Season 13 Ep.4 / The “Secret” for a Lasting Marriage
Brenda Payne (00:01.126)
And I think that's a great definition and I know we're going to be fleshing that out more throughout the podcast. every one of our episodes, I've asked a question to kind of allow us to be vulnerable ourselves, but also to put a little bit of flesh on the bones of what we're talking about. So today's question is, how have you experienced the gospel? Not just believed it, but actually experienced it in your marriage?
Alex Kocher (00:28.267)
I haven't had time to think about it.
Brenda Payne (00:31.218)
It could be one moment in time or it could be something over time. If you guys need... Yeah, that's great.
Alex Kocher (00:38.131)
I was thinking more over time. Yeah, I was thinking more over time. And I think just, I'm just going to tell on myself and not Mason is that I think early in marriage, I just really, you know, we joke about being the junior Holy Spirit, but it's going to be no shock to anybody that I really believed that was my role in Mason's life. know you're so surprised, but I, you know,
Adam Coppock (01:03.128)
Who?
Alex Kocher (01:08.135)
I just thought it was my job just to help him and he needed him help seeing himself. So I just and so I can laugh about it, but I really do think I was overly critical always wanting to change something always on some self-improvement kick for him and
You know, I think the Lord just has a way of humbling us and certainly chronic pain humbled me. It made me realize there is a lot about me that needed to be changed and...
Brenda Payne (01:39.346)
What?
Alex Kocher (01:40.572)
And then I think just knowing the love of God poured out on me and me really receiving God's love has just helped me. I don't think I've conquered this by any means, but I definitely think that I'm much more able to take Mason where he is, appreciate him, appreciate what he brings that's so different from me especially, and just celebrate who he is instead of trying to change it.
Brenda Payne (02:07.685)
Hmm. That's beautiful. Wow. Good. What about you, Adam?
Adam Coppock (02:12.749)
Yeah, I was thinking about it and I think when we were in the fall session, I was talking about, you know, we had built, you know, eight years of bad communication patterns and it was really humbling that what I felt like as a gift, my ability to relate and use words was the very place of deep hurt that I calls towards Stephanie. And the redemption was really in many ways the Lord setting us free, you know, not only from my own just
Brenda Payne (02:14.161)
You
Brenda Payne (02:26.225)
Huh.
Adam Coppock (02:41.005)
having to feel like I had to always articulate perfectly, you know, what I was experiencing before I could actually bring in the stuff. But that her really walking in the grace of the Lord towards me of really allowing for a safe space for me to be just undone and it build new communication patterns. And so to see the Lord like really set us free from some of that posturing of bad communication patterns and relational game of chicken.
to really see in the last 10 years really the beauty of being known by one another and experiencing a little bit of what we'll talk about again today, just that beauty of belonging.
Brenda Payne (03:17.117)
Wonderful. Well, I was going to tell on myself, but then I read my quiet time this morning. It was so clearly talking about Paul that I felt like I needed to tell on him. Instead, the Lord intervened and said, Here's what you need to say. And thankfully, Paul won't care because he knows it to be true. But, but let me just say that again, being in my quiet time this morning, I'm in Matthew 20 where, you know, the
Alex Kocher (03:27.861)
I'm intervene.
Adam Coppock (03:28.578)
Yeah.
Brenda Payne (03:40.626)
The disciples mother is clamoring for their preeminence like who's gonna sit at your right and your left and the guys are like Yeah, who's the best? Who's the greatest and then you know Jesus basically comes in with the whole ideal of like hey This is how the Gentiles act unbelievers try to rule and power and have control over you and this is not how you should be you should be like Jesus and And so I was just I shared a little bit about this in the fall but Paul and I are very different in our struggles and yet our kind of struggles played in in an unhealthy way together and
I love that as we're even talking about marriage as a subject matter for the entire Bible that I'm in Matthew 20, it's not one of the marriage verses that we would go to, but it speaks so clearly to marriage, particularly, really regardless of what ideas you have about roles or responsibilities or your view on marriage. I think a passage like Matthew 20 that is talking about servant.
Alex Kocher (04:21.322)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (04:36.719)
leading with humility and servanthood as opposed to power and control. And so in my marriage, starting off the way we did, Paul had a lot of his own fears and insecurities. I had mine, but it really led to a lot of powering over and like I had shared before, being very big in the marriage. And so I was just reminded this morning of the beauty as Paul has walked with Jesus, as he is.
know that he is valid, he has all the validation he needs because of Jesus's love for him and Christ. His fear and insecurity has gone down. He hasn't had the need for control.
