Psalm 147, verse three, the Bible says, he healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the truth of the Bible that speaks to every area of our lives. Whatever life stage we're in, whatever situation we find ourselves, the word of God teaches us what to do, what not to do. And I pray as we continue our Bible study on marriage and family, our series that you would give me the words to say, give us ears to hear, and whether we need these lessons now, or sometime in the future, or somebody that we meet needs them, I pray the Holy Spirit would bring them to mind at the appropriate time. so we can stop the pain and suffering and people can enjoy marriage as you have planned. We pray in Christ's name, amen. So we're in the middle of our series, The Emergency Marriage Manual. Boy, sometimes marriage just hurts, doesn't it? And so as we've done, some of you are married here today, some of you, your loved ones have passed on, some of you aren't married today, But what you're going to learn, the lessons you're going to learn, will apply to any area of life that you find yourself in. Because interpersonal relations often have the same fundamental foundations. So I think it'd be a blessing to you. And then, this may not be for you today. It might be for someone at work. It might be for someone that you meet. Boy, there's a lot of people hurting out there and in relationships, and we need to know how to help ourselves and how to help them. The concept here that I wanna talk about today is stop the bleeding, where to begin when you don't know what to do. You think about our series, Emergency Marriage Manual, the subtitle is Finding Hope and Healing When Your Marriage Hurts. And sometimes marriage and family hurts more than it brings the happiness and fulfillment for which God has intended. When you're in those moments, when your marriage is still intact, but it's hurting and it seems like it's spinning apart and falling apart. The choices you make in those moments are gonna be vital about whether or not the marriage can be saved. And as we know, boy, sometimes things just don't work out the way we plan. Life's difficult, Satan's good at his job, and boy, life can spin out of control faster than you can believe. But by the grace of God, if you'll turn to God, there is always hope. And so when we're doing marriage counseling, one of the first things we have to do is stop the bleeding. Just like if you had someone that came into the hospital, and they're on a stretcher, and the doctor doesn't know much, but he knows there's blood everywhere. So the first thing they're gonna do is check to see where the blood's coming from. And the second thing they're gonna do is check the airway to make sure that they're breathing, that they can breathe. The first thing you gotta do is stop the bleeding. A marriage in crisis is like a wounded body. When an injury causes bleeding, the first action of emergency care is not deep surgery. It's not long-term therapy. It is to stop the bleeding. The immediate crisis must be stabilized to preserve life and allow healing. Now, sadly, today, Some marriages are hemorrhaging. They bleed from betrayal, bitterness, neglect, or strife. The couple often feels overwhelmed and doesn't know what to do or where to begin. But this evening's Bible study is a biblical guide for couples in crisis. We're gonna show you some spiritual triage. The goal is not perfection, but preservation, preservation of the marriage. If you can stop the bleeding, the healing can begin. And let me say this, you don't have to wait for big problems to come before you work on your marriage. We should be constantly working on these things. And when I put in the word marriage there, you can apply this to all relationships of life. Why do we wait till things get so bad? It's like the guy that won't go to the doctor. I'm not looking at anybody here. I'm not looking at anybody. Nobody likes going to the doctor. Well, some people like going to the doctor. Most people don't like going to the doctor. Oh, it's terrible. I've had several older men over the years tell me they don't like going to the doctor. I say, why? Because they always give me bad news. So if you don't go to the doctor, there's no bad news. Now everything hurts, and this thing's falling off, and that's loose, and this and that. And it hurts to stand. It hurts to sit down. It hurts to walk. It hurts to sleep. But the longer it goes, the worse it gets. We don't have to wait until everything's absolutely falling apart. We can stay focused and try to keep things healthy as we go along. A broken marriage is like a wounded body. When blood's pouring from a deep wound, the first priority is not cosmetic surgery. It's to stop the bleeding. When a marriage is falling apart, the first step is not to solve every issue. but it's to stabilize the situation and stop the hurt. You can't get healing if you're still hurting each other. Tonight, I wanna show you some things from the scripture. If you feel lost, overwhelmed, or numb from the pain of repeated hurt and failure, I wanna remind you this, that God sees you God knows your pain, and God can heal you from the inside