Marriage & The Meaning of Encouragement: Dane Ortlund

Dane: “I hear you, Dane. Honestly, Dude, I feel a little awkward giving sincere, specific encouragement to my spouse.”

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today!

Ann: This is going to be a fun day today.

Dave: Why is that?

Ann: One, we’re going to—

Dave: —because we’re together. You’re with me. I’m with you.

Ann: Of course; that’s always the best. But we’re also going to be listening to Dane Ortlund today.

Dave: That’s a good day.

Ann: It’s a message that he gave on the Love Like You Mean It^® marriage cruise last Spring.

Dave: Yes. We were there in February. The sun was out, the wind was blowing. Thousands of couples on this boat. FamilyLife has done the Love Like You Mean It cruise for over 15 years, and we’ve been on a lot of them.

I’m not even a cruise guy. I wouldn’t choose a cruise for my vacation, but this cruise is the best thing ever, because it's not just a vacation. You’re working on your marriage. Every night there is a keynote talk on marriage; there are breakout sessions on topics that relate to your marriage; there are comedians on the boat; there are great bands and music; there is great food.

Ann: But you are also doing excursions and getting off the boat. It’s fun. And it’s for every age group, every phase of marriage. If you have little kids, you need to get away.

Dave: Yes.

Ann: If you have teenagers, you need to get away. If you are empty nesters—

Dave: —you need to get away.

Ann: Yes. And, maybe, bring some friends with you. Or, if you are a parent, bring those adult kids or send them on the Love Like You Mean Itmarriage cruise.

Dave: We will be on the Love Like You Mean It cruise, speaking, next February. We’d love to have you guys with us. You can go to FamilyLifeToday.com and sign up to join and be there with us.

You’re going to hear talks like we’re going to hear today from Dane Ortlund. He gave this talk last year. This is a topic that not a lot of people talk about. Although, you [Dane] are writing a book. You just wrote a book.

Ann: This is my language right here. He’s really talking about encouragement and the power that we have, and how marriage can be transformed by the encouragement we give our spouse.

Here’s Dane Ortlund:

[Previously Recorded]

Dane: First definition: what do we mean by biblical encouragement? You might hear something like, “Hey, I just want to encourage you to get up 30 minutes earlier and pray more. I want to encourage you to be more generous with your money.”

That is not what I am talking about. That is not encouragement. That is law. That’s “shape up.” What I mean by encouragement is the following:

That subset of Christian love—a species of love; that subset of Christian love—that identifies specific marks of God’s presence in the life—we’re talking about marriage here—in the life of our spouse with words to our spouse without joking, without a concluding, sarcastic comment that’s actually retracting what you just said and emptying it. There’s a time for jokes, but not in encouragement as I am commending to you.

That subset of Christian love that identifies specific—specificity, concrete.

“I saw the way you greeted Jennifer at church this morning. She was in some distress, that was clear. You interacted with her with listening and love. God [through] the Holy Spirit must be alive and well in you.” [Or] “I know that you desire to grow in gentleness. I don’t know if you see that. I see God doing that in you.” Something like that.

Now, you may already have objections rising up about this, so just hang in there with me. That’s my definition of it.

Three reasons we’re reflecting on encouragement today.

1. Encouragement is neglected in our churches and in our marriages today.

Do you think about it? Do you talk about it? Do you hear—when was the last sermon you heard (or Sunday School class) where you heard about encouragement? Most of my life, I have neglected it. I have viewed it as nice, but frothy. I just want you to know that I no longer feel that way or believe that way about encouragement.

2. Encouragement has disproportionate power.

C.S. Lewis died in 1963. He was friends with J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien wrote a letter in 1965, two years after Lewis had died, in which he said (I didn’t write down the exact quote, but in which he said), “I would never have finished The Lord of the Rings had it not been for the encouragement of C.S. Lewis, of Jack Lewis.” Tolkien says, “I would never have brought it to completion,”—that was the phrase he used—“had it not been for the encouragement, the unflagging encouragement, of Jack Lewis.”

