James 4:1 so famously writes, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?”
It’s not surprising that marriage is a hotbed for conflict. When you live so closely with someone else, it’s easy to see their flaws, shortcomings, and mistakes in high definition.
So what can you do to stop constantly fighting?
In this special session from Reclaim 2024, Brad Rhoads shared what helped cut fighting and elevate fun in his marriage.
Prefer to listen? Listen to the full episode here.
Juli (00:01.23)
Hey friend, welcome to Java with Juli hosted by me, Juli Slattery. This podcast, as always, is listener supported and it’s an outreach of Authentic Intimacy, which is a ministry dedicated to helping you make sense of God and sexuality. Well, if you’re married, then you understand that it’s really normal to disagree with your spouse and even get annoyed by things they do or maybe don’t do. I mean, after all, your spouse is a person that is very close to you and so you’re going to notice everything.
The challenge of marriage is knowing how to see all those things and still walk in love towards your spouse. You know, there are daily opportunities for us to either fight with our spouse or to extend grace. Now, someone who has spent a lot of time talking and thinking about grace is my guest today, Brad Rhodes. Brad is the founder of Grace Marriage, and what you’ll hear I’m sure today is actually a recording from our Reclaim Conference where we talked about the need to surrender ourselves, our relationships, and our sexuality to God. And Brad did a great talk on how this plays out in the intimacy of the marriage relationship. So grab your Java and get ready for Brad to share about how when he surrendered himself to God, he really saw God rescue his marriage.
Brad
Good afternoon. What we talked about earlier about grace and the power of God’s grace, I’m gonna kind of share with you today, like how that’s applied to marriage and how grace can really set a marriage free from frustration and can really, me just give you a foundation to thrive. So I’ll start by kind of give you a little bit of our story.
Brad (01:51.522)
So I was a practicing lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee. working at big firm downtown. I was about 27 years old at the time, not dating anybody. I’d just made a pledge. I wasn’t gonna date anybody for an entire year. Because when I’d been dating, it’d go bad for me and worse for them. So I figured if everybody’s losing, it’s probably something I to quit doing. So then I met Marilyn, my wife, and she’s in that picture with my other wonderful kids.
I met her and eight months later, I was walking down the aisle getting married. I mean, literally, from our first date to marriage, eight months. I couldn’t believe Marilyn existed, much less was interested in me. I mean, she was drop dead gorgeous, she loved Jesus, she had never strayed, she is from Kentucky, she was willing to move to Kentucky, she was tall, and she’s like everything I’d ever hoped in a woman, Marilyn was more.
Brad
And so we started dating and had a great dating experience. I mean, it was like so much fun. I mean, we went on date at one point 25 nights in a row. Eight dinner, like it was very expensive. But I didn’t care. mean, it’s funny when you’re dating and you’re kind of into somebody, nothing matters anymore. Like when I bought her engagement ring, all I did was called the bank, see how much money I had and that’s how much I spent on the ring. I mean, I didn’t have a dime in an emergency fund. I didn’t even care and I spent every dollar
And Marilyn said she felt like the bait and switch. She’s like, “The day you got married, you became budget man”. It’s like poured it out on me and then you just like. So we went to a premarital conference and we were so into each other. Went to a premarital conference, paid like 300 bucks, it was a whole weekend. We went to 30 minutes, looked at each other, laughed and said, “Isn’t it great they have this for people? You know, other folks, you know, they don’t have this special thing that we’ve got.”
Brad (03:46.616)
Then we got married and our first fight was at our wedding at the reception. And it was weird, so I could get irritable. And she didn’t know it because she didn’t live with me, so she didn’t know I could get irritable. But by the end of the reception, I was starting to feel irritable. And the photographer kept saying, “Stop. Take pictures”. So I got frustrated, and I looked at the photographer and said, “Why don’t you just take one more picture?” And Marilyn looked at me like, my goodness, I married a jerk.
And he was a friend of our family, which even made it worse. So we got married and I wasn’t proactive or intentional in marriage. And I just, I don’t know why that we just think everything else in the world takes intentionality and work for any fruit, but marriage somehow just supposed to work. So, you we just thought we’ve got something special. We love each other. We’re married. It’s going to be so cool. And within nine months, I was her least favorite human being in the world.
