MCC Podcasts
Welcome to Marin Covenant Church. My name is Ben Kearns. I'm one of the pastors on staff. What's up? Stokes are here from Louisiana. We'll see you guys. This is my wife, Katie. And yes, she is a veteran person married to me. And I'm super honored to be on our pastoral staff. We said, hey, let's do this series on marriage. And I drew the straw of talking about the nuts and bolts of marriage. And I thought, hey, I don't want the danger zone of saying something that I'm going to regret. My wife's going to-- I'm going to owe her some shopping spree. And so I thought, why not let the brains of the operation come on up here and defend herself? So anyway, we're super glad to be with you. Like I said, we've been married. And Katie's been a veteran for sure. We've married for 15 years, if you can believe that. We got married with little kids. This is a picture of us on our wedding day. We were, yeah, so full of life and so not hitting puberty yet. And it was all super great. We were 22 right out of college, ready to get married. And we just could not believe like we loved God. We loved kids. We loved each other. We could not believe that God allowed us to get married. I still can't. Super great. And we got married. And the lady who discipled Katie all through college, she married us. And she gave us some words of wisdom. Why share with us the words of wisdom? She said that then was the team leader, and I was on the team. Yes, please. Old school, baby. Old school. She's on my team, but I am the team leader. And we all appreciate that. My dad and stepmom didn't appreciate that, but that's OK. It's like, this is my marriage, my wife, on my team. And truthfully, our whole first season marriage, it was fine. I mean, look at us. We were young kids. We were cute. We loved making out. How hard could this marriage thing be? And truthfully, it wasn't really until about seven and a half years in where we had to go back all the way to our wedding video to get some marital advice. Because you see Katie and I, right? We want to be on the same page. We want to live God. We want to do these things. And we kind of wrestled. We got to this point, this point where I thought we should go one way. Kate is how she should go the other. Jeff kind of alluded to. It's my favorite passage. It's Ephesians 5. And it simply says, women, submit to your husband. And men love your wife. And I said, Katie, let's watch her marriage video again, just to communicate that point, right? Nope. So good. I know. She loves it. Because the deal was, I just finished seminary. And I was getting ready to go on this new adventure. We had to leave our church. We were done there. We were ready to move on. And what did we decide back when we had our wits about us? And we were in love. And we were having dinner and drinking wine. Back then. What? Back then when we were in love. Back then? What was our big plan? What was our big plan? When? For our future when we were going back home. We were going to move to another state where we could afford to live. And for what reason? And be part of what church? And be part of the covenant church. Be a part of the covenant family. It was God's will. We decided when we had our wits about us, we decided. But the problem is, it took forever to find a job. And in that process, Katie got pregnant. And it took us forever to get pregnant. So she got pregnant. And you know when you get pregnant, you get kind of hormonal. And so you can't really trust you. You're like, right? So good. I know. She's a veteran. And so what happened was we reached this crossroads, where obviously I love Katie. I love my wife. I love my future family. God has called us to do this thing. And we are not seeing eye to eye. And we have to make a decision. Right. So far, so good? OK. So this is what happened. You can tell she's like, we were talking about this week. She's like, why are we even going there? I get really mad every time you talk stories. So good. I'm like mad already. So we-- so-- it's only going to get better, I promise. OK, so-- Like really mad. I grabbed you from seminary. And we do this road trip. Look at us, look at those kids from the '90s right there. Oh my god. I love bangs, I got man boobs, I get all good. And so we're in Montana. And I don't know if you know your geography, but Montana. You have to say why we're there. Why were we in Montana? Yeah, because we're on a road trip. We're leaving from seminary, going to Washington, the place that God has called us, that me as the leader of my family, I'm taking my family to go and look at her eyes, dead eyes. Dead. Not happy, but I didn't care. And we get to Montana in Montana's a long state, and all of a sudden, Katie stops talking to me. I'm sure you did something. I'm sure. I can't even imagine what, but Katie stops talking to me, and we're driving 100 miles, 200 miles, 600 miles. We finally get to Bozeman, and we're like, all right, we got to work this thing out. So we had this really gracious, loving conversation at this restaurant about God's plan for our future. No, I still remember the waitress. She was so awkward, 'cause I was sobbing, and you were rude. I was not rude. I was simply leaning in, you know when you kind of lean in, and you want to make your point? It's your turn to submit, I think is that way. No, he says, it's time for you to submit. Team leader, how hard can this be? I know. For real, he really said that. I flip in hate Bozeman, but everything at Bozeman, I can imagine having a burger, my wife crying, the waitress being awkward, and realizing-- Carrying his child. We love you, Noah. And I didn't realize I was leaning so far over the table, making my point, and you know when you remember back on something, all I said was, I love you, and I want God's best for our life, and you don't remember that. I don't remember that at all. Well, needless to say, that sent our marriage on a totally different trajectory, because it was that moment that basically, we began a year and a half