Think about it this way: for you to encourage someone is to make a deposit in their heart that costs you about fifty cents. As it goes through the air into their ears and deposits in their heart, what happens is, it is suddenly a deposit of several hundred dollars. It has disproportionate power. What it costs you to offer it pales in comparison to what it actually gives of life to the person receiving it.

3. We are told repeatedly in Scripture to encourage one another, so we cannot get around it. It’s in the Bible. Let’s look at it.

Four texts. I’ve given you a definition and three reasons; now, four texts.

1. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (I’m just going to say a few quick things about each of them, so it’s going to go really quickly here): “Encourage one another and build one another up.”

Insight Number One from 1 Thessalonians 5: to encourage is to build up. This verse Paul uses here is an architectural term; literally, a building term. You are not puffing them up. That’s flattery for your sake. You’re building them up; encouragement for their sake.

One of the beautiful, God-created secrets to encouragement is that when you encourage someone, you set out to build them up, but it also builds you up. Everyone wins.

Encourage. Build up. Maybe many of us grew up in a home where the culture, which was from a dad or a mom or others, was not one of words building up but of words tearing down. If so, the wondrous privilege we have with our spouses, after they have been torn down in the home they grew up in, is to build them back up with encouragement. “Encourage one another and build one another up.”

2. Romans 12:10 “Outdo one another in showing honor.”

The one place in all the Bible where we are told to defeat one another; to “outdo one another.” Elbow your way to the front of the line in this thing called showing honor. Be the first one up the hill in this thing of showing honor or encouraging one another.

It doesn’t use the language of encouragement; it uses this beautiful language that means the same thing [as] showing honor. It’s the same word. If you have your Bibles open, it’s the same word that is used over in chapter 13, the next chapter (we’re in chapter 12; in Romans 13:7). It uses the same Greek noun, honor. “Honor to whom honor is due.” The context there is the civil authorities. Paul says, “Pay to everyone exactly what you owe them.” Pay to them what is owed. “Honor to whom honor is due.”

Now, just notice in chapter 13, with regard to civil authorities, Paul says, “Give them exactly the right amount of honor that they deserve.” Neither more nor less—the correct amount—when you are dealing with the world, and civil authorities, and taxes, and so on. But in the church and in your marriage, with Christians, chapter 12 [says], “Outdo one another in showing honor.” Flood, irrigate, deluge, lavish honor on one another. What a gorgeous vision for a way to be together. “Outdo one another in showing honor.” I would like to grow in that.

3. Hebrews 10:25 I want to draw your attention to, but I’m beginning from verse 24: “Let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

Apparently, encouragement is how we roll. In other words, the writer can swap in “encourage one another” as an equally viable phrase for meeting together, because that is what we do. Is that true in your marriage? What about in your church? Would you say what is bubbling out all the time is meaningful encouragement? Let’s grow in that.

4. 1 Peter 3:7 (the first one that is explicitly attached to marriage) Peter has been talking to wives, and now, he pivots and is talking to husbands. 1 Peter 3:7—this was a new discovery for me just this week [in] talking through this text with my wife: “Husbands, live with your wife in an understanding way, showing honor.”

Same word as Romans 12 and 13, showing honor. It means value. It’s actually a term referring to monetary value in the First Century. Showing honor, preciousness, [and] value “to the woman as a weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life.” [1 Peter 3:7]

Just one observation here: apparently—Peter says the one thing, “live with your wife in an understanding way, showing honor;” apparently, husbands, guys, we are to lead the way in our marriages in showing honor.

If there is an encouragement stalemate—mayb, it was never there—and one or both of you would love for your marriage to be irrigated with this wonderful reality of encouraging one another, the husbands take the first step in encouraging one another.

Let me sum up those four texts: to encourage is to build up—build up by showing lavish honor—and, thereby, [be] a normal Christian. This is normal Christianity, and husbands lead the way.