She loved how laid back I was in dating. She did not like how laid back I was in marriage. I remember one time, because I’m still pretty messy, but I was a lot worse then, I remember her saying, “Brad, it’s one thing to leave the soap in the tub”. She goes, “But the wrapper?”
Brad (05:11.758)
It was rough and I don’t know why we think Maryland should just work on autopilot. We have these strong emotions when we get married and we wonder why over time it becomes a stale coexistence that’s not gospel attraction. It’s because we just don’t pour into it. I didn’t pour into it. I didn’t know I was supposed to. Nobody taught me how to do that. I didn’t necessarily witness that. So I got married, didn’t know what I’m doing. I mean, she would get upset and then I would say, “Just, chill”. That was one of her favorites.
She wasn’t allowed to do domestic violence, but she would have liked to. So she couldn’t believe how disappointing marriage was. She had this vision that we would get married, we’d get up in the morning, we’d eat breakfast, and then Brad would come home from work, and we’d go for a walk, he’d give me a tennis lesson, and it’s gonna, and I didn’t really have any vision for marriage. And it wasn’t working at all. Marilyn told me, “You were great at dating, horrible at being married”. And at the very, kind of at the end of our row, Marilyn just cried out to God, “Lord, am I sentenced to a life of this?” We’d be in the car and she’d just start crying. And I remember saying, “Why are you crying? I did not do anything”. And the Lord showed me later, “Exactly. You didn’t do anything. And love is doing something, neglect is doing nothing”. So guys, I challenge you, date your wives. Spend time with your wives, pursue your wives. Don’t be like me that just goes through life and lets your wife just kind of be lonely and isolated. And just because you’re okay with it doesn’t mean it’s okay. I wasn’t sad. I was fine.
Brad (07:11.712)
I thought my problem was a hypersensitive wife that needed to chill out and settle in and realize things aren’t as bad as you think they are. And people that do that end up divorced. So I told her, “Marilyn, everybody else likes me. My staff likes me, my clients like me, my law practice is going, I won volunteer of the year in our community. What’s your problem?” I love what a businessman said. He said, “If the person that knows you the best likes you the least, it means you are the problem”. And I was the problem. I’d taken the most beautiful, godly Christian woman ever and made her miserable for an entire year. Then, Marilyn came to me one day.
And I’ll never forget it. She came and said, “We need to talk”. Which if you’re a guy, you never like that. It’s not like we need to talk. I’ve just been thinking how amazing you are. We need to talk means you’ve done something. But Marilyn came to me and she looked at me and she said, “Brad, I don’t need you”. And I paused like, where’s this going? Then she said, “I want to ask for your forgiveness”. I’m still confused. She said, “I have been asking from you what only Jesus Christ can give me.”
She goes, “My beauty, my security, my joy, my everything comes from Jesus, not you. Jesus Christ is sufficient, you’re obviously not”. She said, “I will be your wife and I will love you. And I’m not going anywhere, but I am off your roller coaster”.
And folks, Jesus is the only source of satisfaction. And the reason marriage struggles so much in Christian society is because we ask from something it was never designed to give, nor can it give you. Men, marriage can’t make you feel respected. Women, marriage can’t make you feel beautiful, adored, and all these things. Why? Because you’re married to a guy. Your God can do all of that for you. And he’ll show you that you are all of that.
Brad (09:20.3)
You are beautiful, you are unique, guys, you are respectable, but it comes from God, not man. So when Marilyn realized Christ is sufficient, our marriage got instantly stable. Now it wasn’t a good marriage still, because I was still in the marriage. I still working a lot, getting new clients, and all I thought was how to get new clients. I even stuck her in a bowling league. What better way for a lawyer to get new clients and meet five new people every week in a bowling league that don’t know another lawyer? And lot of the bowlers in our areas need lawyers.
Brad (09:57.248)
So I was blessed and then I had a very godly uncle, who’s one of my favorite human beings in the world. And he could see that I was succeeding in everything except what mattered. I was growing in law practice, I was growing in income, I was growing in people thinking highly of me. I was not growing in Jesus, I was not growing in my marriage and he could see it.
