FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

I hear you, Dane. Honestly, dude, I feel a little awkward giving sincere, specific encouragement to my spouse.

Speaker 2

Welcome to family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us@familylifetoday.com this is Family life today.

Speaker 3

This is going to be a fun day today.

Speaker 2

Why is that one we're going to because we're together.

Speaker 4

Well, that's because you're with me, I'm with you.

Speaker 3

It's always the best. But we're also going to be listening to Dane Orland today.

Speaker 4

That's a good day.

Speaker 3

And it's a message that he gave on the Love like youe Mean it marriage cruise last spring.

Speaker 4

Yeah, we were there in February. The sun was out, the wind was blowing. Thousands of couples on this boat. Family Life has done the Love Like You Mean It Cruise for over 20 years, and we've been on a lot of them.

And I'm not even a cruise guy. I wouldn't choose a cruise to be my vacation. But this cruise is the best thing ever because it's not just a vacation. You're working on your marriage.

Every night, there's a keynote talk on marriage. There are breakout sessions on topics that relate to your marriage. There are comedians on the boat, great bands and music, and it's great food.

Speaker 3

But you're also doing excursions. You're getting off on islands. It's fun.

And it's for every age group, every phase of marriage. If you have little kids, you need to get away. If you have teenagers, you need to get away. If you're empty nesters, you need to get away.

Yeah, and maybe bring some friends with you or if you're a parent, bring those adult kids or send them on the Love like you mean it marriage cruise.

Speaker 4

Yeah, we will be on the Love Like You Mean It cruise speaking next February, and we'd love to have you guys with us. You can go to familylifetoday.com and sign up to join the cruise and be there with us.

But you're going to hear talks like we're going to hear today. Dane Ortland gave this talk last year, and this is a topic that not a lot of people talk about. Although you're writing a book. You just wrote a book.

Speaker 3

This is my language right here. He's really talking about encouragement and the power that we have and how marriage can be transformed by the encouragement that we give our spouse. Here's Dane Ortland.

Speaker 1

**First definition: What do we mean by biblical encouragement?** You might hear something like, "Hey, I just want to encourage you to get up 30 minutes earlier and pray more. I want to encourage you to be more generous with your money." That is not what I'm talking about. That is not encouragement. That's law. That's shape up. What I mean by encouragement is the following: that subset of Christian love, a species of love. That subset of Christian love that identifies specific marks of God's presence in the life—now we're talking marriage here—in the life of our spouse, with words to our spouse without joking, without a concluding sarcastic comment that actually is retracting and withdrawing what you just said and emptying it. There's a time for jokes, but not in encouragement, as I'm commending it to you.

That subset of Christian love that identifies specific specificity, concrete. I saw the way you greeted Jennifer at church this morning. She was in some distress; that was clear. You interacted with her with listening and love. God, the Holy Spirit, must be alive and well in you. You know, I know that you have wanted to grow in gentleness. I don't know if you see it, but I see God doing that in you. Something like that. Now, you may already have objections rising up about this, so just hang in there with me. That's my definition of it.

**Three reasons we're reflecting on encouragement today.** Number one, encouragement. I have found, at least it's been true for me, encouragement is neglected in our churches and in our marriages today. Do you think about it? Do you talk about it? Do you hear? When was the last sermon you heard or Sunday school class talking about encouragement? Most of my life, as I say, I have neglected it. I have viewed it as nice but frothy, peripheral—the bubbles at the top of the root beer float. I just want you to know, guys, I no longer feel that way or believe that way about encouragement. Number one, it's neglected.

Number two, encouragement has disproportionate power. Do you not find this? C.S. Lewis died in 1963. He was friends with J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien wrote a letter in 1965, two years after Lewis had died, in which he said—I didn't write down the exact quote—but in which he said, "I would never have finished the Lord of the Rings had it not been for the encouragement," and he uses that word, "the encouragement of C.S. or Jack Lewis." Now, what would the world be without the Lord of the Rings? And Tolkien says, "I would never have brought it to completion." That was the phrase he used—had it not been for the encouragement, the unflagging encouragement of Jack Lewis.

