EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the full outline for both audio messages. For the accompanying audio message to the text immediately below go here. To go to the section of the outline which goes along with the audio message for this page (Part 2) click here.

Introduction

Preview:

I want to speak with you this morning on the subject passive men, wild women.

Point:

I begin by telling you that Satan hates you and has a diabolical plan for your marriage.

Objection #1:

Those of you who are single may have already decided to tune me out. This message is irrelevant to me. I’m single, have been single, and, from all I can tell, I’m going to be single.

Objection #2:

Others of you have been divorced, and you have also decided to tune me out. I’ve already had enough people tell me what I did wrong. All I want to be is single. I don’t want to hear anything more about marriage.

Point:

This message is for you in that your life may well be the product of Satan’s diabolical plan. You may now be living the fruit of his plan and you need to be aware of its impact upon you. Through understanding what he has done to you and in you, you may be able to take some steps to keep on growing in Christ.

Balance:

Now do not misunderstand me. Satan is not the direct cause of our marital problems, but the indirect cause. The point is that he put in place a process in the Garden of Eden that he has never needed to change because it works. This process may be the most clever thing Satan ever did. This process simply needs maintenance from generation to generation.

He found a way to accomplish his most basic purposes that is as automatic as breathing, as certain as death, and as effective as gravity. This process marks committed Christian marriages as much as it marks unbelieving marriages. We do not willingly invite this process; we do not actively seek this process; we do not consciously pursue this process. Yet there is no marriage and no family that does not struggle with this process.

Support:

Dr. Pierre Mornell, a psychiatrist in Marin County north of San Francisco, has written a book entitled Passive Men, Wild Women, in which he describes several of his clients. Across the years of his practice many women have come to Dr. Mornell with the same complaint. They are married to highly successful men, men who drive across the Golden Gate Bridge every day and go into the financial district of San Francisco where they make their mark on the world. These men are leaders in every way and everywhere--except at home. Each night when these men come home, they cease to be leaders; the only mark they make at home is on the chair in which they sit. Their wives become widows before their time; they are widows almost before they have been wives.

The only problem is that the corpse of their dead husband comes home every night asking, “What’s for dinner? When will it be ready? Where’s the TV guide? I want to know what time the playoff game starts tonight.” These men, active everywhere else, are passive at home. And, according to Dr. Mornell, their wives go wild inside. Even though they are career women themselves, they are emotionally at loose ends. They have no anchor in their lives. They have no way to tell the difference between up and down. They are weightless in the space ship called life, drifting through the air, with no way to ever land on solid ground.

Because their husbands are emotionally and often physically passive, they are wild, wild with frustration, bitterness, and anger. They feel as if they must take over and carry the entire marriage.They make all the decisions concerning money, concerning the children, concerning where they go out for dinner, concerning what they do for vacation--everything! In their minds their husbands aren’t involved in any way in their lives and they struggle greatly with the deep feelings of loss that this passiveness brings.

Balance:

Now, in fairness to husbands, it is true that many women don’t want it any other way. They complain, often bitterly, but they won’t let their husbands have a say about anything that matters. From the moment of marriage on, these wives have blocked out their husbands and won’t let them provide any kind of leadership. Some wives don’t really know what they’re doing; they don’t intend to do it and don’t realize how destructive their patterns are. Other wives have every intention of doing exactly what they are doing, and they fight for all they’re worth to be in control. In both cases, husbands become passive.

Question:

What makes husbands passive?

Restatement:

What makes men so passive they drive women wild?

Restatement:

How did this whole pattern come about?

Point:

I believe it is the product of Satan’s design for destruction, his diabolical plan for marriage and the home.

Conclusion:

You see,

SATAN HAS A DESIGN THAT WILL DESTROY YOUR HOME AND OUR SOCIETY.

Transition:

We are dealing with one of the most important issues in our society when we look at this pattern and this process.

Satan’s Destruction Starts with Doubt About God’s Word
Gen. 3:1-5.

A. Satan Raises Doubt about God’s Word by Questioning God’s Justice
Gen. 3:1-5.

1. God gave a positive command which Satan made a negative command (Gen. 2:16-17).

2. The key to Satan’s plan is his effort to raise doubt about God’s goodness.

a. If Satan can get us to think that God is against us rather than for us, he has gotten his plan started.

b. If Satan can create confusion about God’s truth and God’s purposes, then has moved us his way.

3. The woman’s response shows she’s starting to think Satan’s way because she also expands on God’s word.

a. Satan misused the word not.

b. The woman said, God won’t even let us touch it, let alone eat it.

Illustration:

Application:

Some of you wives may feel this when everything always goes wrong during one of your husband’s business trips. Or when you’re stuck at home with the kids while he goes out and plays golf for business purposes. It really is for business purposes, but you remember the days when you had fun doing business too. Where is God when you need Him?

Transition:

Once Satan has the advantage he presses it by raising yet another question about God.

B. Satan Raises Doubt about God’s Word by Questioning His Righteousness and His Truth
Gen. 3:4.

1. Now he makes an assertion: you will not surely die (there’s that word again).

2. Satan takes God’s exact words and inserts one word: not.

3. This time he doesn’t misuse it; he misplaces it.

4. He makes the opposite of God’s Word sensible, logical, and right.

Transition:

To win, Satan now has to raise doubt in only one other area, and he just keeps on going.

C. Satan Raises Doubt about God’s Word by Questioning His Motives
Gen. 3:5.

1. Satan pictures God as a threatened, fearful, jealous individual who restricted them because He couldn’t handle the competition.

2. We hear the same point made in different ways in our world today.

Illustration:

God wants wives to subject themselves to their husbands, not for their good, not for the good of their husbands, not for the good of their children, not for the sake of a shattered society, but just because He favors men.

