Dale Partridge - Ultimate Marriage #27： How To Find or Create Biblical Community

00:00:00.000 welcome to ultimate marriage today we are talking about the critical

00:00:15.880 difference between friendship and fellowship there is a difference between

00:00:19.860 friendship and fellowship sadly many Christians only have friendships and

00:00:24.240 and they don't actually have biblical fellowship. 0.73

00:00:28.080 And this is kind of an epidemic, I think, in Christian marriages.

00:00:31.240 We meet lots of people that are homesick and starving for deep, committed relationship fellowship,

00:00:41.860 which we're going to be talking about today.

00:00:44.200 A few things just before we get started.

00:00:46.020 As always, this is a podcast.

00:00:49.280 It's also a video show that you can watch.

00:00:51.580 We have so many people tag us all the time.

00:00:54.240 on YouTube that are, you know, watching the videos with their family or watching it while

00:01:01.180 they're folding laundry or on their lunch break at work. Or they've gotten groups of couples

00:01:05.660 together to watch them together and make Bible studies out of that. We've had people that have

00:01:10.140 done that. It's pretty amazing what the Lord is doing with this show. So just making sure that

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00:01:35.760 I've teared up a few times listening to the reviews or reading the reviews. So you guys can

00:01:40.420 listen to this again on Spotify, on Google Play. You can listen to it on Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube.

00:01:46.380 It's available for you guys, and the reviews are really helping the exposure of the show, guys.

00:01:52.420 We have had a huge increase in downloads, and so the show is growing.

00:01:57.940 There's a chance that we might have 100,000 downloads this month coming up.

00:02:03.040 Don't even know what to do with that.

00:02:04.460 Just trying to figure out how to best steward this conversation.

00:02:08.740 So we're going to talk about community.

00:02:12.320 Before we get started, I want to give Veronica's opinion on just how important community has been for our life and our marriage.

00:02:18.020 I think community in our marriage and in our life has been super vital, especially this last year with all the trials that we went through and everybody bearing the burdens with us.

00:02:28.760 It has been a huge blessing.

00:02:30.520 Yeah, we could not have done this last year without it.

00:02:34.300 I can see how some couples get bitter who don't have that.

00:02:39.300 Like they get bitter at the church.

00:02:40.280 because they go, why didn't you come and help me?

00:02:42.820 Where were you when I was struggling through this?

00:02:47.380 I'm going to open up with a story our friends told us about community,

00:02:54.260 and you guys might resonate with the story.

00:02:56.660 They were in a Bible study with six other Christian couples

00:02:59.700 who they met every Wednesday for almost two years.

00:03:04.600 And one Wednesday, a certain couple just didn't show up.

00:03:08.440 No one thought anything of it, but all of a sudden they get a text message, a group text message or something, some notification that this couple who didn't go had been fighting for months.

00:03:18.360 And now they were getting ready to file for divorce that week.

00:03:22.680 And the common response from everybody in the group was, oh, my gosh, we had no idea.

00:03:29.540 And I think this is a pretty, again, common thing.

00:03:33.380 people are really good at hiding their stuff and we're we see this in ministry all the time

00:03:40.840 the people you you think you'd have we had no idea this is a problem and this this can't happen in

00:03:48.280 christian circles we have married couples and singles calling themselves christian yet walking

00:03:53.260 contrary to the way that the instruction of scripture calls us to walk which is to be known

00:03:58.740 and to be close and connected with one another.

00:04:04.340 And we're seeing like a spirit of independence.

00:04:07.760 Totally.

00:04:08.600 That many couples are walking out

00:04:12.340 and singles especially are really struggling

00:04:15.100 with this spirit of independence.

00:04:17.500 Couples that are hiding in crowds.

00:04:19.460 That's why it's so easy to go to a big church

00:04:21.280 because you walk in and walk out.

00:04:25.220 Yeah, and no one knows.

00:04:26.480 Nobody knows that you're there.

00:04:28.740 Um, and you're known by few and accountable to nobody.

00:04:31.760 And that's really the big thing that our flesh loves is to not be known by anybody and accountable

00:04:38.380 to literally not a single person.

00:04:40.880 Complete freedom.

00:04:41.800 Complete freedom.

00:04:42.740 Yeah.

00:04:43.100 What they're doing, how they're living their lives, what they're thinking, how they're

00:04:47.340 walking.

00:04:48.020 Yeah.

00:04:48.200 They don't want anybody speaking in to their lives.

