Is Your Marriage Too Far Gone? JD & Veronica Greear

J.D.: The gospel is going to teach you to think of yourself, first of all, as sinner, and only secondly, as sinned against, which doesn’t mean you don’t have to deal with where they sinned against you, because that’s a conversation you need to have; but it means you do so out of the context of, “I will never have to forgive you of anything close to what God has forgiven me of.”

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife 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 at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Dave: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: So, if you were talking to some newlyweds, and they said, “We’re Christians, and we want to live out the gospel in our marriage,” what would you say?

Ann: I’d say, “You will live out the gospel in your marriage.” [Laughter]

Veronica: Yes, don’t worry!

Ann: Yes, it’s going to happen.

J.D.: One way or the other.

Ann: No matter what! But you’ll have to be faced with the question, “Can you give grace the way Jesus has given us grace?” That will be the pinnacle. When you can learn to do that, and love lavishly, whew! That’s a powerhouse marriage.

Dave: Yes. We’ve got J.D. and Veronica Greear back in the studio. You’ve already heard them laughing over there at our comments. [Laughter] In fact, let me introduce you. You’re the pastor of Summit Church in North Carolina; four kids; married 38 years—no, 23, right? [Laughter]

J.D.: Something like that, yes.

Dave: Twenty-three.

Ann: What’s your podcast?

J.D.: My podcast?

Ann: Yes.

J.D.: So, I have Summit Life. It’s our preaching and teaching podcast, but I have another one called Ask Me Anything.

Ann: That’s the one I wondered about.

J.D.: Yes; it’s a series of questions that we just get from listeners. I [thought], “I just need to start turning on the mic when—”

Veronica: —it’s like 15 minutes.

J.D.: Yes, Ask Me Anything.

Dave: That’s great! Well, we’re going to ask you this [Laughter]: how would you counsel that newlywed couple who say, “We really want to live out the gospel?” Ann gave her answer. Do you have another nuance on that? What’s it going to look like?

Veronica: I would say “yes,” I do think you’re going to live out the gospel.

Dave: What does that mean, though?

Veronica: What does that mean? Okay.

Dave: Yes.

Veronica: Yes, let’s take this out of the Christian language, ethereal, realm. I would say there are going to be days where it feels like this person is the problem in your life. [Laughter]

Dave: Yes!

Veronica: And if that person was not creating a problem in your life, your life would be great! That’s how it’s going to feel sometimes.

Dave: Yes, yes.

Veronica: He’s felt like that about me; I’ve felt like this about him.

Ann: I have actually said those words: “The problem in our marriage—”

Dave: “—is you!”

Ann: “—is Dave!” And when he would get his act together, we would be great!

Veronica: Yes, 100%, that’s going to happen. And I don’t think I really thought that was true going into marriage. I’m kind of a—

Ann: —I didn’t either.

Veronica: —I can be a little Pollyanna-ish: “It’s going to be great! It’s going to be great!” So, I think I would say to that person, “Do you expect that?” And “in that moment, are you willing to say, ‘No, God is at work in my life, and this is actually His will for my life. This right here! Him being the problem in my life, in my view, right now’?”

Ann: Your husband, in other words.

Veronica: Yes, your husband being the problem, to you, is actually designed by God for something that He is trying to do in you. And if you can say that, can you actually take it even a step further, and say, “Thank you” for that?

Ann: Whew!

Veronica: It took me a while to get there.

Ann: Me, too.

Veronica: It took me a couple—a few—years to [think], “Oh, no; this really is something He’s doing” and, you know, for a while, I was [thinking], “I don’t really want that!” [Laughter] “I don’t actually—I want it to be happy and blissful and rainbows over here. I’m fun! Why aren’t you having fun?!” [Laughter]

And he was saying, “You are going to burn us down. You really are.”

Dave: Isn’t it true, though, and you don’t see it coming.

J.D.: Right.

Ann: Wait! Did you think that? “You’re going to burn us down?”

Dave: “Burn us down!”