Point:

Such an assertion totally distorts God’s true intention.

Development:

Marriage is designed to be a relationship between two co-equal and co-accountable people under the lordship of God Himself. It is the primary relationship in all of life apart from our relationship with Him. It is designed to meet our most basic human need, the need for companionship. It replaces the deepest hurt we can feel as human beings, the hurt of unbroken loneliness.

We do not have a superior/inferior relationship. Men and women are co-equal and co-accountable, not superior and inferior. Man is the managing partner in this 100/100% partnership, but he is not superior. Any man who uses physical, verbal, or sexual abuse as a means of controlling his wife is evil. Any man who has to tell his wife she is to submit to him has lost his ability to lead his wife.

Point:

We can see how effective Satan’s process is because he has successfully distorted God’s Word for generations, and his mastery is evident in these days.

Transition:

And we must understand this because the home is Satan’s target area, not only in the Garden of Eden but in the garden of every one of our marriages.

Next we see that

Satan’s Design for Destruction Focuses on The Issue of Trust in The Home
Gen. 3:6.

A. Satan’s Design for Destruction Focuses on The Issue of Trust Toward God.

1. Eve had a word from God through her husband as to what she was to do 2:16-17.

a. She knew what God had said.

b. It was this word that she distorted.

2. Eve had all the resources she needed to resist Satan.

a. She had a positive experience of God’s goodness.

b. She knew God well, knew His love, His justice, His righteousness.

c. She chose to disregard the truth for a lie.

B. Satan’s Design for Destruction Focuses on The Issue of Trust In Her Husband.

1. Eve was created as Adam’s co-equal with a responsibility to consult with him before she acted.

2. Making a decision of this magnitude was not to be done without her husband’s input.

3. When Eve chose not to trust God, she also chose not to trust her husband.

C. Satan’s Design for Destruction Focuses on The Issue of Trust In Satan.

Satan challenged for lordship in her life and won.

a. He created doubt through his insinuating assertions.

b. Now we see he creates desire in her state of doubt, and she submits to his purposes.

c. This chain of submission is always in effect.

d. When a wife refuses to honor and trust God and take Him at His word, she chooses to trust the evil lie of Satan.

e. She does not become satanic or under his direct control; she just becomes under his general control because she refuses to trust God and obey Him.

3. Eve’s eyes are now filled with a vision of the fruit on the tree, and it appealed to her as a woman.

a. It was good for food: every wife wants her husband to eat well and to have physical well being.

b. It was a delight to the eyes: every wife wants to make things beautiful for her husband.

c. It was a desirable for wisdom: every wife wants to help her husband be a better man, to help her husband get ahead.

Transition:

So Eve’s doubt and desire resulted in disobedience, and this disobedience resulted in another loss of trust.

D. Satan’s Design for Destruction Focuses on The Issue of A Husband’s Trust In God.

1. At this point, Satan has absolutely nothing to do.

2. Adam was the first man to say, “Yes, Dear!”

Point:

It is very important for you to understand that Adam was the responsible one in this situation. It is wrong to blame woman for all that has happened. It is wrong to misuse God’s Word to take away Woman’s dignity and her co-equality with man before God. Woman was deceived; man was responsible.

Transition:

Now we see the impact of all of this.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Part 2 audio message begins here.

Satan’s Design for Destruction Reverses Relationships in The Home (and, Therefore, in The World)
Gen. 3:6-13.

A. It Reversed The Husband-Wife Responsibilities.

It reversed their leadership responsibilities.

a. Women tend to lead in ways men should.

b. Men tend to follow in ways women should.

c. Men become passive, and women become wild.

It reversed their openness.

a. Once they were naked and unashamed; they were comfortably open with nothing to hide.

b. Now they have something to hide; sin, and they work harder at covering their sin than they do at relating to one another.

c. Now there is tension and anger and bitterness because the woman controls and the husband resents it.

d. Now the husband does nothing, and the wife resents it.

e. Now, many husbands don’t mind when the wife carries all the responsibility.

f. I have been like that.

B. It Reversed The Couple-God Relationship.

1. They lost their fellowship with God.

2. The openness between them and God was destroyed.

a. They went from freedom to fear.

b. They went from comfort to shame.

c. They went from truth to lie.

3. Neither of them would accept responsibility for what happened.

a. This is always the case.

b. We blame God.

c. We blame one another.

d. We blame Satan.

e. We blame our parents.

f. We blame our children.

g. We blame our circumstances.

h. We blame everyone else but ourselves.

C. It Reversed Family Relationships.

It brought us Cain and Abel.

Conclusion

A. Satan Has A Design for Destruction That Will Destroy Our Homes, And We Must Look Out for His Pattern.

Every home will be attacked.

a. This pattern is a part of our very culture.

b. Understanding this is foundational to the health of our country.

c. We are facing the destruction of marriage and the family, and this is impacting our nation.

Trust will be destroyed.

3. Relationships will be reversed.

a. The appeal to doubt and desire always results in disobedience and death when it is successful.

b. Specifics will vary from couple to couple, but one thing never varies.

c. God has given husbands the responsibility to love by leading and the wives the responsibility to respond by trusting.

4. Openness between the couple and God and the couple themselves will be destroyed.

5. Responsibility will be refused.

This is the normal response of a husband who is a man everywhere but at home.

6. Trust relationships can be restored--at great cost to God.

POINT:

This is why Jesus came to die for us. Husbands and wives must learn from God’s Word together. They must learn to be God’s co-equal and co-accountable partners in which the husband is the managing partner. And they must determine that they will have a marriage that contributes to healing in our society and not to destruction.