long fight. And not the kind of banging doors, slamming doors, and screaming each other, but I don't know if you've been through a season like this, but a year and a half where Katie and I were obviously not married going on the road together. We were like married, but we were doing our own thing, and there was very little warmth, and love, and affection, and she was pissed, and I was a dumb guy. I didn't know what was going on, and for an entire year and a half. In fact, last year, all the youth pastors in Maryland, we got together for lunch, and like four of them just got married this last summer, and they're like, we went on this awesome honeymoon, and we have a great foundation for our marriage, and I just felt like, oh, you poor babies. Like, a year and a half was our marriage. And so we realized, as we were putting this thing together, having a biblical marriage, right? That's what we wanted. The Bible says, I'm the team leader, duh. We want a biblical marriage, and a biblical marriage where we take things in the Bible, and we like hammer each other over the head with them, is actually not the way in which we're supposed to engage this thing. And thankfully, what was helpful is all we did is say, let's just kind of thumb through the Bible and see what marriage looks like. And all we had to do was kind of begin in Genesis and make it just a couple chapters in before we realized, oh, our marriage is way better than those y'all are. - Way better. - So this morning, we're gonna take a look at a couple of messed up marriages, make you feel better about yourself, make us feel better about ourselves, and then we'll turn the corner hopefully. - Hopefully. - And then you can have a lot of marriage like Katie and I. - There you go. - So good. All right, let me pray for us, and then I'll hop into it. Oh man, it's not gonna be good. All right, Heavenly Father, thank you so much for my friends in this room. Thank you for my wife and for having her put up with me, and I just thank you that you have called us to be in relationship with you, to be in relationship with each other, and that is such a hard thing. And we just pray as we spend some time looking at marriage, looking at relationships, that you would just be gracious to us, God, because we know marriage brings such incredible joy and such incredible pain, and we just don't wanna be flipped about that. We wanna recognize that you are good and gracious and all that, and we wanna understand that better. So be gracious to us, speak to us whatever we need to hear, and nudge us a little bit farther down the road to know and love you. We love you Jesus, and all of God's kids said, amen. All right, if you have your Bible, just from the beginning, we're getting after Genesis, Genesis chapter three, right? God made Adam and Eve. Hey, here's the garden, it's super sunny, it's like the Bahamas, and you get a big naked all the time and have coronas, all good. That's how it started, but it only took like three days in before it goes south, and here's how we are. Genesis chapter three, verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat "from any tree in the garden?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit "from the trees in the garden, but God did say you must not "eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, "and you must not touch it, or you will die." You will not certainly die, the serpent said, "The woman for God knows that when you eat from it, "your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, "knowing good and evil." And when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good and good from pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some of it and ate it. She gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, and then both of their eyes were open and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leads together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of God, and he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord among the trees of the garden, but the Lord called to the man, "Where are you?" And I love this picture because I can so relate on so many levels to Adam and Eve, of course. But they were made to be together. They were frolicking naked. I mean, our honeymoon, frolicking naked. Super great, right? - My parents are here. - Oh yeah, hey Larry, sorry, man. (audience laughs) You know, that's how, like you have this dream, but what Adam and Eve, where they screwed up, is there was this sin, it was just a little sin. I mean, you have the whole garden, it was just don't eat this apple. It was a desiring to look at. It's one small thing, and what we've noticed in our own marriage and in our friends' lives, is that when we kind of belittle sin, when we say, "Hey, this sin, it's just me, "it's how I am, it's not a big deal," it always seems to end in death and destruction. - And I think it's really easy to justify a lot of the sins that we participate in, and I know as a woman it's super easy to justify gossip and talking and grumbling and complaining because it's life, and it's hard, and life is not easy all the time. And I think it's especially hard when we are talking about our spouse. And I hadn't, many of you know that Ben was on a spatical recently for three months, and I had people all the time come up and ask me, "How's the sabbatical going?" And I would say, "It's so good." And then it would instantly, on a dime, the conversation many times in many places in my life, people it would change to, "Really is it good? "How's it having him at home? "I can never have my husband at home." He would drive me crazy, he would do this, or he wouldn't do this, he would do that, or he wouldn't, it would be like having another kid. Is it like having another kid? I mean, and they would go off, go off on a very regular basis, that was the response. And it's difficult because I don't, it's so easy to say, "Yeah, sometimes marriage can be hard, "and there was days on his sabbatical "where it wasn't super great