Planning - How to Strengthen Your Hope, Part 1

As we get started, I have on my wall and I haven’t memorized it, but I read it almost every day because left to myself and you left to yourself, we all focus on, “What about me?” right? My needs, my will, my desires, this is what I want to see happen.

And on my wall is this prayer. And it says, “Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. And where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is sorrow, let me sow joy. Where there is injury, let me sow pardon. Where there is darkness, let me sow light. Where there is despair, let me sow joy. O Divine Master, grant that I wouldn’t seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, as to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it’s in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it’s in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

And that’s attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi but this series is about four biblical practices that great marriages have in common. And the first one is about love.

And it’s a process and it’s a journey, but I think one of the most fundamental shifts if you want a great marriage is that this will only be a great marriage, not if or when my mate changes, but when I begin to serve them as an act of worship of serving Him with the recognition that I don’t have the power to do that.

See, every relationship is either on an upward spiral of growth and kindness and love, or, “He did that, so I do this.” “Well, you know what? She said that to me, so I’m not going to do that.” And then pretty soon, you play this silly game and you both lose.

Love is the foundation of any relationship. But the oxygen, what brings it forward, is hope. And I want to teach you now the second practices great marriages have in common is hope.

And if you’ll open your Bibles to John 14, I want to show you in the midst of a desperate, desperate crisis, how Jesus is going to give His disciples hope and follow along as we discover how He does it.

Peter said to Him, “Why can I not follow You right now? I’ll lay down my life for You.”

“Jesus answered,” at the end of chapter 13, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.” Then He shifts gears. “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.” Well, why? “In My Father’s house there are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that,” notice the focus, “that where I am, there you may be also.” Their greatest fear is abandonment and He is promising, “I am going to prepare a place so that we can be together.”

And then He goes on to say, “‘And you know the way where I am going.’ And Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we do not know the way that You are going, how do we know the way?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way,’” literally that word is road. Hodos. “I am the path,” or, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.’”

These are great questions. Philip goes, Well, you know, maybe I have missed something in this three years, but, “‘Lord, show us the Father, and it will be enough.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long that you still have not come to know the Father? How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His work. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves,’” speaking of all the miracles they have seen.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I will do,” now, listen to this. There’s going to be hope because there’s a place. There’s going to be hope because, “I’m going to come back for you.” There’s going to be hope because, “You don’t really get it, but I am, I am God. And so, I’m going to keep my promises.”

Then notice He’s going to say there’s hope because, “I’m not only not going to leave you alone, but I have a mission and a purpose for you.”

“I say to you, you will also do greater works than these, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name,” notice, “I will do it. If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper,” speaking of the Holy Spirit, “that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or abide in Him, or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be,” notice it’s all future, “and will be in you.

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.

“In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved of My Father, and I will love him and My Father and I will come to Him and I will disclose Myself to Him.”

The command is: do not be afraid. In other words, don’t let fear or anxiety – He is speaking to His bride. Men, as we go through this, I want you to be thinking first and foremost about what your role is, because you’re supposed to love your wife – how? The way Christ loves the Church.

So, first, He says to His Church, “You don’t need to be afraid and You don’t need to be anxious, because I am going to take some responsibility for our future.” That’s a man’s role. Second, He says why. “Because I’m not going to abandon you and I’m not going to leave you.”

A woman’s greatest fear is abandonment. One of her greatest needs is security. And so, Jesus says, “You don’t have to be afraid, you don’t have to be anxious,” why? “I am going to secure a place.”

And isn’t it interesting that when Jesus leaves the disciples, there is a place, not some mystical, floating around. There’s an actual place and there’s a place, a dwelling, there’s plenty of them, they are for you. And I am going to go prepare it for you. And I’m going to prepare it for you because not only is there a place, there’s a relationship. And I want you to feel secure and know there’s hope for the future, because I promised to come for you and I have prepared a place for you.