The modern American man is a man among men. Now this has always been the case right down from colonial days until now. In colonial days the American man was a man of conviction, willing to leave his roots, take his family, move to a new, wild, untamed country and there establish a society that would be focused on his beliefs about God.

The great among them: John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts Colony; Cotton Mather, the outstanding pastor of that time; Jonathan Edwards, a world class philosopher and thinker, all communicated the conviction of colonial America. In the revolutionary days a nation of just a few hundred thousand was graced by a collection of world-class minds that created, designed and created some of the greatest documents ever put together in all of history. Documents that define freedom and responsibility, the tension of health. Documents that declared equity and justice and respect for humanity under the hand of God Himself. And out of that, there was the courage to stand for the conviction that they held. In the days of Manifest Destiny there was a commitment, not every thing we did was right by any means, but there was an intense commitment to fulfill the dream of a nation coming into being. And when that commitment was challenged during the Civil War days there was that lone strong tree of a man standing in the storm of anger and fear holding that conviction and that courage together through commitment that kept us united.

As we came into the twentieth century we came in with a confidence, a confidence in our conviction, in our courage, in our commitment. A confidence that enabled us to fight two world wars and to stand for justice throughout this entire century and even today a handful of our young men and some women stand at risk.

And now we enter the twenty-first century. Perhaps Peter Drucker is right; perhaps we're already in the twenty-first century. And now we see the creativity that marks us that's unique as we lead the way in the era of knowledge toward a technology that's designed to make life more effective, more efficient.

Now don't misunderstand me. It's not my intention to leave women out of this conversation because the American man has never gotten anywhere without a woman beside him, very often in front of him, perhaps more often behind him moving him along. But my primary focus this morning is on men. Women will benefit from my focus because what I want to talk about this morning is a follow-up to what I started last week. It's to raise the question: Is there a man in the house?

It's a very strategic question because, you see the modern American man is a man, a man everywhere but at home. Because when the modern American man comes home, unlike colonial American man, when the modern American man comes home he becomes the missing man. Too often the American man is a man everywhere but at home. We see it in the divorce statistics. We're tired of these statistics; we're tired of hearing all of this, all of this stuff. We're just, we're just up to here with it and yet at the same time we can't deny it. We have to do something about it.

We see it in adult men and adult women, but most often we see it in adult men: longing for, even craving the love of a father and the model of a man who has that conviction, who has that courage, who has that commitment, who has that confidence. The question I need to ask this morning is why is the American man a man everywhere but at home? And I would like to suggest that we fall into a historical reality and I would like to suggest that we want to build our own identities and be in control of our own destinies and we can do this everywhere if we work at it but at home. That's one place where we can't quite pull it off. You can work, think, create, carve out, design, move through your careers. In fact, that's where the majority of the energy of the modern American man goes; it goes into our careers; it goes into our success; it goes into our achievements. And it's there that we hammer out our identity and it's there that we feel we become somebody.

But the problem is then we have to come home. When we come home,we come home to a woman assuming we're married. Or we come home to loneliness and emptiness assuming we're not. But when we come home we come home to a place and a time for intimacy and it's there that we break down. For with all of our history of conviction and courage and commitment and confidence the modern man finds it very difficult to make connection in intimacy.

You see, in the one thing we cannot control is a woman. We can fake it out at the office; we can fake it out in a sales presentation. We may be able to hammer it out in negotiations. We can be tough on the playing field, but when we come home she sees right through it all. And that's frightening because, see, fig leaves never work at home.

See we have a deal going out on the street. The deal is: you don't bother my fig leaves, I don't bother yours. You mess around; we'll take care of that. See that's what we grow up, that's how we grow up. I don't know where you grew up but I grew up in a neighborhood that taught me that fairly early on. You got your fig leaves; I have mine. You leave mine alone; I leave yours alone. That's about the only handshake deal that's going on and even that's being challenged today.

Now the fact of the matter is, you see, as Christian men we add God to the equation. The problem is we seek to be in control to define ourselves, to fight and win rather than to relate and to love. And the problem is too, that we have to live on two different kinds of fields or turfs you might say. The tough turf of the business world out on the street and the tender turf of the home and the family and the transition can often become very difficult and confusing. And that's why we're missing men when we come home.

So we add God to the mix and we use God words to define ourselves. We see God. We want to please God, but we mix this all up with the reality that we are seeking success and satisfaction. And the fact of the matter is the average male wants to manage his career to get success and satisfaction and that means more to him ultimately than being what God has called him to be.

As long as we're in control we're delighted to have God involved, especially when He blesses us. You know, "I have been blessed." That's a great saying. Problem is, God has no intention for us to be in control. That's one of the reasons why he gave us the wives he's given us, for those of us who are married. I mean, there's a design there; there's an intention there. My former colleague, Paul Meier, of Meier-Minirth has said, "We get the mates - we deserve the mates we marry." I don't think I do. I think I've done far better than I deserve.

But you see the best thing from God's point of view in our lives, is not our achievements or our success or our satisfaction but our trust. Because it's trust that makes us men, real men. It's trust that enables us to be men of courage and men of strength on the street and men of compassion and men of tenderness and love at home. And that's what God is all about. That's what God is all about in our lives men. God is all about teaching us how to trust Him. That's what He's all about. That's what everything is about in our lives. God is all about teaching us how to trust Him. We've entered into a covenant relationship with God and He is all about working in our lives to bring us to the place where only the supernatural can be done and only He can do it, and that's what He's all about in our lives.