So he invited me to a marriage conference and I said no. He invited me again, I said no. He invited me again, but then called my office manager, cleared my schedule, called my wife, cleared my schedule, bought my ticket, invited my father-in-law, and then called me and said, “Hey, do you to go to a marriage conference?”. I said, “Let me check with my office manager”. “I already did. You’re clear”. I call Marilyn. “I already called Marilyn, you’re clear”. So I went and did not want to go at all. I mean, I’m hyper and it’s hard for me to sit through church.
Eight hours of marriage preaching over two days sounded like abject torture. Plus I didn’t think I even needed it. So I went there and learned that you don’t have to want something for God to give it to you. You don’t even have to know that you need it for God to give it to you. I got there and they put the scripture up on the screen. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave his life for her.
And guys, I’d ask you the same question I was asked. What do you give up for your wife? What do you sacrifice for your wife? What do you lay down for your wife? I couldn’t come up with anything. I did what I wanted to do, and she was welcome to go along with me, and I thought that was good. Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way. I was asked, and I ask you guys the same question: Do you just sit and listen to your wife, and ask her questions and get in her world and show that nobody in the world is more interested in what’s going on in her life than you? I never did that. Husbands, don’t be harsh with your wives. I did the “chill” thing a lot. I was harsh with her. I was meaner to her than any other human being in the world. lot of guys are more rude to their wives than any other human being in the world. It doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Brad (12:13.176)
Well, God broke me, he really did. It was like my sin became 4K clear. It’s like, I’ve realized I’ve taken, I’ve treated Maryland that way, but God gave me a godly sorrow. Scripture says a worldly sorrow leads to death, but a godly sorrow leads to like an excitement to clear oneself, an excitement to do good, and it fills you with like a real fervor to right yourself. And that’s what I had.
So I came back, it was 2.30 a.m. in the morning, I woke her up and she didn’t remember what I said, but I said, “Marilyn, the only thing that’s gonna be different in our marriage is everything. And I don’t want you to believe me, because I would not believe me. But five years from now, I want you to ask yourself, did God change your husband?” It was weird, because I knew something had changed inside of me. Something had forever changed, it had clicked.
And she gets up at five in the morning before church to start planting plants, which is a little bit of my wife. And I got up on three hours sleep, walk outside, grabbed a shovel, and she looked at me like, what are you doing? I said, “Where do you want me to dig? Let’s start today”. And I will tell you, we have been through hell and back with tragedies and child health issues. But other than my walk with Jesus, the most enjoyable and best thing in my life is my relationship with Mary.
Brad
We’ve been on a date once a week for the last 27 years, and at this point, they’ve decided we’re just gonna keep doing that. So, I’m a civil litigation attorney. You I didn’t set out to get in marriage ministry. It wasn’t my plan. She’s got a therapist background, got her MSW, and did some of that stuff, but we just had a blast in marriage. And we’d been working with youth for about 10 years, doing the mission trip deal, the small group deal, making sure our young youth pastor doesn’t do anything really stupid on trips. You know, we were kind of the, “make the elders feel good, maybe Brad will make sure Blake didn’t do anything dumb”. But one of the kids came to us and said, “Will you do our premarital counseling?” And I said, “Sure, but why not our pastors?” He said, “What you and Marilyn have, that looks like a lot of fun. And that’s what we want. Tell us what you do and how you do it”. So we did it. Then they sent us another one. We did it. We started a group. By God’s kindness and favor, we had about two-year waiting list to be in group.
Brad (14:38.478)
Well then I started getting into crisis counsel, because a lot of couples seem to not do real well. And then our church asked me, will you be pastor of marriage at our church, lay pastor? I mean, you’re doing it anyway, we’ll just give you a title. And I said, “Well, if I don’t have to come to all the meetings, I’ll do it”. They’re very kind, because I do it and I don’t have to to all the meetings. But when I was ordained pastor, I saw that we did premarital counseling and we did crisis counseling. We had no strategy to disciple marriages.
