Planting Seeds

This month we finish our examination of Commitment 2: We will make growth and change our daily agenda. Last time, we examined our marriages, searching for those little thoughts, attitudes, and actions that you must say no to. We will now consider the things we must say yes to, and in so doing give them room to shape our marriage.

Cleared ground doesn’t stay cleared for long.
Once you pull the weeds,
you must plant something in its place.

We continue this month looking at Paul Tripp’s book “What Did You Expect?” These are primarily excerpts from his book. I strongly recommend reading his book to get the full benefit of his message. You can click on the book image to the right to purchase the book.

The weeds and seeds

Because our creator knows and loves us and knows how terribly broken we and our world are, he wants us to know how what is wrong goes wrong, and how it can be fixed. Let’s look at Galatians 5:13-26 and see how it gives us a ground-level way of looking at the specific pulling and planting that must be part of every marriage.

¹³ For, dear brothers, you have been given freedom: not freedom to do wrong, but freedom to love and serve each other. ¹⁴ For the whole Law can be summed up in this one command: “Love others as you love yourself.” ¹⁵ But if instead of showing love among yourselves you are always critical and catty, watch out! Beware of ruining each other.

¹⁶ I advise you to obey only the Holy Spirit’s instructions. He will tell you where to go and what to do, and then you won’t always be doing the wrong things your evil nature wants you to. ¹⁷ For we naturally love to do evil things that are just the opposite from the things that the Holy Spirit tells us to do; and the good things we want to do when the Spirit has his way with us are just the opposite of our natural desires. These two forces within us are constantly fighting each other to win control over us, and our wishes are never free from their pressures. ¹⁸ When you are guided by the Holy Spirit, you need no longer force yourself to obey Jewish laws.

¹⁹ But when you follow your own wrong inclinations, your lives will produce these evil results: impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, ²⁰ idolatry, spiritism (that is, encouraging the activity of demons), hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort to get the best for yourself, complaints and criticisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group—and there will be wrong doctrine, ²¹ envy, murder, drunkenness, wild parties, and all that sort of thing. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

²² But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  ²³ gentleness and self-control; and here there is no conflict with Jewish laws.

²⁴ Those who belong to Christ have nailed their natural evil desires to his cross and crucified them there.

²⁵ If we are living now by the Holy Spirit’s power, let us follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. ²⁶ Then we won’t need to look for honors and popularity, which lead to jealousy and hard feelings.

The best place to begin mining the riches of the wisdom of these words is to start with the warning in verse 15. Paul says, “But if instead of showing love among yourselves you are always critical and catty, watch out! Beware of ruining each other.” One thing we are tempted to do is back away from the power and influence of the things we do and say. A husband will yell at his wife, but he tells himself it was just a little moment and comfort himself with the thought that despite his anger, she knows that he loves her. A wife will be nasty in the morning, punishing her husband for what he did the night before, but she’ll tell herself that it’s a new morning, and he really does know that she loves him. We all tend to forget that these little moments are important precisely because they are little moments. Since we live in days that are filled with little moments, it is precisely here that the character and quality of a marriage is formed.

You cannot escape the influence of what you say and do on the person you live with and on your relationship with him or her. You can rob your wife of her hope. You can crush your husband’s faith. You can damage one another’s heart. You can cloud your spouse’s view of God’s presence, goodness, and grace. You can tempt the other to believe that they are all alone and without hope. Husbands and wives, we must ask, “How do I daily influence the way my spouse thinks about God, him- or herself, and life? Your response to the rest of this amazing passage will be determined by the degree to which you have embraced the warning of verse 15.

We will never gain ground in our relationships starting by addressing wrong behaviors, because the real battle of relationships lives at a much deeper, more profound level. It is this level that Paul is addressing here. You can only understand this deeper battle when you understand the fundamental nature of sin.

The DNA of sin is selfishness (see 1 Cor. 5:15). Sin turns all of us in on ourselves. It reduces our circle of hopes and concerns to things that touch and involve us. It makes us all focused on—and driven by—our wants, needs, and feelings. Healthy marriages are healthy because the people in those marriages have learned to recognize and say no to selfish instincts that lurk in their hearts and in the heart of every one of us. Selfishness is one of the big weeds that choke the life out of a marriage, and we must continually recognize that selfishness is first a condition of the heart before it is ever a set of choices, words, and behavior. We must pull this weed again and again, along with all the weeds of destructive words and actions that attach themselves to it.