And I want us to see this in the life of this ancient man, Abram, who becomes Abraham. We looked at him and saw four traits that marked him: spiritually responsive, financially responsible, personally generous and physically protective. Those are four fantastic traits. I tell you if you want four traits in a man you've got them right there. How many of you women would line up for a trade in right about now? You know, where's the dealership? Let me drive this one down. I want to trade him in, what do you think he's worth? Spiritually responsive, financially responsible, personally generous, physically protective but when Abraham came home, Abram the man became Abram the missing man. He was missing for three reasons. He led partially; he obeyed partially; and he trusted partially. In each of the reasons why when he came home he led partially, he obeyed partially and he trusted partially, each of the reasons, each of these reasons finds one common root. And the common root that you find in these three reasons is this: Abram failed to be the spiritual head of his home. Financially he was there, physically he was there, but emotionally he was missing because spiritually he was missing and his wife paid a terrible price.

Genesis, Chapter 12. Some of you may have noticed that I surfaced this passage last week. Did any of you who were here last week notice that? I've had other women almost interrupt me in the middle of my presentation at Genesis 12, because, you know I presented it as a very successful event for Abram, and if you look at it financially it was. Like many financially successful men Abram took a bear market and made a bull out of it you know. And like many financially successful men he did it at the expense of his family, specifically his wife.

In Genesis, Chapter 12, we discover Abram is a man who leads, excuse me, who obeys only partially, who obeys only partially. He becomes the missing man. Let me back up. I think I would rather say here he leads only partially. Genesis 12:10 he leads only partially. He's been obeying God; he's left his home; he's left all of the stability of his past; he's entering into a new territory; he's entering into a new world. And he comes to the place where God directed him and in Genesis 12:10 there's a famine in the land. And so what Abram did was say to his wife: now look Sarai, we're here because God directed us here. I know that we have all of this wealth; all of our wealth is in livestock and it really needs rain. It really needs feed and I know this really looks difficult but here's the thing – we trusted God this far, we're going to keep on trusting God.

That's what he did, isn't it? Is that what he did? He didn't do that? You mean when he led his wife in the will of God away from all of the comfort they had known in the greatest city of their day, the most magnificent city in the world at their point in time, and he led her into this barren, sort of at least at times barren, certainly barren when they got there, frontier land, which is what it was, the frontier land with several warring tribes trying to establish control over this particular economic commercial bridge leading from where he had come, Ur of the Chaldees, down to Egypt. He followed God but he didn't keep on following God.

Now there was a famine in the land in Genesis 12:10. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there. Beginning of a problem. I don't know how many conversations I have had with guys in business across 30 years now. Thirty years of talking with them, interacting with them and I don't know how many times I've heard them talk with me with great regret and say, "I made a decision, but I didn't ask the Lord." Ever make a decision and not ask the Lord? "I made a decision, but I didn't ask the Lord."

You know these conversations, sometimes I'm working with a guy and I'm trying to say well look, wait a minute, things aren't as bad as they look. Look at this, look at this, look at this, you couldn't have known about that. Then he says to me, "I didn't ask the Lord." What am I going to say? See I meet a lot of Christian men who want to be committed to God, who want their families to walk with God, who have their kids in Christian schools, who are concerned about the public schools, who are concerned about the church, want to be part of the church, want to be committed. I meet a lot of Christian men who have all of that going for them and THEN I see how they manage their careers.

And it's let's go down to Egypt and make a good deal. Watch the deal. "And it came about, when they came near them," in verse 11 of Genesis 12, "when they came near to Egypt he said to Sarai, his wife, 'Hey look, I know you are a beautiful woman.,'" Now hold on here just a second, you know the last time I was standing in the customs line was really not the time for me to tell my wife how beautiful she is. You know it's basically OK, let's get the passports together; let's get through this thing as fast as we can. And there is just a warning signal here that you women need to pay attention to and that is, anytime your husband gets, you know, lovey-dovey at the wrong time, watch out! The problem is, you know, you love this guy and when he says that to you, whether it's the right time or the wrong time, you know what happens to you.

"You're a beautiful woman. It will come about when the Egyptians see you", in verse 12, "they will say to you. This is his wife and they will kill men but they will let you live." Well Abram, why are you taking your wife into this circumstance? Why are you doing this? Well, look man, I've got this livestock; I've got this three hundred man private army I've got to take care of; I've got, I've got, I've got all of this wealth invested; I' have all of this on the line. I have to provide. I've got this nephew of mine I have to take care of. I have to provide for my family. Don't you understand that?

Well, what about God? Well, when we have some rainfall, then I'll, you know, I'll go back! "Please say you are my sister so that it will go well with me because of you." Now that word "well" by the way is a very significant word in verse 13, Genesis 12:13. If you will look at Genesis 12:1-3 you will find that God makes an agreement with Abram. It's a one-sided agreement. It's God's unconditional commitment to the man. It tells him to go from his country, from your relatives, from your father's house a land which I will show you. I will make you a great nation. In verse 2 it says "I will bless you." Genesis 12:13 the word "well" is the same exact word as the word "bless" in Genesis 12:2. What's Abram doing? He is getting a blessing. But he's not trusting God for it. He's not trusting God for it. God is not his career manager. Oh, he's trusting God for his family where they live; he's trusting God for the movement of his family from one part of the world to another; he's trusting God up to a point. But now as a leader he is failing, because when it comes to his career management, he is not asking God, "What do you want me to do about my career? What do you want me to do about my investments? What do you want me to do about our financial security as a family? What do you want me to do?" And instead he's saying to his wife, "Say you are my sister."

Oh by the way you know she was his half-sister in an interesting situation, one we wouldn't have today, but she was his half-sister. On the other hand, she was his whole wife. A technical issue of course. I mean, we must understand that this is half-sister, whole wife. I mean. Yes!