And this is a different talk, but it’s a problem in society right now. We don’t disciple marriages and we wonder why they fall apart. Sheep without a shepherd don’t do well. And the church leaving the marriage space totally wide open saying, hey, we’ll get you ready for marriage when you’re so into each other you can’t listen. And then if you ever hate each other or you’re in an affair, call us and we’ll spend $10,000 on you and we’ll win 15 % of them. That’s our marriage strategy. So.
Brad
It’s another story, but I left the law practice with a vision that every single Bible-believing church in America would have an ongoing marriage ministry. Because I realized that youth ministries and children ministry without marriage doesn’t work. And God’s starting to move, but the fire’s gonna hit dry leaves. So back to our point of this thing, though. To have a thriving marriage, I learned, it has to be built on the grace of Jesus. And there has to be intentionality and investment.
You have to sow into the marriage to have a great marriage. It doesn’t just happen. You’ve got to tell the world no. You’ve got to stiff arm other requests. You’ve got to this and say, no, I won’t schedule over marriage. I’m going spend time with my spouse. So we’ll start with grace. Scripture says unless the Lord builds a house, it’s built in vain. So there’s two models of marriage. One’s a performance-based marriage. It’s I’ll be nice to you if you’re nice to me.
If you’re really good to me, I’ll be good to you. If you’re not nice to me, I’ll withdraw from you. And this is very natural. I mean, this was our marriage early on. So if I come in and I’m stressed from work, I come in, I’m cold, I’m snappy, and everyone’s like, can she go in the other room? Or if I come home and the five kids have gotten the best of her and I come in, Marilyn gives me Rachel and starts, I’m like, oh, goodness. know, wonder if the shrubs need watering. But performance-based marriages, they’re not gospel-based because
Brad (17:02.494)
love is given and taken away based on the perceived performance of the other. So it’s where the old ball and chain comes in, it’s it’s just heavy duty. You love because you’re supposed to, and if you’re not loved well, you don’t love well. Now grace-based marriage is different. Like we talked about in the earlier talk, Romans 6, 14, sin will have no dominion over you, why? You’re under grace, not law. So sin will have no dominion over a marriage, why? You’re under grace, not law.
Every one of you has wonderful characteristics and every one of you have very annoying characteristics. There’s very good things about me, there’s very not so good things about me. There’s things Marilyn struggles with and there’s things Marilyn does very well. But what we’ve learned is if love is given as a free gift of grace, here’s gifts, service, kindness, interest, it’s all a free gift of grace. Why? Because I have chosen to love you.
Brad
What’d God do? He chose to love us and gave us the free gift and unmerited favor through the Lord Jesus Christ. So now, when I’m struggling, Marilyn moves toward me. When she’s struggling, I move toward her. Because we realize that the goal is the ministry of reconciliation. I’ve got a few slides to kind of illustrate how this works. So you have husband and wife.
One will inevitably sin against the other. You’re struggling, you’re cold, you’re distant, you say something you shouldn’t say, you’re disrespectful, you’re unloving, whatever. But we’ll say the wife struggles, moves away from the husband. So the wife raises her voice to the husband, gets frustrated at the husband, does whatever. What’s the husband’s natural response? To take offense, either go cold or to snap back, depending on your personality. So what happens is, she struggled, he struggled. So now what do you have?
You have division between the couple. What’s that mean? Sin has dominion, sin has mastery, sin has control over the marriage. Why? In a performance-based marriage, bad performance is met with bad performance, and you ping pong away from each other until there is a distance between you. In a grace-based marriage, it’s different. Just like in a performance-based, one person struggles. For me, I get stressed, and when I get stressed, I get cold, and I’ve got a wit about me, and when I’m stressed, I don’t use my wit well.
Brad (19:29.036)
I make her laugh and angry at the same time. So wife moves away from husband, but in a grace space, she’s like, wait a minute, while I’m yet a sinner, Christ died for me. While my wife’s yet a sinner, I’ll die for her. So instead of moving away, what’s he do? He moves toward her. So guess what now? Sin has no dominion, sin has no mastery, sin has no control. The ministry of reconciliation is put on display for the world, the power of the grace of God.