Veronica: He thought that about me, yes.

Ann: Oh!

Veronica: And I was like, “I’m trying to have a good time! But you don’t seem to be having a good time.”

J.D.: My biggest thing in all this—this was about three years into our marriage; maybe two or three; it was early—

Ann: “It’s going to burn us down!” [Laughter]

J.D.: We went in to see a counselor, not because we were on the last leg (yet), but just because we needed to see a counselor. Anyway, after really kind of expressing to this counselor, who was a Christian counselor, some disappointment, anger, and frustration we had with each other, over the course of an hour, he said, “You know, I think the problem with both of you is”—he said—”both of you think of yourself as first sinned against, and second, sinner.”

He said, “You know, the tickertape in both of your brains is on the other person’s flaws; and the flaws you’re pointing out are mostly correct. You know, they do have those flaws.” He said, “But the gospel is going to teach you to think of yourself, first of all, as sinner, and only secondly, as sinned against, which doesn’t mean you don’t have to deal with where they sinned against you, because that’s a conversation you need to have; but it means you do so out of the context of, ‘I will never have to forgive you of anything close to what God has forgiven me of’.”

Dave: Wow!

J.D.: And he said, “That will change how you relate to each other when you think of yourselves as ‘first sinner.’” Now, I’m the man in Jesus’ parable who was forgiven 10,000 talents, and now, I’m being asked to forgive $1.50.

Dave: Yes.

J.D.: And it changed, I think, both of us to say, “I’m going to expect that we have to show grace in this relationship, because that’s the kind of God we serve. He shows grace to us.”

Dave: Yes, that’s so good.

Ann: So good!

Dave: Because we get married, and our eyes are on them, not us.

Veronica: Yes.

Dave: At first, it’s great, because they’re so amazingly wonderful, and then, we see stuff. [Laughter] A year ago, Ann took me to Vegas, and we saw John Legend. He’s got this song we all love, you know? [Singing] “All of me, loves all of you.”

Veronica: Yes, such a good one.

Dave: I’m not going to sing the whole thing. Here’s what happens: you get married, and you’re married, maybe, three years or six months or whatever, and it becomes, “Half of me, loves none of you.” [Laughter] “All your quirks and accusations make me want to take a vacation.” I mean, it’s like—

Veronica: It switches! It switches.

Ann: It totally switches.

Dave: But there’s truth in that. What you said about seeing the sin in me—

Veronica: —first.

Dave: —is where you start; that changes everything!

Veronica: Yes.

Dave: Did you—were you guys able to start doing that after that counselor—

J.D.: —some of these things are—you say it one time, and everything’s different.

Veronica: Boom, done!

Ann: Yes, I wish it were.

J.D.: But it’s daily—you know, Martin Lloyd-Jones, the old preacher used to talk about the importance of preaching the gospel to yourself every day.

Dave: Yes.

J.D.: So, yes, we preach the gospel to ourselves each day. We’re telling ourselves that. And we’ve grown in it. There are still moments when I’m angrier about her sin than I am mine, you know? But I will say that, now, I can say—23 years into marriage—I never knew what it was like to love a sinner until I got married. [Laughter] I’m not talking about Veronica.

Dave: Yes.

J.D.: I’m talking about God’s love of me, because I’m realizing how much grace there was that God showed. That’s part of what we’ve been talking about. It’s ultimately the gospel that makes you a better spouse.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: Right.

Ann: And we’re talking about your book, Essential Christianity: The Heart of the Gospel in Ten Words.

Dave: Now, is this the word “refusal?”

J.D.: The word “refusal.”

Dave: Is that sort of what we’re talking about?

Ann: Yes.

J.D.: Well—

Dave: —because I read it, and I thought, “It’s about sin. The world is broken by sin; but maybe I missed it.”

J.D.: You can get there!

Dave: Right.

J.D.: You can get there from it, but specifically, it raises a question that—to switch gears a little bit here; the question that—a lot of people in deconstruction ask, which is, “If there really is a God, then why doesn’t everybody believe Him? Why are there so many intelligent, very moral, Atheists in the world?”