00:04:50.280 And I don't think that people are like intentionally doing this, but this, the culture that we

00:04:54.840 live in the religion of today is freedom autonomy individualism self-centeredness selfishness like

00:05:02.940 this is what our society breeds like we are designed to love that kind of stuff and you're

00:05:10.100 in it so much that you don't even realize it yeah you don't even realize it yeah and

00:05:13.840 a lot of the relationships that i'm even seeing in the church is there's this kind of this like

00:05:19.000 arms out like um this close but no further you're allowed to come this close to me in our life but

00:05:26.240 i don't want to go any deeper but the second you ask me a question about how my marriage is doing

00:05:31.780 like whoa you're getting too personal yeah or or if there's some sort of uh exhortation or correction

00:05:37.880 then they'll you know manipulate the conversation into another they'll reroute it yeah or they just

00:05:43.440 stop showing up in the relationship. And this is, again, to the detriment of the church, we are

00:05:49.640 having this problem. The word autonomy means auto namus, which auto means self, namus means law,

00:05:59.780 self-law, self-ruling. We love that idea to not be accountable to the church. We want to be a part

00:06:05.720 of the body of Christ, yet be a self-ruling entity. It is literally an oxymoron. That is

00:06:12.820 impossible to do to say in the scriptures that i am an autonomous figure and also part of the body

00:06:19.460 of christ that is not what you see throughout the scriptures we can't um confuse and this is what

00:06:26.600 happened i think at this this bible study that our friends were in is that you can't confuse

00:06:31.940 proximity with closeness or connection um and or i should say you can't confuse proximity or

00:06:41.440 closeness with connection because they're two different things you could be like physically

00:06:46.800 close to somebody physically around them frequently yeah but it doesn't mean that you have a close-knit

00:06:53.140 deep relationship totally and i think the older generation really struggles with this they you

00:06:58.680 know the the conversations are just surface level constantly they're very private they don't want to

00:07:05.100 be known, accountable, corrected. And it might be a generational thing, but the millennial thing is

00:07:12.420 now, it's very much still alive here today. And a couple of things I want to say is that every

00:07:22.740 Sunday, you know, we have these big church experiences, lots of proximity, lots of closeness,

00:07:28.820 no connection no depth right friendship is not fellowship we have lots of friendships

00:07:36.640 we know a lot of people we're connected on the internet with a lot of people

00:07:40.840 but proximity of relationship is not participation in relationship and i think that we as the church

00:07:48.320 need to understand this in your marriage you need to be seeking out people that you can have

00:07:53.580 participatory relationship with and um we're not friendship poor we're fellowship poor we're 10

00:07:59.640 feet wide and one inch deep and it's a big problem this is actually what we're going to talk about

00:08:04.280 today is probably the greatest insurance policy for your marriage and family that you could ever

00:08:09.920 have outside of your relationship with god biblical community biblical community yes so

00:08:15.060 yeah let's talk about this idea of biblical community um and go through some scripture

00:08:19.800 So Ephesians 1, 22 through 23 says,

00:08:22.560 And he put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church,

00:08:27.000 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

00:08:32.300 Yeah, so that's in Ephesians.

00:08:33.560 This idea is that Christ is the head of the church.

00:08:36.580 This is the theology we need to understand in order to get the behavior that we're going to talk about here in a minute.

00:08:43.100 This is when he says here, I'm reading the scriptures,

00:08:45.680 and he put all things under his feet and gave to himself head over all things, the church.

00:08:49.800 which is his body. He's talking about the universal church. There's two types of church

00:08:54.840 that you see in the scriptures, universal and local. And so he's saying the universal church,

00:09:01.260 which is everybody that's Christian and alive today, and everybody who's accepted the Lord

00:09:06.560 and even passed away. Universal church now and in the past. Now that's different from the local

00:09:13.400 church. And we see this actually in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the very end, verse 27. He says,

00:09:19.800 Now you, he points the finger to the Corinthians.

00:09:23.120 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

00:09:27.800 We are individually members of the body of Christ.

00:09:31.260 We are not independent entities with our own personal relationship with Jesus Christ over here in the corner.

00:09:38.380 Absent like, you know, an appendage that has been amputated off.

00:09:44.820 That's not the role that we are to play. 0.93

00:09:46.600 The isolated Christian has nothing to do with scripture. 0.72

00:09:51.520 And so again, this idea of universal and local, the doctrine is universal, but the doctrines 0.57

00:09:57.760 of the church and how we should be walking with one another are universal, but they are

00:10:01.840 to be played out locally.

00:10:04.320 Yeah, we're not independent entities.

00:10:07.480 That's something that we have to remember.

00:10:10.280 The theme of scripture is unity.

00:10:13.180 God's heart is for us to be unified, to be bearing one another's burdens,

00:10:16.240 to be one anothering, to be committed to one another,

00:10:20.620 and to fellowship with one another.

00:10:23.160 Proverbs 18.1 says,

00:10:24.380 A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire.

00:10:27.460 Yeah, and this is, we don't realize this even,

00:10:31.900 but I mean, in our own walk, Veronica and I's own story,

00:10:36.480 we have met countless couples who isolate themselves.

