PCPC Marriage Conference - Paul David Tripp

A couple of weekends ago, Kris and I had the opportunity to attend a marriage conference at Park Cities Presbyterian Church where Paul David Tripp was teaching. Remarkably, almost all of his funny stories he also used at the Desiring God National Conference last fall, however, they were absolutely relevant to his marriage talk and so unusual and comical (most of them) that anyone would be happy to hear them all again.
The title was "What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage." These are my notes from the conference.
He started off telling us that it's all the little moments - getting ready in the morning, getting out the door, waiting in line - that life is really lived. There are few BIG moments in life. Pretty much everything is "little moments" and God must rule in the little moments if we are going to live for Him.
Principle 1: A marriage of unity, understanding, and love is not rooted in romance, but in worship. Worship is first an identity before it is an activity; you are a worshipper before you worship. In marriage, romance is a result, not a cause. It's something that comes from the heart, like everything else.

Luke 6:43-45 “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks."

The heart is the seed of all our emotions, desires, and motives. Our greatest marriage problem is in the heart. Tripp encouraged all the attendees to realize, "I am my biggest marriage problem."

It's extremely hard to keep the most important things important. And what rules your heart will shape your marriage, and everything else. One example: It's 10:30pm, and the kids are yelling and jumping on their beds in their room. As he head down the hall...again, he is not thanking God for the opportunity to once again remind them of the precious truths of the gospel and to shape their hearts lovingly and graciously with these truths. NO. He is stomping down the hall saying in essence, "Right now, I don't give a rip about redemption or about the hearts of my children. I don't want to have to parent after 10:00. I am done for the night and and how dare they interrupt my time." Because of selfishness, the most important thing has fallen to a place of lesser importance.

Principle 2: Sin causes us to shrink our lives to the size of our lives. Instead of wanting God's glory and participation in Christ's great kingdom, our selfishness places our focus on our own insignificant lives. "The DNA of sin is selfishness. Sin in its fundamental form is antisocial. That self-orientation de-humanizes the people in my life; they are either vehicles to getting me what I want, or obstacles that get in the way of what I want."

We never threaten, manipulate or guilt someone in love for them. We do these things because we are using them to get us what we want.

Principle 3: Marriage, this side of heaven, is always a war between two kingdoms. Marriage is war, but not against your spouse; each is doing battle in his/her heart.

Everyone lives for some kind of treasure. The thing that is your treasure will control your heart. What controls your heart will control your behavior. Few treasures have intrinsic value; most treasures' values are assigned.

Based on this, there are two different lifestyles: Manipulation or Ministry. A Manipulation lifestyle is living for the kingdom of self, characterized by indulgence, or feeding, the sinful nature. If you are this person, you will live for earthbound treasures and anxiety-bound needs. You are driven by ME: "My world is all about what I treasure and what I say I need." If you think something is need, and your spouse says, "I love you," you will expect them to do whatever it takes to meet that "need."

Matthew 6:25-34
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,
29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

A person living for kingdom of self suffers from the dynamic of forgetfulness regarding his identity. In Matthew 6, Christ is saying that much of our struggle is rooted in "identity amnesia." We forget that we are God's beloved, and that He has promised to care for us and meet our needs, more so that even the birds or flowers that receive His care daily.

We must stop trying to use other people to meet our "needs." But even we Christians have fallen prey to the thought that if we don't look out for ourselves and our needs, no one will.Tripp says to fight the cynicism that says, "If I love that way, I'll lose." We are to trust Christ and rely on Him. "Identity amnesia" (forgetting that we are Christ's and that He will care for us) always leads to "identity replacement." We are on a nervous quest to find our identity when we've already been given it in Christ. Then we begin to place more value on things less valuable in God's eyes, losing sight of what is most important.

Instead of marriage being at the center of our identity, it isn't anywhere in the circle of things we value - our functional treasures. (I understand "functional" to mean the treasure we live out. What we spend our time and money and thoughts and energy on - what we look forward to when we get home; what we spend our free time on; what we try to learn more about; what we talk about and think about. Regardless of what we say we treasure, our "functional treasures" are the ones we truly value.)

Living this way is living for ourselves. "The idol of idols is SELF." Galatians 3:13-15 says,

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

So, if we live for ourselves, it won't destroy our relationship, it will destroy us.

Jesus says, "But seek first my kingdom." The second lifestyle is Ministry, living for the kingdom of God and characterized by serving in love. The problem with our relationships is that we do not love God enough. We need to fix our relationships vertically first.

"Cruciform" love: willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not demand reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving.

"In the name of love, there is no duty too debase for me."

"If I only love you when you're lovable, who am I loving? - Me. To say, 'If you jump on my train (if you do the things I want you to do), I'll love you' is just ugly self-interest.""

Love is best born out of gratitude toward God for lavishing such love on us. We should be so full of the love of God, like a cup that is filled to the brim with water, that the love can't help but splash out - so that people can't get near us without getting wet.

Also, we need to remember God's design. That husband, that wife, is gloriously designed, but we don't always feel that way. God is the Creator. It is PRIDE to rise to that position and say how he or she should be designed (more personable, less serious, not so sensitive, more sensitive...). To do this is to "curse the work of the Creator in your spouse."

Are you affirming the work of the creator in the way you respond to your spouse?

Think of all the circumstances that God has woven together to have you and your spouse meet. The time, the place, the families. He has marvelously orchestrated your meeting your spouse, with all of his or her family ties, personality traits, and interests and He designed that specific person to be married to you. Your differences should be celebrated.

God is always at work in our hearts. Either we are a part of what God is doing in transforming the heart of our spouse or we are in the way of it. There is no middle ground. We are either responding in love to their sin and particular characteristics and are one of God's instruments of refining them, or we are a hindrance to the work God is doing. We have no capacity to change our spouse's heart; however, we are instrument that God uses to change them. Just like an artist's brush, we should aim to be a soft brush in the hand of God: a hard brush will not absorb much paint and will mar and scratch the surface of what it should be beautifying. A soft brush will absorb paint readily and will beautify the canvas. The only way to be a soft brush is to be full of God's love and trusting Him.