Dave: Right, right.

J.D.: Or people from different religions. What the Apostle Paul explains is that, ultimately, what our head ends up believing, our heart is conditioned to believe. The problem, he explains, is in the human heart. It’s not better information or better education; it’s a transformation of the heart.

So, what we need as fallen sinners is not better technique or better education. What we need is transformation, and that’s only going to come through the gospel. The way you get there, when you’re talking about marriage, is, I know that we can go to all the wonderful weekends—Weekend to Remember^®—and these incredible (whether they’re FamilyLife or other things), we need the power of the Holy Spirit renewing us in the gospel.

Dave: Yes.

J.D.: That’s what Paul says in Romans. I talk about that in this book: the pivotal point in Romans is in Romans 12:1, where he says, “Therefore.” The first eleven chapters of Romans are all about the gospel are all about the gospel.

Dave: Yes.

J.D.: The last five chapters of Romans are all about how you should live—

Dave: —“therefore,” yes.

J.D.: —and how you should treat your spouse. The hinge between those two sections is the word “therefore.” In light of what God has done for you, this is how you can begin to come toward one another.

Dave: When you get to a place in your marriage—and maybe you haven’t felt this; I know I’ve felt this—“I can’t. I can’t love her like I know I want to, and I should. I preach this, and I know this from the Word of God; but right now, it’s almost like I’m stuck. I need the power of God. I don’t know if I want it right now, but I need it.” Have you ever been there? And if you are, how do you navigate through that?

Veronica: I think, one, you should always own that; always own that to God first and say, “I don’t really want this. I know I need it, but I don’t really want it.”

Ann: To be truthful.

Veronica: Yes! “Can you help me want that? Can you change me?” I do that a lot in my life, not just in my marriage. “Help me want the right things.” So, I think that’s the first thing: to be really honest about your feelings. The second thing is, and this is more like an action—that’s an action, too, but this is more an action on a day-to-day basis: if you do one thing [in a] loving [way], that starts to change, slowly.

This is a long-term thing you’re going to be doing here. This is not going to be fixed in a day or a week when you’re just at a really difficult place. You know, your feelings do follow your actions. This is assuming this is a base-level of conflict. I think it’s important to always say there are some situations this would not be applicable to.

Dave: Yes.

Veronica: That are outside the realm of an average sinner married to an average sinner. No one is at risk here.

J.D.: You’re not talking about abusive situations.

Veronica: No, right.

Dave: Right.

Veronica: If you think you could be, you should get help immediately in that situation.

But, you know, I think your actions begin to dictate your feelings.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: That’s good.

J.D.: Yes; you know, the Law—whenever you think about how you ought to act, that’s what the Bible refers to as “the Law.”

Dave: Right.

J.D.: It’s the standard of righteousness. It has a protective purpose in us, so that, even when I don’t feel like it, I will obey the Law—God’s Law—because that’s just must better for me and for the people I love if I am obeying God’s laws. But the Law is not—in that sense, I call it “the curb.” It’s to curb your behavior; but it’s also a mirror to reveal what your heart is not.

So, when I find my heart craving selfishness where it should crave generosity, when it’s craving stinginess where it should be feeling feelings of love, I go ahead and do the loving thing. That’s the Law; but my heart is crying out, saying, “God, I need You to change my heart so that this stuff becomes instinctive to me; where I just do it!”

Veronica: Yes.

Dave: Right.

J.D.: I mean, Jesus never had to force Himself to obey. His heart always desired that. And what God wants—I explain this in the sense of Christianity: God’s not just after obedience. He’s after a whole new kind of obedience; an obedience that grows out of desire; an obedience where you love your spouse because that’s what you do! You love your spouse because your heart loves it!

Martin Luther talked about the “dilemma of the Great Commandment.” The Great Commandments of “love God with all our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves.” He said the dilemma of that commandment is [that] God is commanding you to do something that, by definition, cannot be commanded. He said, “Think about it. If you love something, you don’t need a command to do it.” You never have to command me to eat a steak, take a nap, watch football, or kiss my wife. I just desire those things.