00:10:39.620 they're just not interested in really having relationship and sometimes they don't even know

00:10:45.720 that they're doing that they blame it on oh i'm an introvert i'm an introvert or there's always a

00:10:50.960 good reason to not show up to the event there's always a good reason why they can't make it and

00:10:57.920 there are some actual valid reasons yeah every now but this if this be this way of um preventing

00:11:05.140 relationship and connection is a way of life for you. That's a different thing.

00:11:11.200 Yeah. When it becomes the pattern of the relationship, that's when it actually becomes

00:11:16.040 a problem. And I think that's for many Christians, there's just always a good reason. And they're 1.00

00:11:21.600 actually not making any sacrifice for relationship. And what is love? It's sacrifice and commitment,

00:11:29.140 sacrifice and commitment. And that's what you need to be able to do. Is it convenient for us

00:11:33.900 to go and have dinner with many of the dinners that we attend no no it's not we make it work

00:11:41.500 because there's a sacrifice involved and there's a commitment to one another because it's not

00:11:48.460 just about us it's about them and um i mean veronica and i have dinner with people whether

00:11:59.780 our house or someone else's house depending on the week depending on the week three to four times a

00:12:04.360 week and that's probably pretty accurate right yeah usually about three I'd say I mean yeah

00:12:09.680 every now and then there'll be a four thrown in because we do like to make sure we're maintaining

00:12:14.120 some type of routine and balance at home yeah um but I'd say yeah probably about three times a week

00:12:19.300 we either have people over or we're at somebody else's house yeah and this is been for years we've

00:12:24.440 been doing this. And so, I mean, we are, we are deeply intertwined with people and that is an

00:12:31.540 important component. I want you to evaluate, is that us or do we just kind of like do dinner with

00:12:36.500 people like twice a month? Is it because you don't have anybody to do that with, or it's because

00:12:41.480 you're just not willing to be inconvenienced, inconvenienced, you know, um, this idea of

00:12:48.060 relationship that only occurs on my terms is very popular today. Yeah. And we need to be careful

00:12:55.620 with that. Trying to find where I'm at on my notes here. Okay. So yeah. You know, okay. This is a

00:13:03.480 good point I made here on my notes. I get ladies that write me all the time. I have a lot of 1.00

00:13:10.100 followers that are women. They write me all the time with just this idea how they should deal 0.85

00:13:15.220 with their husband's problem and my response if I respond to them is do you not have anybody

00:13:23.240 any other men in your community that you can turn to with their wife yeah like just present or their

00:13:30.660 pastoral figure yeah I just go like if Veronica has a problem that that we cannot solve in our

00:13:37.600 marriage. In biblical community, she has the right and ability, and we are to be known and cared for

00:13:45.800 one another, and we'll talk about these scriptures in a minute. She can absolutely go to one of the

00:13:52.200 other men in our community, connect with Jen and Aaron, or, you know, some of the other fellow

00:13:58.060 people in our community, Cody and Stacey, these families that we've walked with and say, hey,

00:14:03.060 guys, I need you to go talk to Dale. We got an issue going on over here. And after you've already

00:14:10.160 tried multiple times to work it out with your spouse on your own, don't just go run to your

00:14:16.120 friends without actually even talking to your spouse about it. Don't bombard them with, you

00:14:21.280 know, attacking them with, Hey, you need to work on this. Yeah, totally. So, um, I wanted to say

00:14:28.780 that not having close, committed biblical community

00:14:32.200 is actually a really huge risk

00:14:34.540 for your family and for marriage 0.99

00:14:36.200 because God didn't design the wife

00:14:39.000 to be the sole correction 1.00

00:14:41.440 and accountability engine for her husband.

00:14:44.960 She is the main accountability partner for sure,

00:14:48.060 but she's not the only accountability partner.

00:14:51.140 That's what biblical community is for.

00:14:53.060 You have other men in our fellowship.

00:14:55.800 I've got other women in the fellowship 0.97

00:14:57.240 to help keep keep us accountable well and what happens to a couple who only have themselves 0.89

00:15:03.660 they start fighting i mean they fight more and more and more and more because it's

00:15:09.280 if you're constantly correcting your spouse that's all you get from your spouse you you're

00:15:14.460 exasperate each other yeah totally because you get into this point where you go you're the only

00:15:18.900 other entity holding each other accountable and no you people you need other men and other women

00:15:25.800 And men, if you don't have two or three other men in your life who are willing, you've given permission to, call you out, keep you accountable.

00:15:36.000 When they see your life that's walking outside of scripture, that they are to come to you and talk to you about that, exhort you.

00:15:44.720 And ladies, same thing, right?

00:15:47.520 Totally. 0.98

00:15:47.700 Getting ladies known, because you know what?