Because life gets the best of all of us. It just gets the best of all of us at times. And there’s just times that I’ve just been down. There’s times I’ve been anxious. Had a full year where Maryland struggled with depression and anxiety. But what sets believers apart from non-believers? Luke answers the question, if you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
Brad
And if you do good to those who are good to you, what benefit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. So if you do good to your spouse just when your spouse does good to you, or you love your spouse just when your spouse loves you, how are you different than any sinner? You’re a saint that was an enemy of God and had nothing to offer. And God sent his son to save you and said, “How do you love your spouse like that?” Now I wanna make clear, this doesn’t mean tolerating infidelity, narcissism, abuse, emotional abuse. Grace is not enabling, it’s actually the opposite, because wounds from a friend can be trusted. It’s another sermon, but grace is addressing sin because you love your spouse so much, and you just can’t let them do these things.
Juli (21:18.446)
Well friends, I hope you’re enjoying this episode so far. If you are a new listener, you might not know that we have over 500 episodes in our archive and we release a new one every single week. Yeah, we’ve been doing this podcast since 2013, so we have a lot of content in our archive. To make sure that you never miss an episode, then just follow us in your podcast app. And if you want to be able to access that entire Java with Juli archive, then become an Authentic Intimacy member. You won’t just get access to the archive of episodes, you’re also gonna get discounts in our online coaching intensives and book studies, as well as events. You’ll get special member only resources and you’ll be able to attend special member only exclusive events like our second cup, where I talk about some of these podcast episodes and address your questions. Now, if that sounds like something that you might enjoy, I’d look in the show notes to find out more about how to become a member.
Brad (22:20.846)
So here’s how grace works. So we had a stretch. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but I knew I wasn’t doing well. I knew I wasn’t treating her very well, but I didn’t care all that much. I knew I was supposed to, but I just felt cold. And I called my mentor and I said, “I’ve got a cold heart, man. I know I need to take the lead in love, but I don’t want to and I don’t feel like I care”. He said, “Brad, stop”. I said, “What?” I said, “What do I need to do?” He said, “You don’t need to do a thing.”
“Well, what do mean?” “You just need to stop and realize that your coldness is covered by the blood of Jesus. Your coldness is covered by the grace of Jesus. You’re fine. God loves you and delights you just like he did two days ago”. He said, “So go to your wife, confess to her, and just enjoy your wife”. And that night we went on a date, and it was like neither one of us had ever sinned. We had an absolute blast by the power of the grace of God.
That didn’t always happen immediately. In August, we had an argument about finances. I’m an expert in the art of judgment and condemnation in the area of spending. So I decided to exercise my gift with her and kind of took the governor off and made her feel bad. And so the next day is the anniversary of first date. So I bought her flowers, I scheduled a date, and I mean literally, it’s like I’m going on a date with Ice Woman. I mean, she’s just cold. And I said, “Babe, I got you flowers. We’re hiking, what’s wrong?” She said, “Brad, I’m thawing”. And I thought, “Well, then I’m gonna be the blow dryer”.
So I just like kept being nice to her. I got her this and this and this. At the end of the night at dinner, she looked at me goes, “I’m thawed”. I could have said, “Well, I’ve tried and she’s not giving me grace”. Well, no, turn on the grace, turn on the blow dryer. In a grace-based marriage, it’s God gets the glory. We don’t have a great marriage because I’m great, I’m not. I’m inconsistent, I’m over-committed. There’s some things I do well, but we’re not having a great marriage because Marilyn’s great.
Brad (24:30.574)
Kids’ issues tend to be dominant of her sometimes. We have a great marriage because Jesus Christ is perfect. She gives me grace, I give her grace. And two very imperfect people have an absolute blast together in front of this lost world, leave people wondering how you do it. And the way we do it is Jesus and Jesus Christ alone. So on a day-to-day basis, like how does this work? So.
I’m a little anal, I do lists and everything else. My wife’s not. So she’s pretty good at library late fees. I mean, I have the Davis County Public Library message memorized. This is a message from the Davis County Public Library. And it used to drive me crazy, like, know, I’m like, would you please quit? And she’d come home with like 12 books for the kids. And I’m thinking that’s about $32.