Luther said, “The other side of that is, if you don’t love something, then no command can ever make you love it.”

Dave: Yes.

J.D.: So, what you’re doing is, as you’re obeying, you’re crying out to God, saying, “God, I’m obeying, but I need You to transform me from within so that I become the kind of person who does righteousness because I crave righteousness, and I choose love because I feel love and I am love.”

Dave: I’ve shared here before, but times when I want to treat—or be kind—to Ann, and I’m not being. I have to ask, literally, in that moment, “God, my heart has been transformed! I am in Christ. So, this isn’t behavior that matches who I am in Christ, but it’s matching who I was before.”

For the listener who says God won’t be in that moment, He will meet you in that moment.” Again, it could look different. I remember—I’ve shared here before—sitting on a park bench in a public [place], and we were in some fight, years ago. I am wrong! [Laughter] She has already told me 18 times, but I am at the point, now, where I realize: “I’ve said things that were hurtful and harsh.” She’s sitting right here [motioning beside himself], and I know, “All she needs from me is tenderness.”

So, I preach the gospel to myself: “God, you’ve been tender to me. I need to be tender to her.” Everything in me is like, “I can’t do it! I don’t want to do it.”

Veronica: Been there!

Dave: I remember sitting there, watching all these people walk by. We’re in public, so you can’t really—you’re sort of hiding this thing! But all of these people are walking around, and they’re smiling and laughing. Here’s what I’m thinking: “You bunch of losers!” [Laughter] “You’re not happy! You’re just faking it,” you know?

Veronica: Lies!

Dave: “Everybody’s feeling what I’m feeling!” But I’ll never forget—I don’t know why it’s so clear in my mind—[thinking], “God, I can’t muster this up in myself. I know I need to love her like she deserves to be loved. Would you give me that, right here, right now?” And He did!

Veronica: Yes, He will.

Dave: There are times where God will take a hard heart, and if you really repent and say, “I’m wrong. I need you,” there’s transformation.

Veronica: Yes.

J.D.: Yes.

Dave: It’s already yours, but to experience it in that moment; again, it doesn’t happen every single day—

Veronica: —right.

Dave: —but it can.

Veronica: It can.

Dave: And that’s what you’re saying; that’s the gospel!

Veronica: Yes.

Ann: I was going to say, there’s something about the obedience of following what God has called us to do in the gospel. I just got over being sick for about six days, and when you don’t feel well physically, everything’s hard. It’s like your eyes are on yourself and your pain.

Veronica: So true!

Ann: I thought of that as I was walking last night. I felt dry spiritually, and even when you’re dry, it’s that heart of, “But I know that I’m going to get in the Word. I’m going to do what God has called me to do and obey—because I’ve had years of doing that—knowing that, even when my heart doesn’t feel like it, because I’ve had something physical going on, I’m still going to spend time with Jesus and read the word, because it is the gospel that is our hope, as we spend time with Him.

Veronica: Right.

Ann: He renews our mind, He renews our heart, and He transforms our thoughts and our hearts instead of conforming to the world.

Veronica: Right.

J.D.: Absolutely!

Dave: Well, talk about one of your words; it’s “struggle.”

J.D.: Yes.

Dave: What I wrote down in my notes beside it is, “There is a new me that needs to be embraced, and an old me that needs to be left behind.” There’s this—

Ann: —I like that battle.

Dave: —we’re talking about it right now: that struggle! Is that what the gospel looks like?

J.D.: Yes. I mean, it’s one of the most encouraging chapters in the book of Romans to me personally.

Dave: Yes.

J.D.: Essential Christianity is not a commentary on Romans, but it’s just taking these questions that Paul is raising and re-asking them in modern-day terms. One of the things Paul basically says is, “If Christianity is true, why is it so hard? Why is it that, after I’ve learned the right things and chosen the right things, it still comes as such a struggle?” And what he’s going to explain is that the way that God saves us is, He gives us a new heart, but that new heart is within what He calls the flesh, which is the old body.