Think of it this way: for you to encourage someone is to make a deposit in their heart that costs you about 50 cents. As it goes through the air into their ears and deposits in their heart, what happens is it is suddenly a deposit of several hundred dollars. It has disproportionate power. What it costs you to offer it pales in comparison to what it actually gives of life to the person receiving it. It has disproportionate power.

**Number three.** Finally, we are told repeatedly in Scripture to encourage one another, so we cannot get around it. Number three, it's in the Bible. Let's look at it. Four texts. I've given you a definition and three reasons. Four texts. Now, the first one is 1 Thessalonians 5:11, and I'm just going to say probably one quick thing about each one of these, so we're going to go real quick here. "Encourage one another. Encourage one another and build one another up." Insight number one from 1 Thessalonians 5: to encourage is to build up. This verb here that Paul uses, "build up," is an architectural term. It's literally a building term. You are building someone up. You're not puffing them up—that's flattery for your sake. You're building them up—encouragement for their sake.

Though, by the way, one of the great wonderful God-created secrets to encouragement is when you encourage someone, you set out to build them up. It also builds you up. Everyone wins. Encourage, build up. Maybe many of us in the room grew up in a home, the culture of which from dad or mom or others was not one of words building up, but of words tearing down. If so, the wondrous privilege that you and I have with our spouses, after they have been torn down in the home that they grew up in, is to build them back up with encouragement. "Encourage one another and build one another up."

**Text number 2: Romans 12:10.** I'm going to give you four texts. Text number 2: Romans 12:10. "Outdo one another in showing honor." The one place in all the Bible where we are told as Christians to defeat one another—outdo one another. Elbow your way to the front of the line in this thing called showing honor. Be the first one up the hill in this thing of showing honor or encouragement. It doesn't use the language of encourage; it uses this beautiful language that means the same thing of showing honor. It's the same word, if you have a Bible open, used over in chapter 13. The next chapter, we're in chapter 12. In Romans 13:7, it speaks of honor. Same Greek noun—honor to whom honor is due. The context there is the civil authorities. Paul says, "Pay to everyone exactly what you owe them. Pay to them what is owed." He says, "Honor to whom honor is due."

Now just notice in chapter 13, with regard to civil authorities, Paul says, "Give them exactly the right amount of honor that they deserve—neither more nor less, the correct amount when you're dealing with the world and the civil authorities and taxes and so on. But in the church and in your marriage with Christians, chapter 12: Outdo one another in showing honor." Flood, irrigate, deluge, lavish honor on one another. What a gorgeous vision for a way to be together. Outdo one another in showing honor. I would like to grow in that.

**Text number three: Hebrews 10.** It's verse 25 that I want to draw your attention to. I'll begin reading at verse 24 of Hebrews 10. "Let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works." Verse 25: "Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging." There it is. "But encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near." Apparently, encouragement is how we roll. In other words, the writer can swap in "encourage one another" as an equally viable phrase for "meeting together," because that's what we do. Is that true in your marriage? What about in your church? Would you say what's bubbling out all the time is meaningful encouragement? Let's grow in that.

**Text number four: Finally, 1 Peter 3:7.** The first one that is explicitly attached to marriage. Here in verses 1 through 6, Peter has been talking to wives. Now he pivots and talks to husbands in verse 7. "Husbands." This was a new discovery for me just this week, talking through this text with my wife. "Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor." Same word as Romans 12 and 13—showing honor. It means value. It's actually a word that was used to refer to monetary currency in the first century. "Showing honor, preciousness, value to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life."

Just one observation: apparently, I mean, Peter says the one thing—"Live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor." Apparently, husbands, guys, we are to lead the way in our marriages in showing honor. If there is an encouragement stalemate—maybe he was never there, and one of you or both of you would love for your marriage to be irrigated with this beautiful reality of encouraging one another—the husbands take the first step forward in encouraging.