out. So I wanna give you some thoughts. I've got far too many here that I can't really dig down in each one. Each one of these could be its own sermon. But I'm gonna give you a main thought and just a couple statements about each thought and a verse or two, and we're just gonna go through. You can take notes or listen later if you want to. pay attention and really dig down in the list. So what do we do when our marriage is hurting? Number one, return to God as the foundation of your relationship. Return to God. Psalm 127.1 says, except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Do you believe that? Of course we believe that, don't we? We've seen it. So whenever our marriage or our relationships are in trouble, the first thing we have to do is recommit our own lives and our relationship to Christ. Healing can only begin when we humbly submit to the Lordship of our Savior. When Jesus is first, everything else falls into line. Sometimes we deal with marriages and we find out that they're struggling, but their marriage never got started on a biblical foundation at all. Perhaps the marriage, the relationship began in sin or the relationship began and they didn't know the Lord and it wasn't built on the Lord. So there's actually a way where we can go back in our minds and our hearts and we can say, whatever our marriage was, starting today we are returning to God as the foundation of our relationship. That, dear friend, is transformational. And make no mistake about it, if a marriage is falling apart, one or both of the couple has departed from the Lord as the foundation. So we need to return to God. Imagine trying to build a house without first putting in a foundation. The rain comes, and the house falls down. and thus is our relationships, we must make sure they're on the right foundation of God Almighty. So stop the bleeding, number one, return to God as the foundation. How do we stop the bleeding? Number two, we cry out to God. Psalm 46.1 says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. The first thing we have to do is acknowledge our helplessness. Isn't it amazing how we deceive ourselves that we are somehow in control? I don't wanna burst your bubble, but you're not in control. And I'm not in control. You say, oh no, no one's in control. No, God's in control. And so we can acknowledge our helplessness. In John 15 five, Jesus said, without me you can do nothing. No amount of cleverness will repair a spiritual fracture. in a relationship apart from God's grace. You might be able to cover it up for a while, you might be able to gloss it over, but true healing only comes from God. We need to approach God in humble prayer. Crying out to God opens the door for divine intervention. We need to apply his word as our guide. Psalm 119, 105, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. So we cry out to God, we seek divine help. How do we stop the bleeding? Number three, we cease the destruction. We stop the damage. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter four. And some of these we'll look at, some of them I'll just quote to you. Ephesians chapter four. And look at verse 31. Of course this applies to all human relationships, but is there any relationship more important than that of a married couple? Look at verse 31. Let all bitterness, the modern word for bitterness is resentment, and wrath, and anger. You say, what's the difference between anger and wrath? Think about anger as the pot simmering and wrath as the pot boiling over. So anger can be in the heart and there are visible evidence of it, but wrath is when it comes out in loud voices and mean faces and violence and anger and wrath. We gotta get rid of that stuff the Bible says. Clamor, clamor, imagine slapping symbols together. Clamor speaks of yelling at each other, raised voices, and evil speaking, saying bad things about each other. You're just like your mother. That never works out well, does it? You're just like your father. You always, you never, And then it goes on to say, be put away from you with all malice. Now what's malice? Malice is the desire for someone to suffer. I want you to suffer. Because when someone's hurting us, the natural human reaction is we want them to hurt. God says you gotta put all that away from you. Verse 32, be kind one to another, tend hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. So if we're gonna stop the bleeding, we've gotta stop the damage. We've gotta stop hurting each other. Silence the shouting and accusations. Your tone matters. A soft answer turneth away wrath. Gentle words can calm a storm. Harsh words fuel the fire. Create space for calm and clarity. A temporary pause in high conflict moments can stop more damage. You know, I just need a moment. You know what, let's just come back to that. Let's take a breath. Let's pray for a minute. See sinful behaviors. What if there's some sin going on, some sin hurting one another? That has to stop. Habitual sin must be dealt with decisively if healing is to begin. And usually what happens is in marriages and all relationships, there are already existing problems that you learn to navigate around. You know it's a problem. but