Marriage Seminar - Circles of Responsibility - Part One

[larry2]

Circles of Responsibility

by Gene Hawkins

Part 1 of 4

~ transcribed and edited by larry from CD's ~

This session will be titled "Learning our ABC's." This is a concept that I picked up here from the man that teaches the Loving Church seminars. He wrote about this and I saw it and really did like what he was talking about here, though I very seriously doubt he would recognize everything that I have in here, but anyway these ABC circles are from a man by the name of Chuck Lynch and I've been corresponding and interacting with him a little bit. I sent him some material that I had wrote and he wrote back and said he was still thinking of studying on some of that stuff, but anyway I am hopeful he will grasp some of the different things we are talking about.

Before we get into the lesson for tonight, I want to give you somewhat of an assignment. I'm going to do this different from what I had originally planed, but men saw how important it is for them to make their wives to know how much they appreciate them, and wives you need to understand it is so imperative that you make your husband to understand how important he is. What I want you to do is sort of take some mental notes and perhaps write them down on paper the things you've already seen and these different principles we've already gone through, what the ideal is for God to create and to form in our marriages. As we go through some of these other different things we want to explain some things we don't want to do and those things we do want to do. What I want for all husbands and wives to do is to put into words the things that you appreciate about your spouse. You can make that in verse or letter form, but put in writing or document those positive characteristics you see that we have studied in here that God wants to be in the lives of husbands and wives, then give it to your spouse as a loving memorial or testament that you do appreciate the work that God has already done in their lives. This is something you don't have to do as a one time thing as you see other things and how that God is making Christ manifest in their lives, just tell them how that you see that and how that you appreciate that you see Christ and you've experienced Jesus loving you through them. Let them know that and this will really strengthen marriages and bring it to the place where God wanted it to be.

As we begin our lesson tonight you have probably heard over the years that marriages are a fifty/fifty proposition or give and take, but I want to say at the outset that both of those are wrong. Marriage is a total one hundred and ten percent commitment; there is no fifty/fifty or give and take stuff; it's give and we must give ourselves to marriage. It is so important that we get away from this fifty/fifty or give and take business because we are so gifted at mental bookkeeping. The only thing is that we never get them to balance; they never will. Well, such and so did this so therefore I can be excused from this. No!

Our lessons from here on are going to be talking about taking and defining our responsibilities then committing ourselves to them. I want to realize that no person can fulfil the responsibility that I have. Now I'm going to be emphasizing that point more than once so you'll understanding fully I trust by the time this session is over what it means that no one can assume the responsibility for me if it's going to do me any good.
   
The first thing you'll notice here is the three circles along the top of your page on your booklet. Under the first circle is the letter "A."  Under the second circle is the letter "B" and under the third circle is the letter "C." Now there is a blank beside each one of those so at this time if you would, fill in the letter "T" under the first circle. Under the second circle fill in the letter "E", and thus we have entitled the first two circles. We'll get to the third circle tomorrow sometime.

So the first circle is "AT." Every couple can use this little formula again and again, and it would be good to do it just in a very rational way whenever troubles arise, when difficulties come up and you begin to see things in your marriage. You can actually put your marriage under the microscope of God's word and you can put your own self under the microscope of God's word. The first word "AT" is where we are right now in our marriage, and generally in this circle if we are at a place where we want to be encouraged we can put those things there that are right in the marriage, but generally when starting out it's square one so to speak and the "AT" circle tells us all the things that are wrong in our marriage. Now when we begin to fill out these circles and you begin to fill out the "AT" circle, it is vitally important we do not preface the difficulty with the word "He" or "She". In other words she lies, he screams, she's always late, he throws a tantrum, and all of these things you don't like about what is going on. So instead of putting the "He", "She", or whoever's responsible just put the offence there. If lying is there, put lying down. If the offence is pride, put pride down. If unfaithfulness is there, put unfaithfulness down. Now, the reason that I want to bring it out this way is because every person must assume his own responsibility in this "AT" circle. If you don't do that then you get into finger pointing, you begin to blame other people with this is what you are, and this is your responsibility.