Let me sum up those four texts to encourage us to build up: build up by showing lavish honor and thereby being a normal Christian. It's normal Christianity, and husbands lead the way.

Speaker 3

You're listening to family life today and we've been listening to Dane Ortland and.

Speaker 4

I'm challenged right now.

Speaker 3

I was so excited that he ended right there. Like, yes, husbands, step up.

Speaker 4

I mean, honestly, he was talking to both husbands and wives. But man, if. If I stepped up, it would change our marriage. I know it would. Just to speak life to encourage you. You do that every single day to me.

Speaker 3

You do that to me though too.

Speaker 4

Oh, good. Okay. I just wondered. I don't think I do it as much, but you are all pro. You're nice as encouragement. And we're only halfway done. Yeah, he's just in the middle of his talk. So we're going to go back and hear the rest of Dane.

Speaker 1

Five objections.

Objection number one. I hear you, Dane. Honestly, dude, I feel a little awkward giving sincere, specific encouragement to my spouse. Just brace yourself or plug your ears. One or the other. In what? Because the answer to that is actually, I say this with respect towards you. And the answer is actually, get over it. I know how you feel. Let's get over it together. Better to live a life of obeying the scripture awkwardly than holding it at arm's length comfortably.

Objection number two. But I can't find anything in my spouse to honor. Sir, you're not looking hard enough. Take a step back and get some perspective. And remember who this saint is that you are doing life with. If you went to the Art Institute of Chicago and walked up to a Monet, walked right up to the wall, and looked at it like this, an inch away, and said, I just can't see anything. Any beauty, any glory. We would tap you on the shoulder and say, back up and get some perspective. You didn't marry the person you're married to because, as you were dating, they made you miserable. There was something. There were many things. There was a constellation of glory about that person. Rekindle that. Look harder. Get some perspective.

Number three. Objection. But I don't have the gift of encouragement. And you might say it is a gift. And I would agree with you. In Romans 12, it does appear that encouragement is a gift. You might say, I don't have the gift of encouragement. Answer. You're probably right. Odds are you are correct. But here's the problem. While it is a gift, the apostles in the text we looked at do not come to the end of an exhortation to encourage one, therefore encourage one another and build one another up, comma, provided, of course, that you have the gift of encouragement. And if you do not, then you are excused from ever encouraging anyone, period. The New Testament calls to encouragement, while it is a gift, some will lead the way in the New Testament calls to encouragement land indiscriminately on all of us.

Objection number four. Won't I be promoting something unhealthy if I do this? Too much in my spouse pride or. I don't want to flatter them, I don't want to puff them up. I don't want to promote pride in my spouse. Now, as if in this room here of a couple hundred people, half of us say this half of the room here walked into this morning devotional, discouraged, in need of encouragement, and the other half walked into the room this morning blown up with pride, needing to be brought down. And we need to figure out who are the ones who need encouragement and who don't. What a misunderstanding of what it is to be a fallen human being. The old Scottish pastor Ian Maclaren said, have pity for everyone is fighting a hard battle. Better the possibility of pride with encouragement than the certainty of discouragement and thinness of marriage without it.

Objection number five. Shouldn't we also rebuke and correct? Isn't that in the New Testament? Yes, but we don't outdo one another in it. We are not, we are not trying to defeat one another. And I will do more rebuking and correcting than you. What if every gentle rebuke or correction which in a marriage is uttered something along the lines of, hey, I love you so much, and you don't do this in the middle of a fight. I love you so much. May I be so bold with my finite vision of reality here? May I be so bold as to just very cautiously and gently offer something I think I'm observing, and I may not be looking at things right like that. You know what I'm saying? You offer it cautiously and gently. What if every one of those came in the wake of a tidal wave of 10 or 50 or 100 encouragements? That's a correction you can receive.