00:15:50.520 And I'll actually say this as a testimony to our own marriage. 0.99

00:15:53.380 there has been a variety of things in our marriage that i've never had to fix because another woman

00:16:00.480 did it for me and i think the same is true for vice versa for me yeah there has been so much

00:16:08.380 correction that i've received from other men that veronica i'm sure what what has thought about

00:16:15.240 you know we don't need to bring every single correction to each other when you walk in

00:16:21.840 community because the community itself the church the thing that god designed here on earth as the

00:16:27.640 organization the entity to sanctify each other if you don't have that and scripture says to exhort

00:16:35.460 one another daily yeah which the idea of exhorting which is advice with encouragement right just

00:16:43.220 encouraging advice but it's it's it's a correction almost yeah a correction corrected you know an

00:16:49.460 encouraging correction. It doesn't leave you kind of hanging low. How did we get here? How did the

00:16:55.880 church get here? Like, how have we learned to behave this way? Why do we have so many couples

00:17:01.020 in the church that are desperate for rich, deep, committed relationships? They don't even have like

00:17:06.980 one or two. We've had people come to our marriage retreats and they have zero people at home.

00:17:12.240 They're the only Christian, dedicated Christian people that they know and can't find anybody else

00:17:19.020 to walk in biblical community with yeah and i think that everybody thinks like oh that's not me

00:17:24.560 and like reality i want you to double check yourself because it very might well be you

00:17:30.280 um do you actually have yeah that do you are you being discipled by an older

00:17:35.440 more mature believer on a regular basis are you in fellowship with the same couples having weekly

00:17:42.740 gatherings, dinners, coffees, meetings, Bible studies, like on a regular basis, that you're

00:17:49.560 walking and sharpening each other and sanctifying each other through the word of truth. This is the

00:17:55.340 habitat for the Christian and for the Christian marriage is to be in community. There's actually

00:18:02.060 a really interesting study before I jump on this real quick that showed children who were raised

00:18:07.180 in community have a far greater chance of sticking with the value system of their childhood

00:18:16.060 when they get older than those children who were raised in isolation.

00:18:20.760 And the reason is when children are raised in community who all share a like-minded

00:18:27.480 system, a value system, it's not just their parents that are providing this corrective

00:18:35.380 direction or instruction. They're actually getting the same instruction from other parents

00:18:39.960 and other adults and other peers and other families. And so it seems to a child like,

00:18:46.580 wow, this is actually the way that the world works versus I'm going to rebel against my parents

00:18:52.040 because they were the only ones that walk this way. And so I'm just encouraging you guys,

00:18:58.020 you want other families in your life to the point where we have other families that absolutely

00:19:02.900 correct our children. And we have given them permission to do so. Now, they're not going to

00:19:07.460 go and necessarily discipline our children, but they can tell them, no, don't do that. Give them

00:19:12.400 a lesson. Talk to them about that. Tell them to say sorry to another child. That kind of stuff

00:19:17.080 exists in our community. Okay. How do we get here? I'm going to dive in for this just for a few

00:19:25.980 minutes and then um veronica's gonna take point number two the um the current church in my opinion

00:19:33.480 nurtures what i call the doctrines of distance and there's just a few things that we've been

00:19:38.360 the like the design of how we do church has taught us a lot about how to behave and so number one is

00:19:46.120 it's kind of come if you can like come to church if you can um if you get eight hours of sleep and

00:19:54.240 you don't have a cold and everything's good with the kids baby slept great baby slept great you

00:19:58.240 know you have nothing better to do your friends aren't in town come to church um most couples

00:20:05.200 could miss church for three months and nobody would call them nobody would even notice most

00:20:13.640 honestly most many christian people i like if you go to a church that like over three or four hundred

00:20:19.100 people most people could not show up at least for a few weeks and no one would even really know well

00:20:23.720 in this come if you can thing bleeds over into the into real life it's not just church well and

00:20:29.920 this is the moral i don't know if you're planning on getting to that point but yeah like inviting

00:20:34.460 somebody over for dinner and just like oh yeah like maybe we'll see like let me check my schedule

00:20:39.480 i'll get back to you yeah and then nothing ever gets scheduled because it's like oh something else

00:20:44.300 more fun is actually going on i'm gonna go do that yeah there is no commitment there is no

00:20:48.020 sacrifice there is no relationship there is no participation it's whatever i can get out of the

00:20:52.100 relationship hebrews 10 24 to 25 says our talk specifically on this it says and let us consider

00:21:00.300 one another in order to stir up love and good works that's why consider one another to stir up

00:21:05.440 love and good works 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves as is the manner of some

00:21:13.420 but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day capital d the day of christ

00:21:21.380 approaching um this was written when you would get killed for gathering as a as christians um

00:21:28.860 and paul's saying if i think paul wrote hebrews but that's my thought uh the author of hebrews is

00:21:34.840 saying uh yeah stop forsaking the gathering of yourselves get in there go get like have community

00:21:43.540 show up at church um and this is one of those things committed do you do you actually go to

00:21:49.460 church over the last four years we've probably missed sunday gathering with our home church

00:21:57.040 i don't know 10 10 times maybe just because we've been sick i was gonna say like five times but yeah