He has become such a just a humble, loving, beautiful servant of the Lord and that has completely changed our marriage dynamic. So just very thankful for that. And I was just reading that. I was reading the passages in Matthew 20 thinking like that'll preach a marriage sermon right there. You know, just this whole idea of powering up, you powering somebody up as we talk about rather than lording over and pushing somebody down. So that has been a big win in our marriage and a big win for me personally as well.
Alex Kocher (05:25.931)
All right.
Brenda Payne (05:39.737)
So, beautiful. I love all the examples of gospel transformation because this is what the gospel does. It transforms us and when we're transformed then our marriages get transformed. So Alex, let's dig in a little deeper about what exactly or some ways the gospel is powered or how we have gospel powered marriages.
Alex Kocher (05:58.419)
Yeah, I think that we've talked before about marriage being such a mystery that as Paul says it's just this living representation of Jesus loving the church and just a few Jesuses throughout the scriptures and so we see these ideas of like submission and sacrifice just what you were talking about servanthood in marriage that has to be gospel powered or it quickly grows into resentment. We see just this idea of
Brenda Payne (06:23.951)
Yes.
Alex Kocher (06:28.332)
to one another that, you know, again in sacrifice that is just so against what the world thinks of, of get what you can and live for yourself and that love is costly.
to each participant and then I think that I think of just the themes of delight and honor that I just like to return to that the gospel enables us not only to experience delight and honor in the marriage but to know that we're delighted and loved by God and then we can give that to the other person and I just want to say here because I don't think we did a good job of saying this in the episode on the fall that when we say that
the gospel powers our marriage. don't ever want to communicate that if a marriage is between two Christians that number one it's going to be easy or number two that it is that means that the gospel just covers over all problems. There are certainly cases where marriages cannot be saved and even in applying the truths of the gospel to our marriage we actually have to end the marriage when there's abuse.
Brenda Payne (07:23.247)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (07:34.961)
Mmm.
Alex Kocher (07:43.153)
when there's abandonment, there's maybe severe addiction, adultery, there are places where marriage is not able to be redeemed and there's certainly cause for great grief and great wisdom to be applied in knowing when and how.
that should happen but I hope what we're not communicating in this episode is just like well if you have Jesus you know it's just all right it's smooth sailing and then you just work every problem out because we certainly don't believe that we actually believe that in applying the gospel faithfully sometimes it does mean that you have to leave a marriage
Brenda Payne (08:09.391)
Yeah.
Brenda Payne (08:25.557)
Thanks for that caveat. Adam, do you want to add anything to that? Yeah, I think that's really important because I do think so often when two Christians get married there is a lot of idealism.
Adam Coppock (08:29.271)
Hmm.
Brenda Payne (08:36.571)
there's a lot of thinking, we're living in the garden. And then if you get stuck in the fall and it gets very destructive, then that can be very disheartening, not just in your marriage, but I think in your walk with Jesus as well. And Jesus himself said that from the beginning, God's design was permanence, but because of the hardness of men's hearts, Moses permitted divorce. so...
Alex Kocher (08:38.895)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Brenda Payne (09:00.995)
The gospel is great and beautiful and transformative for those who will humble themselves to its power. But if we don't, then we do run the risk of becoming less than who God created us to be and that can impact our marriages just very gravely.
Okay, well what we want to do is go back through. We've been talking about the characteristics of an image bearer and we've basically kind of come up with four buckets, I think Adam, you called them, and we've talked about like how those buckets or those characteristics, how God created us and His image, and then we talked about how that image bearing was marred or distorted.
tainted in the fall. And then today we're going to talk about what does the gospel mean for these four characteristics. And the four areas we're going to look back at are agency, purpose, belonging, and then we've grouped rest and beauty together. So Adam, let's just start with what does the gospel mean for agency in marriage even as we're striving for oneness?