"And it came about when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw the woman was very beautiful." He was not having illusions. He knew he married a beautiful woman. "And Pharaoh's officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house." He is moving to make her his wife. "He treated Abram well," verse 16, "for her sake. Gave him sheep, and oxen, and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels. But the sovereign Lord struck Pharaoh in his house with great plagues and Pharaoh says," in verse 18, 'What is this you have done to me? Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say 'She's my sister.' I took her for my wife. Here's your wife; take her and get out of here!' And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him and they escorted him away."

You know the primary factor here is? Abram becomes the missing man here because of his personal ambition. He wants to be successful. He says to his wife, "Your looks for my life. Your assets to save my skin and insure my success. Your beauty, your charm, your wit, your loyalty for my pleasure." Now none of us is doing this. But how much of the stress of the marriage at times do we just dump on our wives?

The first several years we were married, well let me back up. When I met Lynna and we were dating, she was at that point in time in training to be a medical assistant and she finished that program and we got married. And she got a job here in Dallas and I found out not only could she basically run a doctor's office, not only could she do lab work, not only could she stick people with needles, not only could she process various kinds of tests and make appointments, but she could also keep books. And that's great because the last thing I wanted to do was to mess with the checkbook. So, that was hers. That was hers. She could do that.

That was hers. So she took it. So about every three months I would come around and ask her, "OK, what kind of shape are we in?" And every time I had a conversation with her about money she cried. About 5 years into the marriage I asked her one day, "Why do you cry every time we talk about money?" Only 5 years into the marriage. You know, one would think that two or three times one might wake up! And she says to me, crying, "Because you accuse me of mismanaging our money." Well it never entered my dumb, thick head that that was a possible message I could send. She had this skill; I was busy finishing seminary, moving, getting a church started, getting everything underway. You know, gotta study, gotta prepare, gotta plan, gotta put this thing together, gotta get these things started, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, GOTTA. Just presume on her.

We do a very intense program at Dallas Seminary for couples who come and spend 6 days with us and we use a tool called Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis. You may have been through it. With the TJTA there's nine different things that that test evaluates. It's not a test on which you make any major decisions. We use it in pre-marital as well as post-marital work, counseling and so forth. Never make a decision based on that. That's only a window into which you look and then or a doorway into the relationship and you ask a lot of questions and then you make decisions, but never a decision made on the basis of that kind of an analysis.

But still in all there's some fascinating things that's on there and one of the things that's on there is the impulsive-disciplined axis. Very fascinating to see. It's not constant but it's very interesting to see in how many marriage you've got men who are fundamentally impulsive and women who are basically disciplined. Now the opposite is also true, but it still is very interesting to see. And most of our marriages when they come to spend time with us, they're probably about 15 years old, 10 to 15 years old and it's very, very interesting because you look at that piece of paper and you know what you say? You say, "He's dumping everything and she's carrying it all. She is running around after him picking up everything he's dropping. He's dropping financial decisions; he's dropping time management; he's dropping in-laws; he's dropping major issues about children; he is dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping and she is picking it all up and she is carrying it all." And you can just see them and in my mind's eye I can see them: he's running, rushing to do this, pursue his career, be successful, do all these things, drop that, drop that, drop that and she grabs it and picks it up, grabs it and picks it up, grabs it. Gradually she's falling behind because she can only carry so much. And it's amazing how when you bring that up it's like a dam breaks and a flood comes. The anger that's there because she's been used. She has not become Pharaoh's wife but it's your loyalty for my success. See there are a lot of modern Abrams.

I'm not personally a believer in defined roles in marriage. I'm really not. I'm a believer in certain very core essential realities. Husbands are to lead with love. They are to provide emotional stability; they are to help their wives find the difference between up and down; they are the gravity within the relationship. And the research tells us that the most successful career woman in America who marries a husband, marries the husband to find that emotional stability in that man. It has nothing to do with that woman's ability to go out and be a success in business. It has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with if she's a good engineer or medical doctor or a nurse or a salesperson or a technical person of some kind. It has nothing to do with whether she's brilliant in math or sensitive in psychology. It has nothing to do with any of that; all of that just goes all the way aside when you get married. When you get married a woman marries a man to be an emotional strength and stability and for a source of encouragement and to have courage within the marriage. That's what marriage is about.

But men don't marry for that reason. Men marry to have somebody to adore them and admire them, stroke them and, and other things, better than that. Men really do want, in our hearts, to be the man at home. We just don't know how.

Learn from Abram, the first, the lessons we are going to learn from him. And the first lesson is this: set aside as men, we must set aside our personal ambition, to come home and lead by serving. As men we must protect our wife from exposure to the stresses and pressures and demands of a marriage that they were never meant to carry. You know the problem with Lynna and me is not that she can add and I can't. That is totally beside the point. The problem is that I didn't provide the leadership to give her the sense of direction needed so she knew what to do with the addition. That was the failure. The failure was not in saying you have a skill and we have a time management issue within our marriage. So you invest your skill this way. The failure was in my not being there to understand what was happening day by day by day by day. To understand what it meant to manage our money. That was the failure. A serious failure in leadership. Now, I hope gentlemen, that those of you who are math whizzes run the whole thing and have made great success out of your money. Do not miss my point. Because most of us as modern American men are in some way exposing our wives to stresses and tension they were not meant to bear because we fail to trust God, especially in the management of our careers. What is your career costing your wife? That's the real question.

I gave you a specific so you might have something concrete to consider. But the real question is this: what is your career costing your wife that she shouldn't be paying? Secondly how will you choose to trust God so your wife stops paying that price?

