. It’s not something that can be manufactured within a person. They have to really respect who you are, your character, and how you’re helping to lead the family, so I just think that as a guy, it goes a long way in just nurturing the man God has made us to be whenever we have that respect.
Sammy: I think that for me… This is along the lines of what Tex said. It’s communication. I’m probably more…
Tex: You’re verbal.
Sammy: Yeah, I’m more verbal, and I actually think out loud. Sometimes it’s bad, but I kind of resolve things as we talk. The more I talk, the more I say, “Okay, I see. I understand.” I don’t know why. It’s just the way I’m made up. So for us to have the communication time… In fact, sometimes I’ll say, “Hey, can you put off dinner? Let’s just go somewhere, just find a place, and sit down and talk, because I need that.”
That’s one of the big needs in my life. One of the beautiful things is that God gave us each other to meet the deep needs of our hearts, the deep needs of our lives, and when the Bible talks about the mystery of Christ and the church and of the husband and the wife… You know what? Marriage really is a mystery.
Tex: It’s fun too, though.
Sammy: Yeah.
Dave: I would just say of that to just embrace the mystery and embrace the differences, the Imago Dei within each one of us. So many times, we resent the differences. There may be things we need and expect our spouses to give us, but then they may need something different.
So you have to recognize those differences, embrace them, appreciate them, and just know God is in the middle of that. Once you start to see life and people that way, it changes your perspective, and you see the fingerprints, the panorama of God’s glory, displayed through your wife, through your husband, through all of the people you meet.
Sammy: Yeah. Tex has read this book on love languages, and we all receive love and give love in different ways. We have to learn the ways other people do it, because what makes us feel loved and accepted may not necessarily be something that makes someone else feel that way. We have to learn each other, and that’s a part of the relationship, growing in Christ, and becoming what God wants us to be. I think that’s why the relationship is there.
One thing I do know is that the husband-and-wife relationship is really the foundation for the relationships of the children. I think one of the greatest needs children have (of course, Dave, you may say, “Hey, I don’t think so”) is to see how parents are relating to one another. I think that produces security or insecurity, and they learn in life by the example of the parents.  They learn how to do that. That’s a tough thing, and it’s something that has to be learned. That’s part of what it means to grow in Christ and become more Christ-like. I want to encourage every one of you to just look to the Lord, let him work in you, and ask him to give you discernment and wisdom as to how to love your spouse and how to receive that love from your spouse. God will bless you greatly.