Adam Coppock (10:07.445)
Yeah so as we talked about agency we talked about this capacity the Lord made us in his image to make choices to do things and the capacity to make discernments even and the distortion of the fall is that we use those choices and that capacity for agency to either operate towards the other in controlling maybe for fear you know of what happens if I don't do this or they do it.
differently than I want and I've got a control or passivity of an abdication of love towards the other or an honoring of how God has made us. So when we think about agency in particular and as we go through all of these what I love when we get to this redemption piece is to think about how does the gospel, like how is it a subversive idea to really the culture because in many ways like
everybody's trying to figure out what do we do from the fall. You know, like every worldview, like everybody, you don't have to convince a whole lot of people the world isn't the way it ought to be right now. And so everybody's making, you know, shots in the dark of what do I do with this? And so the story of God, the grand narrative really shows us the work of God was very subversive to oftentimes our efforts to try to heal what is broken or to put the pieces back together.
Brenda Payne (11:06.651)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (11:12.123)
Yeah.
Brenda Payne (11:28.902)
Yeah.
Adam Coppock (11:30.562)
And so it's important for us to think about what did the work of Christ do particularly in relation to marriage as we, that's our focus. So we think about in Christ's work upon the cross and his life and his death upon the cross he yielded power willing to be sacrificed for our sin as the ultimate act of love to set us free from the tyranny of sin. Like this is a very subversive idea of like to conquer sin he lays down his life.
Like we live in a culture that says take more power like get more strength and yet Jesus who has all power yields power. And so he sets us free from the tyranny of sin, self and Satan. And so as new creations in Christ we are made alive. That in Christ's death we are made alive and indwelled with his Holy Spirit that gives us the capacity again renewing our agency to love and operate in righteousness towards others.
Brenda Payne (11:54.513)
Yep
Brenda Payne (12:01.017)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Coppock (12:22.925)
allowing us to put on love. So real practically as we're indwelled with God's Holy Spirit it enables us to use our choices to sacrifice for one another. If we were to pause right there we'd say sacrifice doesn't come easy. We don't want to lay down our own agendas lives you know preferences for others but because of the Spirit because of the work of Christ that we can consider intentional acts of love without expectation.
We can live contrary to the world that often operates with transactional love. Like if you do this, then I will give you this. it's, yeah, and so instead we actually can use our agency to say, how has God called me to love? And I don't even know the response to that today. Like how that'll be returned. That's not what he's called me to. And then we can choose to follow Christ in the way of love, not in a way that strips us of our personhood.
Brenda Payne (12:56.985)
Yeah. Yes. See that so often. Mm-hmm.
Adam Coppock (13:18.901)
What I mean by that, this idea of sacrifice doesn't mean I have to be okay with someone abusing me. Like that is not what we're talking about, like true redemption is to really like be, you know, experience whatever. No, there's actually, our agency even allows us to have voice to say, healing means this is an okay behavior and I can use my agency to say this is not God's design and even hold other people accountable. So,
Brenda Payne (13:38.961)
That's right.
Adam Coppock (13:45.452)
We do so in a way that merges ourselves with our spouse, but in a way that chooses to give honor and delight in the way that my spouse is different from me because I've received the honor and delight of the Lord. My whole power to be able to honor Stephanie is rooted in experiencing the love and delight I've experienced from God. It's not in just me mustering up and being better today. It's actually a reciprocal love. Again, not actually from Stephanie, but because she's loved me so well, now I love her.
Brenda Payne (13:46.256)
Yeah.
Adam Coppock (14:15.479)
It's actually a reciprocal love that I've been so transformed by the gospel, I'm able to use my choices to love intentionally.
Brenda Payne (14:23.056)
And I love some things you're just pointing out, so good one. I love the word renew or renewal because God made us new then there's brokenness and now there's renewal in all these areas the opportunity for that. I appreciate you pointing out.
personhood. I think a lot of times we give our personhood away or we try to take it from other people and it's very dishonoring and we like to say that if you allow somebody to treat you less than the image bearer God created you to be then you allow them to be less than the image bearer God created them to be. And then finally I love how you're connecting Adam just this idea of an intimate relationship with the Lord with your ability to relate to your wife in a way that is truly beautiful.
And that's really, I mean, that's really what we're going to keep coming back to in this whole thing. Like, marriage is always designed to push us back toward that intimate, precious, wonderful, incredible relationship with Jesus. It's not going to happen apart from that because it's only in that intimate relationship that we're really even going to experience renewal and transformation. So, Alex, take us on to the next point then. How does the gospel shape our purpose in marriage?