00:22:04.900 maybe between five and ten i guess over four years oh yeah because there was three consecutive

00:22:09.440 weeks there because we were so sick but yeah so it's just very rare we schedule our days around

00:22:15.220 church. We schedule our vacations around church. We schedule those things because the gathering of

00:22:21.860 the saints and those people are priority in our lives and they know it. Yeah. So point number two

00:22:29.080 on how did we get here? Be an inactive spectator, non-functioning audience member. Yeah. This is

00:22:37.080 what we've, what we've become. That's, well, that's how the church, the, you know, institutional

00:22:41.780 church has designed it to be. Church is an event that you attend, not a community that you

00:22:48.260 participate in. It's something to go to. Yeah. The very place that was designed to teach real

00:22:54.540 relationships is actually bankrupt of real relationships. Like you said, 10 feet wide,

00:22:59.400 one inch deep. Yeah. And the number one reason people leave the church is because they didn't

00:23:04.920 actually feel connected with anybody. We hear that all the time. All the time. Yeah. We actually had

00:23:09.860 people that were submitting why they left the church stories and the number one thing kept

00:23:15.280 coming back is that once I was saved nobody cared about me yeah like the main thing was evangelized

00:23:20.980 to me and then there's oh they're saved move on to the next lost person but that just to touch

00:23:25.520 on this point where it says where I said um because they didn't feel connected with anyone

00:23:30.360 I remember one good thing that uh we experienced when we were going to the institutional church we

00:23:35.560 um started going to this marriage group right after we got married and we sat and it's these

00:23:41.160 community groups and so you go into this room and there's you know 100 tables in there and there's

00:23:45.640 i don't know five couples at each table and you kind of meet with that community group every week

00:23:50.360 um talk all married couples and we sat with this this group they kind of got assigned to them and

00:23:56.760 we did not connect with them at all they were very sweet but we just did not connect with them at all

00:24:01.320 Um, but one thing I was thankful for was that they, uh, really encouraged you like, Hey,

00:24:06.800 if you don't connect, like go find another group, go find another group, like no hard

00:24:09.600 feelings.

00:24:10.360 Um, and we did, and that's where we met like our, our best friends, Aaron and Jen Smith.

00:24:15.160 Uh, they have a podcast, a great marriage podcast as well, marriage after God.

00:24:20.240 Um, but yeah, it's just, it's, but so many people are leaving the church because had

00:24:26.120 we not been encouraged to go find somebody that we do connect with, we probably would

00:24:31.080 have left the church way sooner than it's why we left the other churches yeah you know so it's it's

00:24:36.880 it's absolutely part of the the deep desire most christians are surviving on starvation rations of

00:24:44.960 relationship they just have enough to barely get through life you know they have a friend that they

00:24:50.200 they had that lives across the across the country and they talk to all the time but they don't we

00:24:55.080 are overflowing with relationships here like it's hard to keep up we we have literally 50 maybe

00:25:04.200 30 to 50 deep relationships that we we like we want to spend more and these are biblically committed

00:25:11.360 rich desired relationships that we love each other and we just can't get we don't have enough time

00:25:18.800 from all and so we're actually seeing a real community where multiple people are participating

00:25:23.640 and it's just really beautiful.

00:25:26.620 So point number one was come if you can.

00:25:28.320 Point number two is you're an inactive spectator

00:25:32.480 or a non-functioning audience member.

00:25:34.540 That's part of the doctrines of distance.

00:25:35.820 Number three is they just say,

00:25:39.280 watch the simulcast or listen to the podcast.

00:25:42.240 Okay, because you're simply a consumer

00:25:44.700 and not a contributor to the body,

00:25:47.180 which again, falls into your relationship

00:25:50.280 understanding and definitions.

00:25:52.200 just watch or listen to just watch the live video or listen to the podcast in other words the church

00:25:57.920 has become merely a knowledge source or knowledge hub not a relationship source or relationship hub

00:26:05.860 it's just about going to learn it actually has nothing to do with relationship and this is why

00:26:12.180 a lot of people leave they read the scriptures they hear about the christian community you'll

00:26:14.720 know them by their love and they don't experience that yeah and eventually you just stop going to

00:26:21.040 church altogether because you can listen to it while you go on your morning run or while you go

00:26:24.800 and do all these other fun things. Yeah. And eventually you start listening to the other

00:26:28.260 pastor. That's not even at your church because John Piper is a far better teacher than your

00:26:32.560 pastor. And all of a sudden you're, you're accountable to nobody and you're just going

00:26:37.380 to church in your podcast. And there is no relationship. People stay at churches because

00:26:42.800 of people, not because of good worship music, not because of good teaching. Those kinds of things

00:26:48.900 will like they literally fall like they'll hold somebody there for a period of time great teaching

00:26:54.040 can hold somebody there for maybe a year a couple years great worship music can hold people there

00:26:57.980 for a time if you don't have relationships deep committed relationships the back door of the

00:27:02.880 church will be spinning as fast as the front door of the church people come in they stay for a year

00:27:06.960 or two and they leave and that is what's happening because we can't figure out how to do relationship

00:27:12.500 and we need to do that and especially in marriages because marriages model it for children

00:27:18.360 and children will define what it looks like

00:27:21.400 to be in community by what their parents have done.