The bad news is that this flesh, this sinful flesh, is going to be with you until the day that you die. It’s going to remain every bit as sinful as it ever was. The moment you stop dying to it, it will take you into—it could be all the old sins, or it could be worse than the old sins!

Veronica: It’s kind of depressing!

Ann: It is!

J.D.: It is depressing.

Veronica: It is.

J.D.: Here’s depressing/encouraging!

Veronica: Right, at the same time!

Ann: Yes.

J.D.: John Newton, who wrote the song, Amazing Grace, when he was 86 years old—there’s a little book of letters that you can read; it’s called The Letters of John Newton, and it’s got one that he wrote to another, younger pastor in his 30s (when he was in his 80s). He said to this other pastor—he said, “You know, I find it depressing sometimes, because I thought that, by 86, I would no longer struggle with all these different sins.” He said, “Some of those desires in me are stronger and more sinful than ever.”

Dave: Wow!

J.D.: Depressing.

Ann: Yes!

J.D.: I’m like, “At 80?!” [Laughter]

Dave: Yes, come on.

Ann: Come on!

J.D.: Really? Seriously? I thought at that point, I was going to just sit around and hum—

Ann: —praise songs!

Veronica: Amazing Grace!

J.D.: —all day; yes. But he said, “What I’ve realized is that God allows us to continue to struggle against the flesh because growth in grace is not getting past a point where you need grace. It’s growth in your awareness of how badly you do need it.”

So, God will let certain temptations stay with you—and certain struggles—because He doesn’t want you, this side of the resurrection, to ever get to a point where you say, “I’m good! I’ve got it!”

Ann: Paul’s thorn in the flesh.

J.D.: Yes!

Veronica: Yes.

J.D.: He wants you to still be able to sing, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” I even feel like, in the context of marriage, that’s part of what—you know, there’s nothing that reveals my sinfulness and selfishness—

Ann: —for sure!

J.D.: —more than my marriage. God uses it as a crucible to say, “Hey, here’s how badly you needed saving, and you continue to need saving.”

Dave: And at the same time, isn’t it true that—I remember Tim Keller writing this in The Meaning of Marriage—part of the purpose of our marriages is to become like Christ. He uses our spouse as a sharpening brother/sister, really, who comes alongside and says, “I see things. I love you, I affirm you; but I see something.”

Veronica: Right.

Dave: “Nobody else sees it. The congregation doesn’t see it. They think you’re awesome! But I see it.”

So, it’s a gift because it’s making us, what Keller says, “our glory-selves.” When we’re in glory, face-to-face, we’re going to finally be like Him. Well, we’re on a journey to then.

Veronica: Right.

Dave: Is that what you’ve seen even in your own marriage: this sharpening taking place?

Veronica: Oh, absolutely! We’re pretty opposite in just how we sort of approach life. Our values are the same, which is what has sustained us, right? [Giggling] But we—our approach to life can be pretty different. So, I can make him crazy; he can make me crazy.

Having to hash those things out in how we’re going to parent, how we’re going to run our household, how we’re going to run our schedule, how we’re going to do trips, how we’re going to—just everything!—relate with people; in the hashing out, I’m also a conflict-avoider, and he [says], “Why would you ever avoid it? Just get after it!” So, we’ve had to learn. That’s kind of where that “medium way” is better for us, and better for our kids.

J.D.: Some of the strengths are complementary, and that’s just how God makes us.

Veronica: For sure.

Dave: Right, right.

J.D.: And then, some of them are [things] where the other spouse reveals your sinfulness and selfishness in it.

Ann: Yes.

J.D.: Because whatever—you know, you’ve heard this before: “Whatever your virtue is, is your vice.”

Veronica: For sure.

J.D.: She loves people immediately, and that’s the most important thing in the world. I mean, that’s a beautiful part of how God made her.