[Studio]

Ann: You’re listening to FamilyLife Today, and we’ve been listening to Dane Ortlund.

Dave: I’m challenged right now.

Ann: I’m so excited that he ended right there. Yes! Husbands, step up.

Dave: Honestly, he was talking to both husbands and wives; but if I stepped up, it would change our marriage, I know it would, to speak life, to encourage you. You do that every single day to me.

Ann: You do that to me, though, too.

Dave: Oh, good. I just wondered. I don’t think I do it as much, but you are all-pro.

Ann: You’re nice.

Dave: And we are only halfway done. He’s just in the middle of his talk, so we are going to go back to listen to the rest of Dane.

[Previously Recorded]

Dane: Five objections.

1. “I hear you, Dane. Honestly, dude, I feel a little awkward giving sincere, specific encouragement to my spouse.”

Brace yourself or plug your ears, one or the other. The answer to that is, actually ([and] I say this with respect towards you): “Get over it.”

Audience: [Laughter]

Dane: I know how you feel. Let’s get over it together. Better to live a life of obeying the Scripture awkwardly than holding it at arm's length comfortably.

2. “But I can’t find anything in my spouse to honor.”

Sir, you aren’t looking hard enough. Take a step back, and get some perspective, and remember who this saint is that you are doing life with. If you went to the Art Institute of Chicago and walked right up to a Monet—walked right up to the wall, and looked at it from an inch away—and said, “I just can’t see anything, any beauty, any glory.” [Laughter] We would tap you on the shoulder and say, “Back up and get some perspective.”

You didn’t marry the person you are married to because, as you were dating, this person made you miserable. When you were dating, there was something, many things; there was a constellation of glory about that person. Rekindle that. Look harder. Get some perspective.

3. “But I don’t have the gift of encouragement.” [Laughter]

You might say it is a gift, and I would agree with you. In Romans 12, it does appear that encouragement is a gift. You might say I don't have the gift of encouragement. The answer: you are probably right.

Audience: [Laughter]

Dane: Odds are, you are correct, but here’s the problem. While it is a gift, the apostles in the text we looked at do not come to the end of an exhortation to encourage one another [and say], “Encourage one another and build one another up, provided, of course, that you have the gift of encouragement. And, if you do not, then you are excused from ever encouraging anyone.”

The New Testament calls to encouragement—while it is a gift some will lead the way in, the New Testament calls to encouragement—land indiscriminately on all of us.

4. “Would I be promoting something unhealthy if I do this too much in my spouse? Pride?” Or “I don’t want to flatter them. I don't want to puff them up. I don’t want to promote pride in my spouse.”

As if! In this room here, of a couple hundred people, half of us walked into this morning’s devotional discouraged and in need of encouragement, and the other half walked into this room this morning blown up with pride needing to be brought down, and we need to figure out who are the ones [who] need encouragement and who don’t. What a misunderstanding of what it is to be a fallen human being.

The old Scottish pastor Ian MacLaren said, “Have pity. For everyone is fighting a hard battle.” Better the possibility of pride with encouragement than the certainty of discouragement and thinness of marriage without it.

5. “Shouldn’t we also rebuke and correct? Isn’t that in the New Testament?”

Yes, but we don't outdo one another in it.

Audience: [Laughter]

Dane: We are not trying to defeat one another in, “I will do more rebuking and correcting than you.”

What if every gentle rebuke or correction, which in a marriage is uttered something along the lines of, “Hey, I love you so much—” (and you don’t do this in the middle of a fight)—“I love you so much. May I be so bold with my finite vision of reality here—may I be so bold—as to just very cautiously and gently offer something I think I’m observing? And I may not be looking at things right.”

You know what I’m saying? You offer it cautiously and gently. What if every one of those came in the wake of a tidal wave of ten or fifty or a hundred encouragements? That’s a correction you could receive.