you've figured out how to cope with it. Then something happens, some stress happens, some situation happens where now it really begins to crack and fracture. And the problems that were there the whole time now begin to boil over. And what we need to do is work to heal all of the situations, not just the one at the moment that's causing the most pain. Anytime that your marriage or your relationships go through a difficulty, the goal of healing should be a stronger relationship overall, not just the absence of conflict, a stronger, healthier relationship. So whenever we're talking about stopping the damage here, this doesn't mean that we have to solve every problem today. It does mean you have to stop making things worse. Stop the damage. It makes sense that we can't rebuild a house while at the same time setting it on fire. The chaos has to stop so the construction can begin. Number four, how do we stop the bleeding? Consider your condition. That means examine the reality. Look at the situation for what it is. Don't whitewash it, don't sugarcoat it. Usually what we do is we speak about ourselves in the best of terms and the other person in the worst of terms. We give ourselves the benefit of the doubt while placing on others the worst possible meaning to things. We've gotta stop that. We've got to look at the relationship, the reality of the condition. What does that mean? Inspect your spiritual walk. Am I close to God, or perhaps I have drifted away from God and didn't know it? Of course, the spiritual health of a marriage is directly tied to the spiritual health of the individuals in the marriage. We've got to identify what's broken, look for areas of pain and dysfunction. Is it trust? Is it intimacy? Is there a lack of communication? Is there bitterness or resentment that has built up? And oftentimes what happens in a relationship is there are problems that leave doors open for Satan to creep into. And when you are repairing a relationship, one of the things you do is you go through and close all those doors. Every since I've had a family, one of my jobs at night is to go around and make sure the doors are locked. I do it every night. And if I think, oh, I didn't lock a door, I've actually got up out of bed before and said, oh, I didn't know if the door was locked. Now, some of you are like, I don't lock the doors. Lock the doors. Well, you don't live on the mean streets of Wakefield. Now, as the kids have gotten older, I'll delegate that to them. Hey, did you make sure the doors are locked? And every once in a while, I'll ask them, hey, did you make sure the doors are locked? I made sure. But you gotta do that in your life. Make sure all the doors are closed so Satan can't come in through the back door or a window. We've gotta acknowledge personal failures, mutual failures. And it's so important that before we attempt to fix other people, or before you attempt to fix your spouse, you've gotta take a hard look at yourself. What have I done? Well, theirs was the greater sin, but what have I done to contribute to this? Healing begins when we own our faults without excuse. When an emergency responder shows up to an emergency, one of the first thing they do is check the vitals. Are they breathing? What's the heart rate? What's the blood pressure? And we must do the same in our relationships. So how do we stop the bleeding? Number four, we consider our condition or examine the reality. Number five, we practice confession and repentance. Look at 1 John, 1 John chapter one. First John chapter one and verse nine, I remember Brother Bo talking to me about this verse often. Probably because I was sinning all the time. But first John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we want to bring healing in our marriage, if we want to stop the bleeding, we must learn to acknowledge our sins and call out to God for forgiveness. This also means whenever there's true repentance, we will genuinely apologize. Have you ever had someone apologize to you, but you know they didn't mean it? I'm sorry. Sorry. That does about zero good, doesn't it? It's probably negative good. It would have been better if you not to say anything at all. But if someone ever looks at you and honestly says, I am really sorry. I can't believe I did that to you. I love you, I don't ever want to hurt you. That goes a long way, doesn't it? But that can only come from confession and repentance. Healing begins when humility enters the relationship. We must ask God for forgiveness. We must ask our spouse for forgiveness. Pride builds walls, confession tears them down. So how do we stop the bleeding? Confession, repentance. Number six, how do we stop the bleeding? We commit to the right actions. What does that mean? Do the next right thing. Let me show you an important verse, James chapter four. This is an often misunderstood verse. If I were to ask you what is a sin, each one of you that know the Bible would have a definition. There are actually four definitions of sin in the Bible. Now they're all a transgression of the law, but there are different modes of how we transgress the law. We won't have time to get into that. But tonight we're gonna talk about the sin of omission. Look at James chapter four and verse 17. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is what? Sin. That means if you know that something is right and you choose not to do the right thing, it's a sin. See, sin is doing things that we know we shouldn't do, but sin is also refusing to do the things we know we should do. And so, In stopping the healing, it's hard whenever a marriage is in such turmoil and crisis that it's hard to know where to start, but you just start in the next thing that's in front of you. Do the next right thing. Whatever the next thing is that God puts in front of you that you know you should do, stop looking at what they do, stop looking at what they did, stop looking at the situation, stop counting up all the sins of the past, do the next right thing. Start small. Change often begins with simple obedience. Begin with how you speak to one another. Speak with peace and kindness, not criticism. Restart spiritual habits. Rebuild your marriage one prayer at a time. One scripture at a time. One church service at a time. Listen, if God hasn't been a part of your relationship, and you go to say, you know what, we're a mess, we need to pray. Your spouse might look at you and say, what? We don't want to pray. That's exactly what you need to do. Learn to do the awkward things that you should have been doing the whole time. You know what, let's read a little scripture. We never read the scripture. Now's a good time to start. We need to get back faithful to church. Well, we've got things to do, we've got plans. Do the next right thing. And you don't need to worry about fixing the whole relationship. Today, you just need to take the next right step and God will meet you there. Amen? Number seven, how do we stop the bleeding? We call for support. Galatians 6.2 says, bear ye one another's burdens. You know, you don't have to suffer alone. Satan always tries to isolate us to hurt us. Well, what will people think? What will the pastor think? We don't want people to know. How much pain and suffering do you have to go through for people to know? There's gonna come a time when everybody's gonna know anyway, when you're not sleeping in the same house or lawyers are involved. Get help, get help. Seek pastoral counseling, seek biblical counseling. Break the silence. And let me say, my wife and I have always had, we agreed a long time ago, that if she is in fear of our marriage, she doesn't need my permission to get counsel. I think I've seen a lot of men make mistakes, and the wife wants counsel, and the man will say, I'm not getting counsel. Sir, sir, sir. That's not very smart. You tell your wife, if you need help, you get help. but encourage her to seek the right people. Don't just tell your friend at work, right? Don't just tell the next person you run into. Find somebody who's trustworthy and godly. What happens is, if you don't find the right person, then eventually you're telling everybody, or for example, people type on Facebook, will somebody please tell my husband that, well, somebody's having a bad day. It leaks out, doesn't it? when choose to seek help from the right people. You were never meant to walk this journey alone. And God gave you a church family and a pastor and people that love you to help you. Think about in a medical trauma, a team surrounds the patient. There's too much going on for it just to all fall upon a handful. Have that team, wise, Get wise counsel. Number eight, how do you stop the bleeding? Choose to stay. Choose to stay. Matthew 19, six says, what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Listen, I know in every church service we have people that are married, people that aren't married anymore, people that used to be married, and I think the church knows me well enough where I don't have to go through all the caveats. Life happens. Sometimes good people do really dumb things. Sometimes people you love choose to blow everything up. We don't look at this with judgment. We look at this with wisdom. If trouble comes knocking on your door, you've gotta stop looking for a reason to leave. Because if you're looking for a reason to leave, you're gonna find one. For example, I often remind people in counseling that your brain's just a computer. You ever notice the Bible says thinking happens in what organ? The heart, that's right. The liver. The gizzard? You don't have a gizzard, sir. The Bible says thinking happens in the heart, and people say, oh, that's scientifically incorrect. No, it's not. The brain's a computer. The brain will simply answer any question you give it. The true contemplation happens in the soul, in the heart, as the Bible says. So if I have someone come to my office and they're like, our marriage is over because of this, because of this, because of this, and I need to leave because of this, because of this, because of this, I'll often ask them one question. Give me five reasons why you should stay. And they're often like, well, I don't know, it's this, this, this. Give me five reasons why you should stay. And within seconds, it's usually, well, there's this. And you know there's this. And there's that. And