And then He tells them, by the way, there is a strategy to get there. We are not just moving. There’s an actual strategy that you can know how to go from where you’re at in your anxiety and fear to where we are going to be. And often, don’t we memorize verses and quote them and sometimes we get them so in our mind. Okay, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” I got that down. Jesus is the only way. He’s truth. This is where He reveals His deity. “I and the Father are one.” We get all of our theology.

Do you understand the context? There were some very scared young men who He was telling them, “There’s hope.” There’s, it’s on My word. And I want you to know there’s a pathway to this hope that you can trust. There’s a game plan here. It’s not like I’m just coming home and saying, “I got transferred or I’m taking a new job and there’s not a game plan and the timing. He wanted them to know: how are we going to get from point A to point B? And basically He said, “I am the way. I am the path.” And then the thing about hope is – but what’s the purpose? Why are You leaving and why do we have to relocate? And He goes, “You will do greater works.”

And so, He tells them there’s a place. It’s rooted in a promise. He tells them there is a way to get there. And then He tells them, “I have a purpose for you that everything that you have seen Me do, you actually are going to do greater works. And I want you to believe in Me. And if not for all of our time and intimacy and relationship, at least look back on all those miracles and know this is the way.”

See, He is building a very clear pathway so they can know: you know what? What is He going to tell them later? “In the world you are going to have tribulation. But I have overcome the world.” “My peace,” at the very end of this chapter, “I give to you.”

And all of it is rooted around hope. Someone has rightly said, “Hope is the oxygen of the soul.”

Hope is a picture of the future that says that what we are doing today is going to produce a better tomorrow. And enduring the grind of the todays and the struggles and the challenges and the little hurt feelings and the downtimes and the illnesses and the hurt and the kids who are going astray and the people that are treating you unfairly – the anchor of your soul is there is this hope.

And ultimately, yes, it’s heaven. Ultimately, it’s Jesus coming back. Ultimately, it’s – no one has the power to make you happy but if you’re a follower of Christ, He has told you, “I am your living hope. I am your security. I am the deep well of your life.

Where is your hope in your marriage? See, is your hope that someday, someway everything is going to be perfect? Is your hope someday she is going to be more affectionate? Is your hope someday we can really have a nice house and when all that happens everything is going to be wonderful? Is your hope somehow if I make some career moves then we will make more money and then everything is going to be okay? Is my hope…

Do you understand? Every single one of those is circumstantial. And every single one of those can happen tomorrow. And here’s what I can tell you about you and me and our fallen nature. Give you thirty days and your hope will be on something else. Just a little bit bigger house and wishing you didn’t have so many kids.

And what Jesus is telling us is there are going to be challenges. It’s part of living in a fallen world. First, it’s this attitude of serving your mate that makes no sense and you keep doing it when it works, you keep doing it when it doesn’t work, and you do it as an act of worship to God.

And over time, a transformation happens in you. You become more and more like Jesus. And all I can tell you, is that when someone becomes more and more like Jesus, she is more and more attractive or he is more and more attractive. My wife is really attractive. She’s very kind, she is very loving, she is very others-centered. That was not how she always used to be. And I spent most of my energy picking apart what I didn’t like about her instead of the ninety percent that I did like about her.

And God wants you to know that serving is the first step, but you have to have hope. And the way you have hope is you have to have a plan. So, can I just give you some, a couple principles and then I want to get real practical.

Here’s the principle. This is from Jesus. Long-term planning provides hope and perspective to overcome short-term pain and challenges.
Now, just tell me, am I just reading too much into that? Does He give them a long-term plan or what? Hey, here’s the long-term plan: you’re going to be with me forever! I got your back! I’m coming back! No matter what happens, how bad, how hard, I am coming back and there’s a place for you. Long-term plan gives you perspective and hope to overcome short-term pain and challenges.

Second, great plans provide a specific path and create hope for tomorrow and forever. Great plans don’t just say, hey, someday, some way He could have said, “Okay, guys, I’m going to go to the cross a little bit later, I’m going to go prepare a place for you. Ready? Break. See you someday, some way, somehow.”