Father, I ask that for each of us as men there is an overwhelmingness about what it is we're doing. Being a husband is beyond us and that is why we wrestle with this and why we throw sometimes so much of our energy in other directions because these are things we know we can do, we know how to do. We've even been successful at them or they mean so much to us we need to be successful at them. But in this whole process how to be the godly man you have called us to be when we come home; that's the struggle for us. Teach us from this man Abram. Teach us. Help us to learn. To Your glory and in Your name. Amen.

Following the bible.org model, this outline and accompanying audio message from Dr. Bill Lawrence of Leader Formation International are designed to assist users of bible.org to grow and teach quality principles of leadership in an appropriate context for their respective audience. These outlines can help you in grasping the themes of each study as well as guide you in your own teaching preparation. You can gain important insights and learn new Bible study and teaching method styles used by others, like Dr. Lawrence.

Storms!

Why?

Why does God lead us into storms?

Sometimes, as with Jonah, we rush into storms when we are running away from God. Such storms are self-imposed. Yet there is no doubt that there are times when we are peacefully rowing across life’s lake, as with the disciples, when we are sent into storms not of our own making.

Frightening, frustrating, disturbing, distressing, disrupting our tranquil lives, storms take many forms from unexpected physical illnesses to depression to family struggles to career crashes and more. And why? Why?

This is the question we consider in Stormology, the study of storms, where we see the disciples and Jonah in two very different settings struggling with storms in their lives. And we find the question Why answered by the parable Jesus told at the end of the Sermon on the Mount: storms come to reveal the foundation on which we are building our lives. Storms come into the lives of those who build on the Rock of the Living Word as well as those who build on the sand of their own flesh. Everyone—everyone—faces storms. The question is will you life stand or fall in the midst of the storm?

I invite you to listen to this series called Stormology to discern what storms reveal about you. Are you wise or foolish? Storms tell all.

Introduction

I don’t know if you’ve discovered the writer, Donald Miller, but I find him a breath of fresh air. He may be too fresh for some, but I like his kind of iconoclastic, cut through all the silliness, sort of earthiness.

His Blue Like Jazz is just the book for people turned off by the phoniness that marks some elements among us and his Searching for God Knows What grabbed me as an insight into one of the core realities of the Christian life.

Development:

Sometime back Donald flew from Portland to Memphis to attend a seminar on Capturing literature for the glory of God. When he got to the seminar room on the first of the two days he was there he found about twenty people present—him and nineteen women. It seems few men were interested in capturing literature for the glory of God. Apparently all the women attending were small and slight, weighing about 100 pounds. On the first day, the seminar leader, also a small, slight, 100 pound woman and a successfully published writer, introduced them to two formulas that would teach the participants how to capture literature for the glory of God.

The first formula consisted of four facets:

1. A crisis—a real crisis with frightening consequences that the readers must be made to feel and fear.

2. A clear enemy in the crisis who would threaten the readers so they would fear, hate, and want to overcome him.

3. The ramifications of the crisis and the enemy must be spelled out in such a way that the reader would be motivated to act.

4. A three or four-step to overcome the crisis.

Of course, there could be a question as to how such an overwhelming crisis and enemy could be overcome in three or four steps, but the reader has already bought the book, so that isn’t particularly important.

Transition:

There was another recipe that went like this.

1. Paint a picture of personal misery, sometime when you failed more miserably than you thought possible.

2. Paint a picture of where you are now, in control and on top, presumably no longer the miserable failure you once were.

3. Give the reader three-to-four steps that will get them from misery to control in a fail-safe way.

Miller went home excited and decided to look in the Bible for formulas he could use to turn into stories as developed by the seminar leader. He considered Stephen who ended up stoned and Paul who was a murderer and Peter who was crucified upside down and began to wonder if there were formulas in the Bible—if, in fact, formulas can work with such a complex thing as life.

Transition:

In doing this, he said,

Quote:

“I got frustrated. And it really got me to thinking that, perhaps, formula books, by that I mean books that take you through a series of steps, may not be all that compatible with the Bible. I looked on my shelf at all the self-help books I happened to own, the ones about losing weight, the ones about making girls like you, the ones about getting rich, the ones about starting your own pirate radio station, and I realized none of them actually helped me that much. All the promises of fulfillment really didn’t work. . . . It made me wonder, honestly, if such a complex existence as the one you and I are living can really be broken down into a few steps. It seems if there were a formula to fix life, Jesus would have told us what it was.”¹

Transition:

I think Donald Miller is right.

Development:

If there were a formula to fix life, Jesus would have told us what it is.

Point:

In point of fact, Jesus tells us exactly the opposite in Matthew 7:24-27.

Development:

As Jesus comes to the end of the Sermon on the Mount and draws His final conclusion He shows us that formulas form a flawed foundation of the flesh guaranteed to bring our lives down in the storm waters of a flood.

Preview

Come with me to Matthew 7:24-27 where we see Jesus call us twice to obey Him and then show us that our obedience will be tested by a storm.

I. Jesus Calls Us to Obey Him.
(Matt. 7:24-25)

A. Obedience Shows Us to Be Wise. (7:24)

1. To obey is to hear Christ’s words.

a. To obey is to be constantly hearing Christ’s words.
There is a constant focus on listening to His words. In fact, we are listening for the Living Word through the written words.

b. There is a focus on the Living Word in this passage that we cannot miss.
It’s not just the words; it’s HIS words, the words of the Son of God, the words of the Living Word of God, the loving revelation of the sovereign God of the universe. The prophets call on their hearers to do the will of God. He calls on His hearers to do His will. He is the highest of the high.

Transition:

But to obey is to do more than hear Christ’s words.