there's this. And there's... If someone's looking for a reason to leave, they're gonna find a bunch of them. But can I help you? If you look for a reason to stay, you're gonna find a bunch of them. I had a couple in my office years ago, and they're gone with the Lord. But the woman is in there, and the guy had done some foolish things, but she was done. And I looked at her and said, God can't help your marriage. I said, you've got your hand on the doorknob. Just one more reason, say one more thing, and I'm out of here. I told her, you've got to take your hand off the doorknob before God can help you. About a week later after church, she handed me a handwritten note on a scrap of paper that said I took my hand off the doorknob. And they stayed married until he went to heaven. You just gotta choose to stay. Now sometimes that choice is taken away from you. In that case, you run to the Lord. You have to reject the idea of an escape plan. I remember years ago in Chicago, they had all these billboards, easy divorce, $300. I thought to myself, you know, I've seen a lot of divorce. We grew up in, I didn't grow up as a Christian. I've been around a lot of divorce. I've never seen an easy one. I've never seen a simple one. Choose to stay. Number nine, how do you stop the bleeding? Rebuild trust intentionally. Proverbs 28, 20 says, a faithful man shall abound with blessings. In a broken marriage, there's usually a lot of broken trust. Now that trust can take a lot of forms. But trust must be rebuilt on purpose through consistent actions. Be transparent, be accountable, establish safeguards, Listen, folks, there is any manner of wickedness in the world is two clicks away on any electronic device you have connected to the internet. You've got to consider some of these things. You've got to think about some of these things. And so we've got to rebuild trust. You know, my kids growing up, they got to a certain age, we gave them phones. If I ever went to reach for their phone and they go, oh. Your wife, your spouse, your husband should be able to pick your phone up any time and take a look at it. Matter of fact, you should welcome it. There should be no hidden accounts, no hidden folders, no hidden passwords. There should be no cozy people at work. There should be no special friends. There should be no times when you don't know where people are. You know, the government tracks me everywhere I go. They do you, too. You just may not know it, but... I'm probably on every list known to man. They're listening right now. But do you know who else can track me? My wife. She doesn't have to plant a GPS in my car. I pay a monthly fee for it. But anytime she wants, she can go on there and see where I'm at. Something crazy? My kids know where I'm at, too. Any one of my kids can look up, where's Dad? And they say, why is he at Dunkin' Donuts? Again. Transparency builds trust. Secrecy is the devil's currency. Don't have secrets. Trust is like a tree. It takes years to grow and seconds to cut down, but with care, it can grow again. Number 10. How do we stop the bleeding? Restore Christ-like communication. Colossians 4, 6, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt. You gotta watch how you speak to each other. What, calling each other names and using hard tones? Hey Paul, what? Are you tired, you hungry? Why would we talk like that? Be thoughtful of your tone. Christ-like communication. Speak the truth in love. Listen more than you speak. Avoid sarcasm, yelling, the silent treatment. My wife and I, some of you haven't had the privilege of seeing Sarah and I interact in church, because she's been sick for so long. But some of you will remember, we never joked around meanly. I never made fun of her. We had friends in the ministry that The husband and wife would joke about each other's weight, or they would say mean things about each other and laugh. I just think that's a bad idea. Even if they laugh, that causes hurt. And so, Christ-like communication. Number 11, how to stop the bleeding. Renew your marriage commitment. Well, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder, reform your commitment, make divorce a non-option. You can't stop them from divorcing you, but you can stop from divorcing them. Work as a team. Marriage is not simply a contract to cancel, but a covenant to keep. Number 12, reestablish intimacy. Proverbs 5.18, rejoice with the wife thy youth. Spend quality time together. Date your spouse again. Boy, it's amazing to me how people will chase each other and talk every, you ever see these young people, you know, they'll go on a date for three hours, then talk on the phone all the way home, then sit in the driveway and talk for 30 minutes, and then get in the house and they're still on the phone, then they go up in bed and they talk in their bedroom for another 30 minutes, and then you get married, it's like, if I need you, I'll let you know. That's not the way it should work. One of the ways you repair a marriage is you begin dating again, you begin pursuing them again. The same things you did to win their heart in the first place, you keep doing for the rest of your lives. Number 13, embrace God-given