No, no, a great plan has: yeah, that’s the long-term plan, but here’s where you are today. There’s a specific path. There are specific things we are going to do. Literally, there are mile markers that we are going to look at that are going to move us forward so we can see we are making progress.

Third principle is hope rises and falls with how we keep our promises. The most devastating thing we do to one another and we all do it, is when we tell our mate something and then we don’t follow through. It breaks trust. What do we know about Jesus?

I would encourage you, read John chapter 14 and you can even read 15 and 16 and every time the word I will, I will, I will, I will, I will – underline it. And you know what He’s saying? “I will. I keep My promises. I’m preparing a place.”

And did you get the “why”? See, I meet a lot of Christians that believe God loves them. I don’t think they really believe He likes them. And, “Oh, yeah, He loves me, but I need to do this and I need to do this and I need to do this and I know I don’t measure up.”

Do you realize that just you sitting wherever you’re at, whatever level of maturity, with all your issues that if Jesus walked through those doors in His resurrected body and sat down with you and said, “You want coffee or do you want tea?” And He would sit across from you and He would just be delighted to hang out.

And so, do you see the promises that He makes? And so, then the application is practical. Number one, if you, this is from my Marine father, so don’t look for this in the Bible. But I heard it so much, it’s up there in the Bible with me. “Chip, if you fail to plan, you… [plan to fail.] does every person know that one? It’s true. And you plan for career, you plan hopefully for finances, you plan for so much.

Here’s my question. What is your plan for your marriage? What’s your plan for your marriage? Because if you don’t have a plan, then you don’t have a lot of hope. Because planning, you know what the word “planning” is about? Planning is the presumption that there will be a future and that you’re doing some things today and you’re looking into the future and saying, “These are the important things that we are going to do,” and they are things that you look forward to.

Planning is sort of a thread that takes hope and the hope pulls you, but it pulls you because there’s a plan.

I cannot tell you, I mean, my wife and I argued, struggled, we did the roll in bed, face the other wall. And we made a plan. The plan was we would have a date every single week. It would be on Friday, it would be for breakfast, we would eat and we would spend about three hours together, we would take a walk, we would do whatever. But during that three or four hour block, she knew she had me, no phone, no interruptions, and anything and everything that was building up in her heart, she knew I’m only six days away from unloading.

And what it gave me was six days of her not unloading a little every day, causing conflict. And it wasn’t like it was just conflict resolution. We had a plan. What we knew was we were terrible communicators, we didn’t know how to resolve anger, we didn’t even know when we were angry. We had to have a counselor teach us, “When you’re like this, okay, she is passive-aggressive and she buries her anger and you verbalize your anger.” “Oh.” “So that’s why you do this, she does…” “Oh, okay.” So, we had to learn when we were angry.

So right after supper, just fifteen minutes. We did it three times a week. “Okay, honey, this sounds so artificial. How did your day go?” Superficial. Okay, great. “How did your day go?” Great. “What are you concerned about?” “Well, this, this, this.” And I shut up. You can’t fix it. Just shut up.

“What do you wish?” “Oh, I wish one of our sons would not be so much this way. And I’m concerned about our other son is dating a girl. I wish I felt better.

I’ve got this really, situation. And “What are you willing to do?”

And in fifteen minutes or twenty minutes, we learned to not just bury stuff but get all the things that are weighing us down out on the table.

And then you, a question that you didn’t have to do anything. “What are you willing to do?” And what happened is in fifteen minutes, every other night at least, I found out: these are the burdens, and she heard mine. She would ask me, “How did your day go?” “It’s fine.” And she wants to talk and. “Well, how did it really go?” “It’s fine. It was church. Had a lot of meetings. A couple people came to Christ. It was great. So, what’s up?”

And I can’t understand why she thinks we don’t communicate, right? I told her! It was fine! That’s not what she wanted to hear. “How did you feel about it? What was going on inside?” Right?