Those are my five objections. Finally, one secret to it all. This is, if you know the logic of the New Testament, the nuclear core of the Christian life: including encouragement. Namely, if we had time to study all four of the texts we have looked at, we would see that in each case it is the good news of the gospel of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and [Him] rising again in our place, that is informing and fueling and flowing into all four of those exhortations to encouragement.

In other words, what is the gospel? God, so to speak, spoke life. He came with a word, a concrete word of life to you, saying, “My Son died in your place. I love and embrace you, and invincibly, eternally befriend you, and pull you into my heart.” It’s a word of life, the gospel is. All we are doing in encouragement as believers is passing on a word of life. In other words, we are just helping people feel what the gospel, what the good news, actually feels like.

[Studio]

Dave: You are listening to FamilyLife Today, and we have been listening to a portion of a talk that Dane Ortlund gave on the Love Like You Mean It cruise last February. And, man, the way he ended that talk, showing us that just a simple word or act of encouragement is literally giving the gospel to your spouse, your neighbor, your friend.

If you’ve encouraged them, you are speaking gospel life into them.

Ann: I’ve never really thought of it that way. That’s what Jesus does to us. He’s constantly encouraging us. He sees us. The crazy thing is, He sees all of it, and He still encourages us. That’s good news.

Dave: Yes. I’ve never thought of encouragement being a way for someone to feel—that’s the key word, feel—the impact of the gospel on their life. That’s motivating. I want to be an encouraging person; I want to speak life, not death. I want my neighbors to run into my yard because every time they are around me, they feel seen and heard, and they feel the impact of the gospel.

Sometimes, I don’t want my neighbors anywhere near my front yard. [Laughter] But when we are encouraging, that’s a magnet, and we’re drawn to that and that is why people are drawn to Christ.

Ann: So, let us encourage you again—

Dave: —I like how you used the word “encourage you.” That’s good.

Ann: —Come on the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise, because your life and your marriage will be transformed.

Dave: Go to FamilyLifeToday.com and sign up right now, and we will see you with our sunglasses on in February.

Shelby: I’m Shelby Abbott, and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Dane Ortlund on FamilyLife Today.

Yes, the Wilson’s are going to be there on the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise. They may or may not have sunglasses on when you see them, but I encourage you to sign up. Head over to FamilyLifeToday.com and click on the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise banner to secure your spot right now. It’s happening from February 8-15. It’s a great experience to grow closer in your relationship with the Lord and grow closer with your spouse at the same time.

Again, it’s happening February 8-15. You can head over to FamilyLifeToday.com and click on the banner to learn more and, if you book before September 30^th, you’re going to get $400 off per stateroom. Head over to FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: Hey, I just want to pause for a moment and remind you as a listener—you might need to hear this: you are not alone.

Dave: Nope.

Ann: You’re not alone. Whatever you are going through today, you are not alone. I don’t know if you know this, but Dave and I have a team at FamilyLife Today ready to pray for you. It’s an incredible honor and privilege to lift your name up to God. So, if you need prayer, please, please reach out to us. You can head over to FamilyLife.com/prayforme.

Again, that’s FamilyLife.com/prayforme. Tell us how we can pray for you. We’re not kidding. Dave and I have a prayer team specifically dedicated to praying for our listeners, praying for you.

Ann: I walk almost every day, and that’s when I’m going to be praying for you. And Dave, you always fast on Fridays, and that’s when you pray. Well, more than just Fridays.

Dave: Yes, it isn’t just Fridays, but all day Friday when I’m getting hunger pangs, I’m praying. It’s like breathing. I’m praying all day and, often, I’m praying for FamilyLife listeners like you. Like Ann said, you are not alone.

Ann: You matter to us.

Dave: Yes. God is with you, and we would love to lift you up by name. Go to FamilyLife.com/prayforme and we will pray for you, and our team will pray for you.

Shelby: Tomorrow, we are going to hear from Ron and Nan Deal as they were on the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise. They talk about the four destructive behaviors that predict divorce.

Compelling stuff tomorrow with the Deals and with the Wilsons. We hope you’ll join us.

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

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