00:27:24.900 Number four, this is a big one.

00:27:28.640 I think this is probably the most, I guess,

00:27:31.700 the deepest cause is that

00:27:34.060 outsource your burdens to professionals,

00:27:36.960 not to other members of the body.

00:27:40.780 Yeah, don't lean on your community.

00:27:44.040 Go get counseling. 1.00

00:27:45.840 And not from the older married couple in your community.

00:27:50.220 Go get counseling from the professional counselor. 0.78

00:27:52.300 Again, this is how did we get here.

00:27:53.940 Yeah, this is how did we get here.

00:27:54.800 This is what the doctrines of distance, this is number four,

00:27:59.700 is this also has nothing to do in scripture. 0.50

00:28:04.020 Not that Christian counselors are bad.

00:28:06.360 They're great.

00:28:07.760 But what I'm saying is we've been taught that you don't bear your burdens.

00:28:13.360 You have anxiety.

00:28:14.000 you have depression you have worry you have anger issues you have pornography problems

00:28:20.980 you have marriage problems you have children parenting problems everybody's going to counselors

00:28:27.520 and nobody's going to each other and so i get this actually all the time as kind of a thought leader

00:28:35.100 all these people write me and they they think that i possess the solution that they're looking for

00:28:43.480 and i go i'm a stranger geographically relationally like why are you telling me this

00:28:49.140 like the deepest parts of their soul veronica and i get it often like the deepest things you're just

00:28:55.500 like whoa first why are you telling us now not not that we you know rejecting this but we're

00:29:03.520 just saying is like this is evidence that they either a have nobody else to talk to

00:29:09.100 or b they do and they're choosing not to which is exactly the problem what's really going on is that

00:29:16.980 they would rather share in many cases they're broken and embarrassing areas of their lives

00:29:22.840 with complete strangers then muster up the vulnerability and humility required to open up

00:29:28.960 to those who are right next to them in their life it's really easy to be vulnerable with somebody

00:29:34.100 you don't know because they're they're not in your life yeah they're not in your life you're

00:29:39.080 not gonna they're likely not gonna judge you real harsh because hey okay like i've been there too

00:29:45.280 but yeah you've got to open up to god has given us the body of christ he's given us brothers and

00:29:53.480 sisters to lean on to bear our burdens with and you've got to use that you gotta drag that stuff

00:30:00.860 into the light the scriptures talk about just drag it it's not it's not gonna walk out you got

00:30:09.280 to just call your friends and say hey we need to sit down we need to talk our marriage isn't doing

00:30:13.620 good and we need to talk to somebody about it and your marriage seems to be doing better than ours

00:30:20.940 but i just we just need to pull this into the light and talk about it and this is what's going

00:30:26.320 on. He's angry and I'm bitter. Or whatever it is. Or found out that John here is looking at porn.

00:30:36.000 I don't even know what to do. We are, the one another's in scripture are called the mutual

00:30:43.560 pastoral mandates. We are mutually pastoral to one another. This is what's so unique about the

00:30:50.400 body of christ now the forgiver the great forgiver is christ but we are shepherding one another

00:30:57.940 and um the church in this situation this doctrines of distance has literally taught us to outsource

00:31:06.480 the very thing that makes us close which is vulnerability and openness like when we share

00:31:16.040 something deep and embarrassing with another couple, oh, the relationship just goes from the

00:31:22.300 three-foot section of the pool to the 10-foot section of the pool. That's how relationships

00:31:27.120 grow deep. And so if you're not constantly in deep, messy, hard relationships, man, you haven't

00:31:35.180 even experienced it yet. This is... Yeah, I wouldn't say necessarily constantly. I'm sorry.

00:31:40.240 because it's not always that way but um and i would also use wisdom in your vulnerability too

00:31:47.100 there is wisdom in not sharing everything uh with whoever it is that you're sharing it with

00:31:53.400 um so good point and there there's wisdom in who because we have certain couples that we're

00:32:02.500 going to share with and certain couples that we are not as close with but like our friends aaron

00:32:09.180 and Jen they're as deep as it gets with us I don't think there's really anything in our life that if

00:32:15.460 they asked we wouldn't tell them and that has been earned over 10 years um but you need to start

00:32:22.540 somewhere yeah totally start somewhere agree um so going back to scripture there are over a hundred

00:32:28.960 one and others in scriptures in Galatians 6 1 it says brothers if anyone is caught in any

00:32:34.380 transgression you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of

00:32:38.280 gentleness mm-hmm James 5 16 says therefore confess your sins to one

00:32:44.460 another and pray for one another that you may be healed Luke 17 3 says pay

00:32:50.940 attention to yourselves if your brother sins rebuke him and if you repent

00:32:55.000 forgive him and in first Thessalonians 5 11 it says therefore encourage one

00:33:00.180 another and build one another up just as you are doing if you're trying to escape the these are

00:33:06.900 just a few that i found oh yeah there's tons of them but just that we are called to be in each

00:33:12.860 other's lives and we we do biblical community you guys know that um relearnchurch.org is our

00:33:20.260 ministry we've had a variety of people over the years who it's hard to be to be in this community

00:33:27.500 Not because it's painful, but because it's a requirement of walking according to the scriptures and being known.