Veronica: The details can get lost.

J.D.: The vice is, you know, you’re not getting from Point A to Point B. [Laughter]

My virtue is—

Veronica: —“We’re going to get there!”

J.D.: —“We’re going to get from Point A to Point B.”

Veronica: That’s right!

J.D.: But it is, “Who do we run over? Who do we not think about?”

Veronica: Right, right.

J.D.: So, there is both a complementary nature in how God made us, but there’s also a revelation of un-Christlikeness that comes through the other.

Veronica: Right.

Ann: It’s both.

Veronica: Yes. So, that has been really good. I mean, he has made me better in all of those things, and I’ve made him better in all those things.

Ann: As we’re talking about Romans, what’s your favorite verse? What do you think, J.D.?

J.D.: I love—I’m deeply moved by—Romans 1:14, where Paul says, “I’m a debtor to those who have never heard.”

Veronica: Since college! That’s been since college.

J.D.: Since college.

Ann: Really?

J.D.: Yes, because you think about “debtor.” It means you owe somebody; you’re under obligation; you’re no longer free. When you owe the credit card company tens of thousands of dollars, then you’re not free to do what you want. Your money, in a sense, belongs to them. You know, Paul said, “When it comes to the gospel; when I think about the gift that God gave me and how much I didn’t deserve it, I owe it to those who have never heard to have a chance to hear.” [Paraphrased]

I tell college students (we have a lot of them who go to our church), “Your generation—Gen Z, and Millennials, also—is moved by justice issues.” And they should be!

Dave: Yes.

J.D.: We need to be involved in justice issues all over the world, of all kinds. But according to Paul, the greatest injustice that has ever taken place is for somebody to know the gospel and to not share it with those who haven’t. So, when Paul goes from verse 14 to saying, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, because it is the power of God unto salvation for everybody who believes” [Romans 1:16]—

When I think about what the gospel has done in our marriage, when I think about how it saved our marriage—I think we can say that; I’m not sure where we’d be if it hadn’t been for coming back to the gospel. We might be a statistic, divorced. When I think about the way I’ve seen it work in people’s lives, there’s just nothing greater to give your life to than to knowing the gospel, teaching it to your kids, and making sure everybody in this generation knows and has a chance to believe.

Shelby: Man, I just love that important truth from J.D. I’m Shelby Abbott, and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with J.D. Greear and Veronica Greear on FamilyLife Today.

J.D. has written a book called Essential Christianity: The Heart of the Gospel in Ten Words. This book really explores the transformative power of the gospel in addressing life’s really profound questions and rediscovering the joy and depth of the Christian faith for modern individuals. You can go online to get a copy at FamilyLifeToday.com. Click on the “Today’s Resources” link; or you can get the link in the show notes; or you can give us a call to get a copy at 800-358-6329; again, that number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.”

You know, while you’re on FamilyLifeToday.com, there’s a little button at the top of the page that says, “Donate Now.” When you do that, you become a partner with us. There are different types of partners who give to the ministry of FamilyLife. There are one-time gift partners and then, there are monthly partners. The cool thing about being a monthly partner is, when you do, you become part of a group with some exclusive benefits. You get insider ministry updates about new products and pre-releases, and exclusive viewing opportunities. You get access to our new curated, topical library from some of the most compassionate minds across the ministry. And when you do sign up to become a monthly partner, you get a free Weekend to Remember gift card.

So, I really encourage you to hop online, go to FamilyLifeToday.com, click on the “Donate Now” button at the top of the page, and become a monthly partner to help make this ministry what it is by continuing to reach marriages and families.

Now, coming up tomorrow, J.D. and Veronica Greear are back to talk about building gospel-centered marriages in ministry. What does it look like to embrace vulnerability, intentionality, and community support? The Greears are going to be here with the Wilsons to talk about just that tomorrow. We hope you’ll join us.

 

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife^®, a Cru^® Ministry.

Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.

 

We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you’ve benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? 

Copyright ^© 2024 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

www.FamilyLife                                

1