What we're going to discover and what we want to cover in these last few sessions is that each one of us must claim his or her responsibility. It's not up to one of us to claim that and to point out that this is what you need to do. The condition exists but in order to fix it, the person that is responsible must assume responsibility.

Now the "B" circle represents where we want to be; that's where we want to go. For example if there's lying in the marriage, then where should the "B" circle be? Truth, and that's what you will find in every one of these. Just the opposite of what exists in the "A" circle is generally what you want in the "B" circle, and the positive that will be found in the "B" circle will be located in (1 Cor. 13:4-8),  and also in the fruit of the Spirit because you see those two items; the fullness of those sixteen characteristics of devine love which are (4) "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, (5) Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; (6) Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; (7) Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. (8) Charity never faileth:" and the fruit of the Spirit in (Gal. 5:22) "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith," and (Eph. 5:9) "For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;" are going to be the way to fix anything that is in the "A" circle.

I want to realize that there can be cycles in marriages. I mean by that, you go along and have this problem and you are going along just fine and all of a sudden here come these problems and all of this and these things can just keep coming in cycles if we do not follow God's principles. This is beautifully illustrated in the second chapter of the book of Judges. This cycle we see here is repeated over and over in the book of Judges. The first thing is (Jud. 2:7) "The people served the Lord;" now that's where the marriage starts out, it's just on a wonderful plane,  everything is going along great and things are just marvelous, but notice in (Judges. 2:11) "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD." What happens here is that the bad attitude and the lack of commitment to (1 Cor. 13:4-8) become manifest, and so it's not the fruit of the Spirit that is manifest in the marriage any more, it is these things that are contrary and contradictory to the principles of devine love and the fruit of the Spirit.

The third part of that cycle is in (Judges. 2:14 paraphrased).  "And the anger of the LORD was kindeled and He delivered them into the hands of their enemies." Now this is where you get those great conflicts in marriage, those things that arise that bring great pain, sorrow, difficulty and ordeals which cause us great pain to ourselves, distress and all of these things and God wants to use that, and God will use those very uncomfortable things in our lives in order to get us to come to the fourth part of the cycle in (Jud. 2:16 paraphrased) where "The LORD raised up judges to deliver them." Those judges are simply those who bring forth the word of God to tell, show and enable us to implement these characteristics and principles of the scripture.

Now as you will find that this cycle is repeated over, and over, and over again. Israel had twelve judges and this  cycle is repeated for every one of them and the reason that cycle is repeated is because the judge died, and when the principles of God die out in a marriage you can expect it to go downhill. Unless we commit to maintaining those constant principles in our marriage it's not just going to happen; good marriages don't just happen because you have to work at good marriages. I'll tell you it is worth the effort, but we must apply God's principles if we are going to succeed, and so what we must do is to make sure the judge is still alive in our lives and that judge is simply the glorious principles of the word of God and those things we have been learning this week and a whole lot more of them also.

Now the "C" circle if you haven't already figured it out is the circle of commitment. What I want to notice in our lesson tonight is there are a number of obstacles to claiming the responsibility that each person must claim, and as I say each person has to claim that responsibility himself. It can't be a matter of one blaming the other; you'll never get anywhere. Each one is going to have to claim his or her part in the matter. Probably the first and most glaring obstacle to claiming responsibility is blame-shifting. Now you remember this is what Adam did in (Gen. 3:12) "And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." She did it! You see, he refused to pick up the responsibility himself and so blame-shifting is a detour of personal responsibility and it simply means this; that one sees, emphasizes or focuses almost entirely on someone else's responsibility and not his own. There he will often look at that and point to what someone else did or did not do and thinks in his own mind that releases him from assuming his own responsibility and it doesn't.

You see, it is so vitally important we realize that because someone else may or may not have done something, that doesn't release me from the responsibility that I have. We have to assume our own responsibility regardless of what someone else may or may not do. Now this focusing on other's difficulties and responsibilities is much like where Jesus own words condemns this sort of thing in (Matt. 7:5 paraphrased) “You remove the log from your own eye so you can see clearly the speck in the other person's eye," but we don't do that; it's far more to our advantage to focus on what is wrong with them. Gene Hawkins is Pastor and head of "Gospel Fellowship and Grace and Glory Bible College."

In Jesus' name - larry