Brad
And I just realized, just put her under grace. And all of a sudden, it’s not an issue anymore. The issue’s removed because she’s under grace, and now she takes the books back. Grace motivates better behavior. Pressurizing people to behave better does not. Even if they try to comply with your demands, it’ll be temporary because it will not be out of love, it’ll be out of duty. And even if they do what you want them to do, they won’t like you. And when I just said, “Hey, take them back whenever you want to take them back. You know, we’ll support the library.”
Another thing about grace that needs to be understood, grace is the foundation for your marriage to survive storms. Because we’ve had some pretty intense storms hit our life and family. And if it wasn’t for grace, it would have exploded our marriage. My daughter, she’s 10 years old, she comes to bed with us.
Brad (26:21.678)
At the time, we have a newborn who’s not sleeping. We have a kid with the profound learning issues that had just made a nine on a test. Nine out of 100, which is pretty impressive. It’s like multiple choice, but anyhow. And my daughter comes to bed, and at midnight she quits breathing completely. And Marilyn just starts wailing. I run around the house to find a rescue inhaler. I do manage to break my toe and get blood all over the house, but I never found the rescue inhaler.
Ambulance comes, she had a long seizure. She survived. We went to a bunch of specialists, everything else. They said, “We can’t tell you what happened or that it can’t happen again”. My wife is the most stable person I’ve ever met. Anxious, depressed. Every night she goes to bed wondering, am I gonna wake up and our daughter is gonna be dead? So she’s just tormented. And I’m like, I just remember grace. Just love Marilyn, just love Marilyn. We’d go on a date every single week. Every day we’d go on, she’d sit down at the table.
And she had sobbed. I remember at five guys. I said, “Well, five guys, burgers and cries”, you know. But then I got a phone call and she said, “Brad, I’m happy”. “I’m like, what?” She goes, “I had forgotten what it felt like to be happy”. And she goes, “And thank you for not telling me to get in the Word and to exercise and to get more sleep and to get in the sun. Thank you for not trying to fix me. Thank you for just loving me”. She goes, “If you’d have told me those things, I’d agreed with all of them and I would have felt condemned. I was barely getting by”. And a lot of times when we’re barely getting by in marriage, we put things on the other they can’t do and it doesn’t help your spouse or the marriage. Scripture says in Ecclesiastes, pity the man that falls and has no one to help him up. In marriage, God has given each other. When one of them falls, the other one helps them up. And it goes both ways. Out of stretching the law of practice where I’d made a mistake on a case.
I was working crazy hours. I was extremely anxious. I remember one morning I was up at 3 a.m. before church, researching. I was distant, I was cold, I was doing awful. Came home one day and Marilyn was crying. That’s what happened. She was, Brett, I am so worried about you. And I’ve been praying all afternoon for you. She did not take offense at the manifestation of my struggle, which was distance and coldness. She went to war for her husband.
Brad (28:50.126)
And by God’s kindness, the clouds lifted and everything was okay. But all that did was strengthen our marriage. Because Marilyn just loves Brad. She doesn’t love what she gets from Brad. Because there’ll all be seasons where your spouse has nothing to give you. And if you love them because there’s something you’re getting from them, it’s a matter of time till you don’t love them because they’re gonna have seasons where they don’t give you a thing. Because if I’ve had one takeaway at age 56, life’s a lot rougher than I expected.
My wife said, if I ever write a book, it’s gonna be disenchanted, a walk in my shattered slippers. But grace, not only does it help you with crisis, it just lightens the atmosphere of the home. It doesn’t feel pressurized, it doesn’t feel heavy. It is a lighter atmosphere to live in. So my encouragement to you is put each other under the grace of Jesus Christ. Simplify marriage and say, “Look, I chose to love you and I’m gonna love you. And my love for you has nothing to do with what you do or don’t do.” Because what separates you from the love of Jesus? Nothing. How we love our spouse is Christ loves us. What should separate you from the love of your wife? Nothing. So it’s really an opportunity to show your love when they have nothing to give because it just shows, I just love you. I know Marilyn just loves me because I that long stretch. I got a ton of love.