Alex Kocher (15:31.88)
Yeah, well.
we talked about in the fall what we what we see is this idea that God's given us a beautiful and good purpose to glorify him to fulfill the creation mandate and we take that beautiful and then we also have these individual purposes that God calls us to but then in the fall those purposes get twisted and we begin to define ourselves by status and achievement and I think sometimes in marriage what we see is we define ourselves by the status and achievement of ourself and we
I'm very self-focused.
or we define ourselves by the status and achievement of our spouse and it's all about their career. They are standing in the community instead of finding our God-given purpose together as a couple and seeking what He would have for us. And so, yeah, I see that Jesus comes and He does something again so subversive where we have the Creator of the universe willing to submit Himself to the
will of his father.
Alex Kocher (16:36.293)
and he fulfills the plan of redemption not seeking his own purposes but choosing instead to fulfill the plan of redemption to secure us as people for himself and renew us as image bearers and then gives us the spirit who then enables us to be able to find our calling and our purpose as individuals and as a couple not so that we can seek our own glory but so that we can seek the glory of God. And so in marriage I think this plays out
is that we give each other freedom and support to explore who God made us to be as we partner with him. I think that's what I was confessing early in the podcast is like, I think I stood in the way for many years of Mason finding out who God made him to be because he was trying to be who I wanted him to be. so, understanding God's love for me and what Jesus did means that I can give him the freedom to explore that for himself. And then we also begin to see our marriage
Brenda Payne (17:24.496)
Okay.
Alex Kocher (17:35.9)
through this lens of God's redemptive work and that God's sanctifying us through marriage. So we see that even when marriage is hard and it feels like and it often does when we are sacrificing for the sake of the marriage it often feels like we're losing ourselves we're losing our purpose but recognizing that God is sanctifying us through that that he is doing his work in our hearts and he's changing us he's drawing us
closer to him and he's changing us to look more like him. And I think finally we begin to see that we recognize that our mission field begins at home with each other.
with the children if God gives us children and those within our spheres of influence. so, you know, it's kind of that C.S. Lewis idea in script tape letters. He talks to the demon and he tells the demon if he can distract us with the far away, the mission that's far away and forget to just love those people closest to him, he's won the battle. And so what...
The Spirit enables us to do is to recognize that there's not just a mission field out there. They're not just people to love and serve out there, but they're people to love and serve right within our own home. And that we can do that by the power of the Spirit, not by our own power.
Brenda Payne (19:01.997)
Yeah, that's so good. I know one thing I have seen with the number of wives that I've counseled who are wanting to be really good godly wives and I feel like that was my this is my story when I first got married and that is I really thought that my entire purpose just was to be Paul's wife.
Alex Kocher (19:17.736)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (19:17.986)
And so I didn't have a purpose of my own. Like I had to completely orient toward him and look to what he was doing, what his goals and his dreams, excuse me, were. And I've even had women come and they don't even know how to have a walk with Jesus because they're their own personal walk, because they're looking to their husband to, you know, to do every, to basically dictate their lives, which I know is one extreme, because then you could have the other side of like, I have no purpose in my family, no purpose in my marriage. I'm seeking that outside, but.
Alex Kocher (19:34.087)
Right.
Brenda Payne (19:45.961)
I mean, just really remember somewhere along the line being taught that I existed for Paul's glory. And so the number one thing in my life was being Paul's wife, not being Jesus's daughter. I mean, yeah. And, you know, sister and daughter and all of that to Jesus. So I think, again, when it comes to purpose,
Adam Coppock (19:50.605)
Mm.
Alex Kocher (19:51.102)
yes.
Brenda Payne (20:02.648)
I think this idea of image bearing is so important and it even just kind of takes us back to agency of making choices and then what has God created Brenda for one of my roles is to be a wife but it's not everything I am and everything that God created me to be and not my only role and even not my primary role because that primary umbrella is a follower of Jesus the disciple of Jesus so that's great.
Alex Kocher (20:22.633)
Yeah, and just to piggyback off what you're saying Brenda, I see a lot of women really disillusioned when they get into marriage and even before marriage they have defined their personhood as becoming a wife. That's what all they ever wanted to be.
Brenda Payne (20:39.813)
Hmm?
Alex Kocher (20:40.393)
get into marriage and marriage is hard. it is, they begin then to have great resentment that they don't know who they are, that they don't have a sense of self because what they always wanted to be, it does not feel fulfilling.