2. To obey is to do Christ’s words.

a. Once again the emphasis is on consistency in doing as it is in hearing.

b. Obedience is not just hearing; it’s hearing and doing—on a very consistent basis.

Transition:

But here’s the problem with our typical view of obedience.

Development:

We think of obedience as doing what the Bible says and in doing so we reduce the Living Word into dead words. When we do this we turn His life into our death and miss the point of obedience. Obedience is not conformity to external commands, but response to a loving relationship. Since we are responding to a loving relationship with the Living Word, we can only obey the written word when the Living Word acts through us.

Definition:

This means obedience is desperately depending on the Living Word to practice the principles of the written word.

Restatement:

Obedience is a response to an internal relationship with the Living Word, not a response of good behavior to the external commands of the written word. An intimate relationship with the Living Word results in genuine obedience to the written word.

3. This kind of obedience shows wisdom.

Transition:

Now Jesus presents us with a parable in which those who hear and obey His words are likened to a wise man.

Development:

This man is wise, not in a theoretical sense, but in a very functional sense—know-how. He is not wise because of what he knows, but because of what he does. He wants to build a house—a life really—so he goes out and surveys for the best plot. He may see some beautiful plots shaded in a lovely narrow valley with trees all around, cool breezes that blow through at the end of hot days, surrounded by green meadows with a narrow creek running through the property. He asks the real estate agent, “Does that stream ever flood?” “Not in a hundred years,” the agent replies.

He looks closely and realizes that if there ever was a severe storm—the kind that could happen in his part of the world—he would be wiped out, so he keeps looking until he finds a less attractive setting, but a place that provides a solid foundation, and he builds there. He is building on the Rock.

Point:

Jesus is the Living Rock—He is the Living Word, and His words are the Living Rock.

Development:

He is entrusting all he has and all he is to the Rock. It may not be as beautiful; it may not be as shady; it may not be as desirable as other plots of land, but it is secure—he can trust the Rock.

Point:

This is what our life is all about—it’s about trusting the Rock. It’s about turning away from the allure of the power or the greed or the fame or the attraction of success formulas to abandon all for trust in Jesus so we depend on Him to do what we cannot do in ourselves: to hear and obey His words. This is what makes us wise—and the storms of life will prove our wisdom.

Transition:

Now we see the true nature of hearing.

Development:

It is not just listening. It is not evaluating the concepts critically, as if we can judge the Truth of the Living Word. It is listening and learning and living.

Of course, we evaluate the concepts.

Of course, we think through what Jesus is saying.

Of course, we consider what it means for our lives.

Of course, we ask questions to grasp its meaning as well as its meaning for us.

But our object is to live what we have heard and learned.

Point:

When Jesus calls for us for hear and do, He is calling for us to listen carefully and thoroughly so we can learn as completely as possible how He wants us to live. Christianity is not facts to believe nor formulas to be lived, but a relationship to be entered into and a life to be received. Our life is not a life of steps; our life is a life of trust. How! How! How! Everybody wants to know how!

Question:

How come the Bible doesn’t tell us how? How come the Bible doesn’t give us steps—formulas to manage life? Could it be because we can’t control life—that we were created to be dependent in life and not independent? Could it be because formulas give us control and make us independent and trust removes us from control and makes us dependent? And what might storms have to do with this?

B. Storms Prove Our Wisdom. (7:25)

1. Storms come—there’s no way around the reality of storms.

a. Look how graphic the passage makes the storm.

b. And, and, and, and, and—rain on the roof, wind on the walls, flood on the foundation—and the house stands.

c. Our lives survive the storm because we’ve depended on Christ—we’re building on the Rock because we’re building through the Rock.

2. There are many different kinds of storms.

a. Physical—struggles with health—my friend whose wife went to the doctor for a physical and found out later that she had incurable cancer.

b. Emotional—unjust critical judgments from others, unjust firings, great disappointments from others, a wave of deaths that rolls over us and tumbles us and then slams us on the beach hurting and confused—my friend whose Christian friends listened to the criticism of an unbeliever and lost his job and hasn’t been able to find one for two years.

c. Financial—my friend who lost 90% of his business in a matter of months.

d. Spiritual—a family that experienced attacks by the evil on their children when they thought they had prepared for their protection.

e. Building on the Rock does not prevent storms—it may even invite storms as those who reject the Rock attack those who build on the Rock.

Illustration:

Let me tell you about my friend who lost 90% of his business a few years ago because his wisdom has clearly been proven through this storm. He turned to God in his loss and realized God wanted him to face some key flaws in his character, so this is what he has been doing. As a result he has been growing personally and spiritually.

One key relationship has seen a great deal of healing, the answer to much anguish in prayer. His spiritual influence has expanded more and more and he going to pursue his first international teaching venture in the couple of months. One of his clients was sued, and the work he had done was the key to the suit. After he testified the trial was over, even though it ran its course for a few more days—the jury threw the case out of court because my friend did his work so well. It wasn’t the quality of work that cost him his business; it was a storm designed to demonstrate his wisdom and grow him even deeper in hearing and doing the words of Jesus.

Point:

When you build on the Rock you must expect storms, because only storms can show your wisdom to the world around you.

Question:

But what if you don’t build on the Rock?

Transition:

We turn to the second part of the passage where, once again,

II. Jesus Calls Us to Obey Him. (Matt. 7:26-27)

Transition:

But now He paints a different picture.

A. Disobedience Makes Us Foolish. (7:26)

1. Many of us are disobedient without even realizing it.

a. We start with a fatal flaw in our thinking—we think obedience is up to us, that obedience is a matter of steps, formulas, that if we follow these steps we are obedient and we are able to be obedient.

b. We don’t even realize we are functional legalists.