Brad
And I did nothing to deserve it. But what did I do to deserve the love of God? God didn’t look down and say, that Brad, man, he’s got lot of potential. He seemed like a pretty good dude. Hey, God and Jesus, let’s go get him and put him on our team. No, he saw an enemy of God literally acting like an idiot, rebelling against him, doing nothing but harming people, and he said, I’m gonna send my son to die and save him and make him my kiddo. That’s the love we were to give our spouse. So first.
We put our marriage under grace second, we replace complacency with intentionality. Right now, when do people invest in marriage? Yeah, when they’re doing terrible. It’s like we can’t talk, we’re fighting. When something bad happens, you invest. That’s just a terrible strategy. It’s like saying if my car ever stops running, I’m gonna take it to the mechanic. It doesn’t matter what it is, if you’re complacent with it, it’ll fall apart. You do nothing in your yard for three months. It’s gonna look terrible.
Brad (31:15.682)
You do nothing with your car for a year, it’s gonna quit running. You do nothing with your marriage, it’s gonna fall apart too. When I do individual counseling with couples, I’ll say, “I want you to tell me specifically everything you’re doing to invest in the marriage”. He’ll look at me like, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I’ll ask her the same question. I said, whoa, I think we’re onto something here. Neither one of you are investing in it and you’re getting nothing out of it.
Sowing and reaping is a thing. Not working on your marriage is like saying, you know, I really don’t need to exercise because I’m in good shape. And the enemy of marriage investment is couples telling me, hey, we’re okay. We’re good. We’re fine. Because things are either growing or declining and God calls us to grow in marriage. Galatians 5.13 says, use your freedom not to indulge in flesh but serve one another humbly in life. And one of the gifts of grace that goes into the intentionality piece is when you get grace, you don’t get so mad when people criticize you. I mean, you used to, Marilyn said, “If I had a problem, I wouldn’t even bring it up with you because I’d rather not share it than have to talk to you about it because you are so defensive, it’s so unpleasant”. But it softened me to the point where I’m better at hearing criticism.
Once I was, we were teaching on non-sexual physical touch. And we had a session on it. So we’re getting ready to go to bed and I said, Marilyn, “I just wanna ask you, how do I do in that area?” She goes, “I’m not sure you wanna know”. She said, “You touch me like you do our dog Lucy”.
I’m like, “What?”. She goes, “I don’t… have you ever thought? I don’t like that”. And she said, “When you do put your arm around me, it hurts. It’s like, I’m sitting in church, ‘Boom!'”. She’s like, and then she paused and said, “Are you mad?” I said, “I’m not mad. We got a great marriage. Now I’m just gonna touch you little better”. You know, it’s grace that takes the sting out of criticism. Because when you’re under performance, your hope is performance and somebody criticizes it and you come apart and you’re the fool that hates rebuke.
Brad (33:36.258)
When you’re under grace, your hope’s not in your performance. You are secure, your identity’s secure, everything’s secure. When somebody criticizes you, wow, just an opportunity to be closer to Jesus and others, what’s wrong with me? There’s other stuff wrong with me too, but what’d you see? So grace will free you to grow. On the intentionality piece, what we do, and I shared a little bit, for 27 years, we’ve got a date once a week, every week for 27 years, with almost no exception. We just kind of put a stake in the ground and said, look, marriage, this is kind of important.
Seems to make sense to spend time together. Marriage is the container that a marriage grows in. Small container of time, it can’t grow. Big container of time, it can grow. Marriage is your most important horizontal relationship, more important than anything else other than your walk with Jesus. So give it precedence over your children. Give it precedence over work. Give it precedence over ministry things. Because God’s order, when violated, things break down.
Tim Keller once said, “If anything comes ahead of your marriage other than Jesus, your marriage will slowly die”. How many you are young folks that have kids? How many of you kids under 15 or 17? Still quite a few of you. I challenge you to go counterculture and don’t let the kids dominate the home. In Christian circles, we shifted to a child-centric home, not a marriage-centric home.