all the time, "but in the larger picture it was, "but it's still not something that you go around." I wouldn't go around and say, "Oh my gosh, it's like having a third child, "and it's because it's disrespectful, and it's hurtful, "and women we should not be talking like that about our husbands." And I think what was interesting, what struck me as I started to hear that over and over again, is that I was walking away from those conversations, I would think, that was a very surface casual conversation where you asked me about Ben, and you went off about your own husband, how much more are you complaining, grubbling, moaning, shredding apart your spouse when you are not, when it is an even longer conversation? And it's always been a frustration of mine to hear women just go off on their husbands because we would hate it if they did that to us. And it's just an area where it's a small sin because there are frustrating things about living together and doing life together, it's not easy, but it's not okay to shred them and pull them apart to other people. And so it was just an eye opening for me to consistently see that that is a normal way of communication among women, that at least that I've been around, that whether it's the playground or the downstairs hallway or wherever it is, it seems like it's an acceptable thing to talk about your husband that way. - Yeah, when you talk about your husband as a third grader all the time, like chances are you don't want to be all romantic with him also, and so it shuts that whole thing down. Now what I think is interesting is, when I hang out with guys and we hang out and talk, we actually don't talk about our wives at all. Have you noticed that? When you're hanging out with dudes, we don't talk about our wives. Like at least they fight, like they grumbled their friends about us, we just go, well, I guess I married, I forgot about that. (audience laughs) But what I realize is, like the emotional development that we need to engage in a marriage for men is super challenging. And it's like at work, you're successful, you're the man, you kill it, you get all these kudos, there's these clear expectations and you accomplish them and life is great, you come home and you do not accomplish anything well, and all of a sudden the home risk is to be rough. And there's kind of two ways in which men kind of relate and one is they get angry, which I thought at first I'm like, that's really bad, but the truth is, at least if you're angry, you're engaged. If you're angry, at least you're in the fight trying to work it out. What I realized for me and at least some of my friends is we just kind of withdraw. And we don't think it's a big deal, like who really wants to hear me complaining about my wife? Who really wants you? I don't really want to get in a fight again. And so we just kind of withdraw, we step back and we step back. And just like where we get all frustrated with our wives when they kind of shut down the true nudity, right? We get, our wives get frustrated when we shut down our emotional nudity, right? When we say, I am not given of my heart, I'm not giving who I am, because it's too hard, it's too complicated and we shut it down. And these are just small things, right? What's, I mean, grumbling and withdrawing. Like it are not big things, but there's these little, tiny sins that we just kind of discount and they send us on these trajectories that cause us to hide from each other and to hide from God. - So that's our first biblical marriage that we don't want to be like. And our second one is actually Abraham and Sarah, which I'm sure some of you have. Remember this story? - This one's okay for the guys. - Oh, it's not at all, actually. So this is in Genesis chapter 16. So this says, "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had born him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. So she said to Abram, "The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant. Perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai had said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan for 10 years, Sarai, his wife, took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. So again, fabulous idea, right? No, I can't imagine ever wanting to give my husband to a maidservant ever. I mean, I could almost see. - But here's what was really going on. Abraham had been promised by God that he was gonna be the father of many nations, that his descendants would outnumber the stars. And the Holy, the Lord had told that to him and Sarah and nothing was happening and nothing was happening and nothing was happening. And finally, Sarah takes it and she wants some, she wants this baby that she's been promised and doesn't see how it's gonna come through, doesn't wait on it. So she takes it into her own hands and offers her husband what seems like a very good idea at the time, her maidservant, but then as soon as she gets pregnant, they come to, and there's deep resentment and there's anger and frustration and there's fractured relationship. And I think that that is very easy for us to do, not that we would ever give over our husbands or our wives to a maidservant or somebody else, not that that's a good idea. But I do think what we do do is that we do run after things that fulfill us in a way that is false. And for example, when Mckenzie was about five months old, Ben had decided that he was ready to go and wanted to run a marathon. And I thought this was a really great idea. In fact, I was the one that was like, you should totally do a marathon, you should do that. You saw that picture, you need to do that. This would be healthy for you. (audience laughs) Like, you should try it. So I was actually really excited about it and I really encouraged him strongly to do it and he wasn't sure if it was going to be too long or too whatever, but I thought it was a great idea. Well, as the training went on and on, I want you to remember I have this new born in my house. As the training goes on and on,