Those are my five objections. Finally, one secret to it all, and this is if you know the logic of the New Testament, this is the nuclear core of the Christian life, including encouragement, namely, if we had time to study all four of the texts we have looked at, we would see that in each case, it is the good news of the gospel, of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and rising again in our place, that is informing and fueling and flowing into all four of those exhortations to encouragement. In other words, what is the gospel? God, so to speak, spoke life. He came with a word, a concrete word of life to you, saying, my son died in your place. I love and embrace you and invincibly, eternally befriend you and pull you into my heart. It's a word of life. The gospel is all we are doing in encouragement as believers, is passing on a word of life. In other words, we are just helping people feel what the gospel, what the good news actually feels like.

Speaker 4

You're listening to Family Life Today, and we've been listening to a portion of a talk that Dane Ortland gave on the Love Like You Mean It Cruise last February.

And, man, the way he ended that talk, just showing us that a simple word or act of encouragement is literally giving the gospel to your spouse, your neighbor, or your friend.

When you encourage them, you are speaking gospel life into them.

Speaker 3

I've never really thought of it that way. I mean, that's what Jesus does to us. He's constantly encouraging us. He sees us. And the crazy thing is he sees all of it and he still encourages us.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I've never thought of encouragement being a way for somebody to feel. I think that's the key word: to feel the impact of the gospel on their life. And so, man, that's motivating to say, okay, I want to be an encouraging person. I want to speak life, not death.

I want my neighbors to run into my front yard because every time they're around me, they feel seen and heard and they feel the impact of the gospel. Sometimes I don't want my neighbors anywhere near my front yard. But, man, when we're encouraging, it's a magnet and people are drawn to that.

And I think that's why people are drawn to Christ.

Speaker 3

So let us encourage you again.

Speaker 4

I like how you used the word encourage You. That's good.

Speaker 3

Come on. The love like you mean at Marriage Cruise, because your life and your marriage will be Transformed.

Speaker 4

Go to familylifetoday.com and sign up right now and we will see you with our sunglasses on in February.

Speaker 2

I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Dane Ortland on Family Life Today. And yes, the Wilsons are going to be there on the Love Like You Mean It Marriage Cruise. They may or may not have sunglasses on when you see them, but I encourage you to sign up so you can head over to familylifetoday.com and click on the Love Like You Mean It Marriage Cruise banner to secure your spot.

Right now, it's happening from February 8th through the 15th. It's a great experience to grow closer in your relationship with the Lord and grow closer with your spouse at the same time. Again, it's happening from February 8th through the 15th, and you can head over to familylifetoday.com and click on the banner to learn more.

And if you book before September 30th, you're going to save $400 per stateroom. Head over to familylifetoday.com. Hey, I just.

Speaker 3

Want to pause for a moment and remind you as a listener, you might need to hear this. You are not alone. No, you're not alone. And whatever you're going through today, you're not alone.

I don't know if you know this, but Dave and I have a team at Family Life today ready to pray for you. It's this incredible honor and privilege just to lift your name up to God. So if you please, please reach out to us, you can head on over to familylife.com/prayforme. Again, that's familylife.com/prayforme and tell us, how can we pray for you?

And we're not kidding. Dave and I have a prayer team specifically dedicated to praying for our listeners. Praying for you. I walk almost every day and that's when I'm gonna be praying for you. And Dave, you always fast on Fridays and that's when you pray.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Well, more than just Friday.

Speaker 4

Yeah, it isn't just Fridays, but all day Friday, while I'm getting hunger pangs, I'm praying. It's like breathing. I'm praying all day. And often I pray for Family Life listeners like you. And like Ann said, you're not alone.

Speaker 3

You matter to us.

Speaker 4

Yeah. And God is with you. And we would love to lift you up by name. So Again, go to familylife.comprayforme and we will pray for you and our team. We'll pray for you.

Speaker 2

Now, tomorrow we're going to hear from Ron and Nan Deal as they were on the Love Like You Mean It Marriage Cruise. They talk about the four destructive behaviors that predict divorce. Compelling stuff.

Tomorrow with the Deals and with the Wilsons, we hope you'll join us on behalf of David Ann Wilson.

I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today.

Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a Cru ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.