00:33:37.100 I would say, yeah, and people, your flesh doesn't like to be known.

00:33:41.120 No, it doesn't like to be known.

00:33:42.740 And so we've had many people over the years.

00:33:44.520 Satan loves you wanting to be isolated.

00:33:46.800 Yeah, it's exactly what feels good is to not open up.

00:33:51.840 And so we have to trust the safest and most joyful place that we will be.

00:33:57.500 will be under the instruction of Scripture and God's people

00:34:01.140 and the counsel that comes with God's people,

00:34:04.160 just to be known there.

00:34:06.740 So a couple points that we'll make

00:34:08.380 as we get kind of close to closing here.

00:34:11.620 True Christianity is deeply entrenched with community.

00:34:16.380 Like, I'm talking, you know, you read the book of Acts

00:34:18.840 and these people are selling things,

00:34:20.980 giving them, like, their possessions to one another,

00:34:23.400 like, totally walking out a unified life

00:34:27.020 now this is descriptive of what happened it's not necessarily prescriptive of how we should live

00:34:33.300 exactly but man i mean there's in our community if someone loses their job

00:34:40.380 and rent is due the community covers it and we don't even have to talk about it it's not even

00:34:48.400 talked about people just make sure that the bills are paid that is because you're in rich community

00:34:56.100 and what about talk about a safety net totally like we we always think about man like what if

00:35:01.100 what happens if like yeah we get really sick or which we did this year uh or last year what

00:35:06.120 like even more seriously what if one was gets cancer or something like that yeah or you know

00:35:10.420 um something just goes wrong financially you know we we talk about being wise of their money

00:35:15.940 but we also know that there's the church is here to take care of us and that's just what's not

00:35:22.740 happening. So many Christians are living on credit cards and they're going into huge debt.

00:35:27.760 And so the question you have to ask yourselves is when you look at your life and your marriage

00:35:33.580 and your family, do you see the rich, deep, committed, sacrificial relationships that you

00:35:41.020 hear about in the Bible? Or are you just kind of walking around isolated? There's two people.

00:35:47.120 there's the people that are i we are totally willing and wanting this relationship and then

00:35:54.060 there's the people who um you know actually don't want it like they're actually part of the problem

00:36:00.580 well and then there's the people that think that they want it but once they come face to face with

00:36:04.560 it actually end up being the other people and isolate themselves or detour yeah who's gonna

00:36:10.720 say no to friends right but are you really willing to put in the work yeah the second somebody asks

00:36:16.900 you a more intimate question you're like whoa whoa whoa slow down yeah or to give up something

00:36:22.440 on your calendar to come spend time with them this is the pastoral care is that you don't just

00:36:29.420 talk to the people that you have a natural affinity with sometimes there's a young lady

00:36:33.840 or a young man who needs some help and you know what naturally you probably wouldn't become really

00:36:40.300 great friends but they're a brother or sister in Christ and you go you sacrifice something in your

00:36:45.700 life and you go and spend time with them spend time with them yeah and so um uh I want to talk

00:36:54.960 one last thing just about today there's people that are struggling with this because they're

00:37:01.360 always on the road or they're always taking vacations or they're always moving um we've

00:37:09.760 seen this in our own life before um what do you have to think what's your thoughts on that just 1.00

00:37:15.260 like people that Christians that you can't get close to them because they're always moving 0.91

00:37:21.280 they're always on vacations and there's an obsession with the culture right now of 0.98

00:37:25.980 being on the go and traveling constantly no roots let's live in an rv like let's just do this thing

00:37:33.540 and I don't know I just want to challenge that perspective I don't know what are your thoughts

00:37:38.560 it just goes back to the the my first thought is just it just goes back to the scripture

00:37:42.360 Proverbs 18 1 where it says a man who seeks it or isolate the man who isolates

00:37:46.240 themselves seeks his own desire which means I mean seeks his own desire that

00:37:52.300 is that selfishness only cares about themselves and scriptures calls us to

00:37:59.680 bear one another's burdens there's all those one another's in the scriptures

00:38:03.540 we're supposed to be doing community and walking out our lives with other people 0.53

00:38:09.460 And that's what makes us look so peculiar to people that are non-believers. 0.77

00:38:13.520 Totally. 0.99

00:38:14.380 Yeah.