Planting seeds

Planting seeds is really what Paul is calling us to. We are to commit to intentionally plant the good seeds of a healthy relationship into the soil of our marriages. This will take understanding, commitment, discipline, and perseverance. Paul delineates the contrasting relational lifestyle this way: “Serve one another in love” (v. 13). Then he says something startling: “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’” How is it that love of neighbor summarizes all that God calls us to? The answer is both simple and profound. It is that those who love God above all else will love their neighbor as they love themselves. It may be hard to hear these things, but there is hope of lasting change in these words.

The problem in our marriages is not first that we don’t love one another enough; no, the problem is that we don’t love God enough, and because we don’t love God enough, we don’t love one another as we should. What this means is that you don’t fix a marriage first horizontally; you fix it vertically. It’s only when we have confessed our lack of love for God—his plan, his purpose, and his call—and it’s only when we admit that we have replaced his agenda with our own selfish agenda that we will then be free to begin loving one another in the way that his grace makes possible. It is then that manipulation gets replaced by ministry.

Rather than working to co-opt your spouse into your service, you find joy and satisfaction in discovering ways to serve them. When these desires are mutual, your marriage does not become perfect, but it becomes a place where real unity, understanding, and love have room to live, breathe, and grow.

Would you call your spouse a loving person?

Serving in love means being committed to joy. What is joy about? It means looking for reasons to be thankful and communicating appreciation. Joy means looking for the good in your spouse and encouraging it when you find it.

Serving in love requires being committed to peace. If we are really committed to peace, we will gladly overlook minor offenses. We will be quickly willing to forgive. We will work to restore relationship when something has separated us. We will find unity more attractive than winning and peace more compelling than power.

Serving our spouses in love means being committed to responding to them in ways that are kind and to do to them only what is good. Would your spouse say that you are a kind person?

Serving in love also means that you are faithful to the vows you made when you got married. Are you still loving your spouse just as you promised publicly when you made your vows, or have other things gotten in the way such as work, personal pursuits, children, inattention, laziness, bitterness, improper thought or actions, or self interest?

Serving in love means being committed to gentleness. Often we permit way too much harshness, rudeness, and angry talk in our marriages—all in the name of “just being honest.” Gentleness is a quiet confidence in the power of God to change what needs to be changed in our spouses—and us.

Serving in love means being committed to the daily exercise of self-control. A good marriage is always the result of saying no, not to your spouse, but to yourself. There may be no more needed character quality in marriage than self-control. It is the constant willingness to critique your thoughts, edit your words, and restrain your behavior out of love for your spouse and love for God and what is right.

Planting good seeds requires help

If your marriage is ever going to be what it was designed to be, you need divine intervention. The big battles are not the ones you fight with your spouse (though it certainly feels that way). No, the big battles are the ones being fought in your heart. All of the horizontal skirmishes between a husband and wife are the result of this deeper battle. Remember, the DNA of sin is selfishness. God knows how big our struggle is. That’s why didn’t just give us a set of principles; no, he gave us himself! He literally got inside your heart so he can battle for you at the very place where the war for your marriage is raging. If you and your spouse are God’s children, then your marriage isn’t just a union of two; it is more accurately a union of three. Hope for your marriage is not to be found in your spouse. No, it is to be found in that third invisible Person, who has made himself part of your union.

Next month we begin looking at Commitment 3: We will work together to build a sturdy bond of trust.

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Paul David Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization, whose mission statement is “Connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.” This mission leads Paul to weekly speaking engagements around the world. In addition to being a gifted communicator Paul is the Executive Director of the Center for Pastoral Life and Care in Fort Worth, Texas, and has taught at respected institutions worldwide. Paul has written twelve books on Christian Living that are read and distributed internationally, including Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands; War of Words; Broken Down House; and Crossway’s Whiter Than Snow. Get more information or purchase the book ”What Did You Expect?” He has been married for many years to Luella and they have four grown children. For more information and resources visit paultrippministries.org.