Brad
And a friend of mine said, parenting’s turned into the modern day black hole. You’re supposed to be at every one of their games. You’re supposed to do all these things. And what happened? You have two busy parents running kids everywhere to the detriment of their marriage and ultimately the detriment of their children. Tell your kid, can’t go to your game Saturday because I’m going on a date with my wife. What? She’s more important than you. I love you. But she is my primary love.
And someday I want you to have a marriage where you prioritize your spouse over your kids. And the only way that’s gonna happen if I do that now. We’ve been doing it 27 years and our kids still complain.
Brad (35:36.342)
I’ll go to like, we’ll run a quick errand for 10 minutes. She’ll say, “That counts as your date”. I’m like, “No it wasn’t, I was buying you food”. But we’re in a culture that doesn’t value marriage. We’re in a place that people aren’t encouraging you to spend time with your spouse. We’re in an age of churches where 72 % of churches have no substantive marriage ministry. Scripture says let marriage be held in honor among all.
The Bible starts with a wedding in Genesis, it ends in Revelation, Ephesians, marriage references throughout Israel. And we wonder why culture’s falling apart, why is culture falling apart? Because we’re not doing marriage well. So one, invest in your own marriage, have that marriage, it’s so much fun that people watch you and they can’t wait to do it. Because now we complain that the marriage rates at an all time low, which it is.
And people are waiting longer to get married than they have in the history of our nation. But think about it, if you’re a kid, wow, let’s think about marriage. There’s a 40 to 50 % I get to do bitter divorce. And if I don’t get to do bitter divorce, I get to be bored. Uh-uh, that’s not gonna draw them to it. Marriage was created to draw people to Jesus, husband, wife, Christ the Church. They see the grace, beauty, love, sacrifice, radical nature of Jesus in the marriage relationship. They’re drawn to their true husbands at the wedding supper of the lamb. So let’s make marriage a gospel, attractional relationship that people cannot deny the power of Jesus because they see what it does. But we are in a tough culture to do it in. Because not many people are gonna encourage you to do it. I was blessed that I had two mentors. One of them made me go to that conference. Another one said, “You’re gonna have lunch once a week for seven years?” Which I did. In the first six months, I did not go on a date once a week. But he said, “Brad, date your wife”. And I didn’t. “Date your wife”. I said, “Okay, Bill, I’ll do it”. And I’ve done it ever since. I’m forever grateful to him.
Brad (37:56.088)
The ministry that we started when I left the law practice, marriage wouldn’t exist but for Him. So I wanna encourage you, have an amazing marriage. Some of you might be in a spot where man, how? And we’re in touch, if you can’t work through it, get third party help, get a counselor. If you can work through it, just say, “Hey, let’s work together and have a great marriage”.
Don’t complain about one another. I’ve heard somebody say complaining about one another in marriage is like saying your side of the boat’s sinking.
So I’m really so grateful to be part of this conference. This is a conference that loves well and points people to Jesus. I wanna honor Juli’s heart because I want your marriage just to do the same. I want people to be pointed to Jesus by your marriage. A busy culture is the enemy of that. Scripture says, oftentimes the busyness of the world, the deceitful of this, it squeezes out the word. Right now, the busyness of this world, child-centered nature, performance-based Christianity, what happens? Our marriages fall flat in complacency. So that’s about all I have, but thank you so much for the privilege of speaking to you. If you wanna hear a lot more detail about how to apply grace to your marriage, we have a book that through Juli’s encouragement and help we published, she wrote the foreword on.
But it talks about grace and communication, grace and criticism, a lot more detail about what it looks like to put your marriage under grace and we have it back at our table. Well, let me pray for your marriages and we’ll close. Thank you guys for coming. Thank you guys for being part of it. I pray God gives you the courage to live anti-culture and pro-marriage. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for Authentic Intimacy. Thank you so much for Juli. Thank you so much for all the speakers.
Brad (39:48.686)
Thank you so much that this is. conference that points us to Jesus and not one that just gives us a lot of good life advice because you are our only hope. Scripture says you will finish the work in you, us that you started. So we pray that we’d be clay and allow you to be potter. We pray we’d rest in your grace, abide in you so we can bear fruit and bear true fruit. Thank you for these marriages. Bless every single one of them for your glory in the precious blood and name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Thank you.