00:38:14.620 And I just go, is it wrong to take a vacation?

00:38:17.340 No.

00:38:18.740 No, not at all.

00:38:19.520 But if you're always on the go.

00:38:21.520 You can't get close to anybody.

00:38:23.060 You can't.

00:38:24.020 And it's because I'm going to do what I want to do.

00:38:27.020 And I'm not actually thinking about the rest of the body, the members of the body,

00:38:30.620 on how I can help in their life and the work that they might have in my life.

00:38:34.620 and so uh i think about stillness and availability and accessibility

00:38:42.160 are the true currencies of biblical relationship you got to be still enough for people to get

00:38:51.000 connected with you you got to be available we just we are available like we just make

00:38:56.940 ourselves available um and you got to be accessible come on over people are always

00:39:02.520 shocked they write us on instagram they say hey we're in town like oh come on over they're like

00:39:08.140 freaked out like like really okay yeah here's our address come over and we we meet with these people

00:39:13.940 and and have dinner with them and how many times have we done that quite a few yeah quite a few

00:39:19.680 we've even had a couple spend the night at our house we didn't even know yeah multiple times

00:39:26.400 actually and we instagram stalk him but um it's othering othering and and giving preference

00:39:36.280 to one another and willingness to be there the christian life is all about

00:39:42.440 dying to yourself dying to your own fleshly desires dying to your own to to glorify god

00:39:50.200 and to serve him and part of serving him is loving on his children and other brothers and

00:39:56.700 sisters and god promises that your life will actually be better if you do that and it we

00:40:00.560 have seen the fruit of that we have we have fruit on our tree and yeah like our life has been better

00:40:06.020 because of that is what i'm saying yeah and our our relationships are rich and people come into

00:40:11.220 our community and they go whoa i've never seen anything like this we actually our friends david

00:40:16.700 and jill um who who live on our property with us they uh they moved from san diego and they were

00:40:25.520 having some community stuff there they were you know moved there for a business trip they ended

00:40:28.500 up coming back up here and they go man we got instant friends like instant community it was so

00:40:32.700 weird there's they went immediately deep with like several couples and i was like oh that's so cool

00:40:38.220 just to see that it's not just us there's several people guys would you guys purpose yourself in

00:40:44.240 2019 to find or create or plant or make yourself available or pray for biblical community that's my

00:40:55.480 my heart now what are three steps you can take this year and focus on to help you help guide

00:41:02.400 you into that direction yeah and we're sometimes so afraid to be corrected oh man being corrected

00:41:09.040 it is a blessing it is it may sting and hurt in the moment but several years down the road

00:41:15.280 i mean i i'd say at least in our experience we're so much more thankful for it would you rather not

00:41:21.220 be corrected like what a crazy thing that would be no being corrected is so good uh the scriptures 0.89

00:41:29.480 say what faithful are the wounds of a friend um we hear a wise man loves a rebuke a fool despises 0.97

00:41:37.400 correction. And so people, community isn't, it might hurt sometimes, but it's not here to harm

00:41:45.160 you. It's here to heal you. And so with this, the idea of like, this is God's design for marriages

00:41:51.520 to be in community with other families and other kids and other marriages and other singles.

00:41:56.740 So our encouragement is to seek that out. The verse for this week is going to be Galatians 6,

00:42:06.120 one, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should

00:42:11.020 restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Great topic to think about. We need to focus constantly

00:42:18.140 on intentional, committed, sacrificial relationships. I want you guys to really

00:42:22.120 purpose yourselves this week to try to find biblical community. And be willing to be known.

00:42:28.200 Be willing to be known. We're not going to answer any questions this week. The show is a little bit

00:42:32.160 long. But this is a great time for you to leave a review. If you guys have not, just tap the stars

00:42:37.680 on the Apple iTunes app. And if you want to hear this podcast again, or you want to look at the

00:42:43.200 video or look at the scriptures that we referenced or the show notes, go ahead and go to

00:42:47.440 ultimatemarriage.com. Just go to the podcast section. This is episode number 27. On that note,

00:42:54.020 this is the end of the episode. So we'll see you next Wednesday. We will see you guys next week.

00:42:59.260 Take care.

00:43:00.160 Thank you for joining us on this episode of Ultimate Marriage.

00:43:03.000 If you're homesick for a stronger marriage, visit our website at ultimatemarriage.com

00:43:07.080 and consider enrolling in our one-year online marriage mentor program.

00:43:10.780 Also, if you're interested in learning more about building a better marriage,

00:43:13.720 follow Veronica and I on social media,

00:43:15.400 where each week we share tips, tricks, and lessons on building a biblical marriage.

00:43:29.260 Thank you.

Dale Partridge - January 09, 2019

Ultimate Marriage #27： How To Find or Create Biblical Community

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