roles. We looked at that in Ephesians 5, verses 22 and 25. We gave a whole Wednesday night to each of those things, the godly responsibilities of a Christian husband, the godly responsibilities of a Christian wife. Treat those roles with respect. Husbands lead, protect with love. Wives support and submit with respect. Think about two dancers. One has to lead, the other has to follow, or they keep tripping over each other's feet. You gotta embrace your roles. If we were watching a baseball game and everybody wanted to be the pitcher, you got nine guys standing on the mound, that didn't work out too well. And so embrace God-given roles. Number 14, walk in the Spirit. Look at Galatians chapter five. We've got a whole sermon that we've preached over the years called The Spirit-Filled Home. And I just believe that the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit changes everything. especially your home. In Galatians chapter 5, verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Imagine having a home, a relationship that was characterized by those beautiful virtues. Walk in the spirit. Number 15, protect the marriage from outside influence. First Corinthians 15.33, evil communications corrupt good manners. Guard against toxic influences. Set protective boundaries. End inappropriate relationships. Stop listening to people that are encouraging you to do wrong. Protect the marriage. Number 16, worship and serve the Lord together. Joshua 24, 15, as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. Pray together, read scripture together, attend church services together, sit in church together, go to Christian events together, find ways you can serve God as a team. Number 17, learn to accept the reality and extend grace. Sometimes when a marriage falls apart, it gets ugly, doesn't it? We've seen it. And if it hasn't happened to you, you've seen it in other people's lives. I mean, it gets ugly. What you have to do is accept where things are and learn to inject grace into that relationship. Realize that no spouse meets every need. Your spouse is flawed. Learn to love through their flaws with grace. That doesn't mean you become a doormat. That doesn't mean that you just put up with abuse. But it means that you stop wishing things were different or having unrealistic expectations. Accept the reality and find ways to inject grace in the relationship as it is. It's the grace of God that's gonna heal. Number 18, focus on personal growth. 2 Corinthians 13, five says examine yourselves. We gotta stop trying to fix our spouse, we gotta stop, we know everything that's wrong with them. We gotta work on us. If there's a marriage struggling and one spouse comes to me in the marriage for marriage counseling, I tell them right off, I cannot fix your spouse who's not here. but we can work on you. And you have to learn to work on yourself first. Because whether they stay or whether they go, you've gotta live with you. And you need to be close to the Lord. And then lastly, let us not be weary in well-doing. Healing takes time. If you've got a clock on it, you're gonna be disappointed. What do they say, a watched pot never boils? I've tried that. Try that next time you're trying to warm up water for spaghetti or something. Sit there and look at it. It will not boil. It's like there's an angel there going, nope, nope, nope. And then you walk away and you come back and all of a sudden it's boiling. If you put a clock, you say, well this better be fixed in You're gonna be disappointed. But watch this. Don't put a clock on it either way. Don't say, this better be fixed in a short amount of time, or it's gonna take a long, long, long, long time. Because we have to remind people, it might take longer than you think. But I also remind people, if God steps in your marriage, he can heal this thing a lot more faster than you can imagine. Don't remove the supernatural element from healing your marriage. Amen? You gotta learn to persevere. Perseverance takes reward. So marriage in crisis, marriage hurting, couples hurting each other, what happens? We gotta stop the bleeding. We gotta stop the hurt. And if you focus on these things, even just take a couple of these things and say, hey, I can at least do this or I can at least do that. Your friend at work tells you, man, my wife or my husband, I can't believe they did this. And don't say, yeah, I've met them. I wouldn't want to live with them either. That's the wrong answer. Maybe you could give them some Christian hope and help them turn to the Lord. Every crisis is an opportunity to experience the grace of God in a deeper way. God can stop the bleeding. God can heal what's broken. But you've got to do your part. Run to him. Do the next right thing. Beg him for forgiveness and healing. and he can help you. Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you for the truths. Of course, we're applying this to marriage, but they apply to so many areas of life. I pray that you would speak to each one of us. And whether we need this now or sometime in the future, or somebody we know will need it, I pray the Holy Spirit will bring it to our minds in the right time, in the right way.