Development:

We are confused about formulas and don’t even recognize them as a form about legalism. We reduce the Christian life to formulas, steps to succeed. We have formulas for marriage, for raising children, for succeeding in business, for our walk with God—and, as Donald Miller said, none of the formulas work.

Quote:

He said, “All of the promises of fulfillment [found in his self-help books] really didn’t work. My life was fairly normal before I read them, meaning I had good days and bad days, and then my life was fairly normal after I read them too, meaning I still had good days and bad days.”²

Point:

What we fail to realize is that when we build our lives on formulas, we are building our lives on sand.

Restatement:

While we think we are hearing and obey Christ’s words, we actually are building our lives on the fatal flaw of the flesh.

Development:

At its core functional legalism—living our lives functionally as legalists—is placing our confidence in the flesh, and the floods will make this clear to us. Legalism is not a matter of rules and regulations—legalism is a matter of resource—Phil. 3:3.

So we end up doing the works of the flesh rather than bearing the fruit of the Spirit because when the flesh does the right things, it always bears the wrong fruit. This is why so many Bible believing churches end up acting worse than unbelievers.

2. We are disobedient while doing the things that make us obedient.

a. We spend time in the Word.

b. We pray.

c. We do what the Bible says.

d. But we don’t bear the fruit of the Bible.

Development:

We struggle with anger, unforgiveness, pride, division—all the works of the flesh—and don’t understand why. Our intentions are good; our fruit is lacking.

Transition:

And the inevitable storm that comes reveals it all as we stand in shock, surrounded by the ruins of the life we’ve been building.

B. Disobedience Proves Us to Be Foolish. (7:27)

1. Both men do the same thing—build a life.

a. Both men want the same thing—a life—a marriage, a family, a career, a retirement, everything we long to have.

b. We work for it with all our energy—and find our lives in shambles.

c. The storms prove our foolishness

d. Controlled by fear, driven by ambition, committed to Christ, striving for control, totally out of control, we prove ourselves to be foolish.

2. There’s only one difference between the wise man and the foolish man, and it’s not what they want or what they do—it’s their foundation.

a. The wise man builds his house on the foundation of the Rock, Christ.

b. The foolish man builds his house on the foundation of sand, himself—his flesh.

c. He seeks to hear and obey through his flesh, and his foundation is flooded out.

Question:

But where do I get the basis for talking about formulas in this passage?

Transition:

Come with me to the key passage in the Sermon on the Mount, the ultimate point Jesus is making, Mt. 5:20.

Question:

Why must our righteousness surpass the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees? What was wrong with their righteousness?

Answer:

They were the ultimate formula makers.

Development:

We need to know who the scribes and the Pharisees were. The Scribes were

• interpreters of the law,
• required to be over thirty years of age,
• well trained, and
• highly respected.

Their understanding of the law of God gave them great authority, and they were unwilling to give up that authority. When Jesus came with deeper insights and an authority they could never have, they acted to protect their power rather than acknowledge their pride. The Pharisees also had great power and respect, and at one point in their history they deserved it. One-hundred fifty years before Jesus came, they took a stand for God's truth against a secularized society that cost many of them their lives. By doing this, they saved the nation from a total loss of faith. Had that happened, Israel would have lost their distinctiveness as God's people.

However, across the years they used their position as religious leaders to gain power over their followers. They had become hypocritical in the pursuit of the Law, adding all sorts of unbearable demands God never intended, making it impossible for anyone to keep His truth as they explained it. They had great political and economic power that they didn't want to give up. So they refused to respond to Jesus. They preferred their formulas to His words.

Point:

They were committed to keeping a law they could not keep, thus annulling the very law they claimed to keep. In their righteousness they were building a house on the shifting sands of self-effort and the flesh—and it would crash when the storms of life hit.

Development:

The only way our righteousness can surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees is to have a true righteousness that meets God’s Law and does not annul any part of it. And the only righteousness that does that is Christ’s righteousness. The scribes and the Pharisees have a kind of Every Man Righteousness.

• They had the right standard: God’s Law
• They had the right goal: holiness
• They had the right process: worship.
• They had the right aim: loving God and man

But they had the wrong power in mind: their own

• And they had the wrong measurement: their own.
• And they had the wrong mind: deceived.
• And they bore the wrong fruit: pride.
• And they faced the wrong fate: death.

They built their lives on the wrong foundation and their lives failed when tested by the storm of accountability.

Conclusion

Transition:

Now we can put Stormology all together.

Stormology 101: Storms turn control into trust.

Stormology 102: Storms transform consumer Christians into committed Christians.

Stormology 103: Storms reveal the reality of our lives.

Stormology 104: Storms test the foundation of our lives.

Our foundations are hidden, and we can go a long time keeping them secret. We can look and sound just like the Christians around us. We may even build bigger and greater homes than many of them—even multi-roomed mansions. The tragedy is that we may be able to keep the foundation of our lives hidden for a long period of time, as I have seen until they reach their fifties and everything falls apart—their lives are over, shattered and in pieces. The only thing worse than that is to make it into your sixties or more before your true foundation is revealed. And the only thing worse than that is to make it eternity, only to the false foundation of your life revealed by the searing judgment of God’s ultimate storm: your accountability to Him when you can deny nothing.

STORMS TEST THE FOUNDATION OF OUR LIVES

Challenge:

I ask you, On which foundation are you building?

Questions:

And I ask you, What is your supreme desire? What do you want more than anything else? Dependence on Christ in you, the Foundation of your life? Or the independence of running your own life, building on the sands of futile flesh? The storm is coming—what will it reveal about the true essence of your life?

¹ Miller, Donald. Searching for God Knows What (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Books, 2004), p. 10.