And I think it's because they haven't embraced the idea that God does have purposes and roles for them outside of being a wife. It is part of maybe what they're called to do, but it's not the only thing.
Brenda Payne (20:59.802)
Yeah.
Brenda Payne (21:08.495)
Yep.
Yep, that's right, it's not their defining identity. So yeah, well said. Well, Adam, we want to move on. We've been kind of debating this idea of purpose and belonging and how this goes together. But we even just talked about that purpose seems like more of maybe what you do in belonging is what you experience in marriage. But maybe you can just speak to how the gospel impacts our desire for belonging and our experience of belonging in marriage.
Alex Kocher (21:14.918)
Yes.
Adam Coppock (21:40.78)
Yeah. And as we think again of the thread going back to creation, we've been made for relationships. So we're made to experience something. And there's a, you even think about Adam being, know, Eve being brought to Adam and he breaks out in poetry. You know, there is this like enjoyment that we're supposed to experience. And Kurt Thompson talks about this way. We come into the world looking for someone looking for us. and, and I probably, we don't like the feeling of that, that feels needy, but that's what the fall has distorted.
Brenda Payne (22:02.714)
This is...
Adam Coppock (22:10.889)
is the way that sense we were made to have meaningful community in just humanity, but specifically also in marriage. The fall has distorted that where we're seeking instead of to be enjoyed, we're looking for approval. We're actually to look to be validated that our humanity is in some sense given a reason for existence in somebody else. Our identity is tied actually to that belonging. And we can think about that like in...
Brenda Payne (22:25.998)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (22:34.959)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Coppock (22:37.973)
our teenage and middle school years, you carry your tray in the lunch room and like, where will I sit? You long to like have someone say, yeah, you come over here, be with me. We want, we want in a sense to be welcomed into community, but the false distortion is like, I'm not okay unless you're okay. We so get absorbed into a communal identity. And so the sense of belonging is this, you know, how Christ is really redeemed is we think about the one who,
Brenda Payne (22:43.854)
Hehehehehe
Adam Coppock (23:03.457)
who came to love his people and to lay down his life is he was willing to face the rejection of family, like his own mother and siblings who actually would say like, what are you doing? Why would you put yourself in this place? His friends, his disciples who abandoned him upon the cross, like I just finished preaching Jesus's restoration of Peter and to think like, you
Brenda Payne (23:16.848)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Coppock (23:29.485)
Peter's denial of Jesus at the sound of someone saying, aren't you with him? And he's like, no, and bails. And it's his moment of great trial. And really as we think about too, the system he comes into, the shepherds of Israel, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, these leaders who had the law and should have been anticipating him and looking forward to him, all misunderstanding him and what he was doing. And so he was willing to endure that, but also to be estranged from the Father.
Brenda Payne (23:35.248)
All right.
Adam Coppock (23:56.588)
to make us secure in his love, that willing to take upon himself, like 2 Corinthians says, literally he was willing to be sin, not to become sinful, but literally to be our sin, that we might become the righteousness of God. That's like a, the only way to strip the power of sin was to become it, and to strip it of its power, and to set us free from it. And so he has enabled us to experience really true community based on love, rather than performance.
Brenda Payne (24:04.279)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (24:15.491)
Hmm.
Adam Coppock (24:25.803)
And so what that means is the Spirit enables us to create a marriage where both spouse flourish in relationship with each other, with God, and even with others. And really, one way I like to think about too, the sense of belonging in Christ is that I'm okay. This sounds super plain, but I say this even in one of last sermons, is I spend a lot of my time just trying to help people be okay. And somebody's like, is that people pleasing? No, it's like to know I'm so in Christ, so understanding. What is the...
of Christ, the acceptance of Christ, and the assurance of His love, how does that allow me to be okay in relationship instead of being agitated that I got to fix everything for everyone or to try to, you know, to be something for anybody? So what that means is that we actually can be vulnerable with one another. That actually, like, because we're safe in Christ, that with my spouse I actually can take the chance to say, here's the treasure of how I'm not okay. That my story is a gift to say I'm not okay.
Brenda Payne (24:56.313)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brenda Payne (25:03.748)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (25:21.636)
Yeah.
Adam Coppock (25:24.437)
and to be received by the other because I've been received in Christ. It means we can be honest about the ways we most feel loved with the other and the ways we've been hurt. Like that's hard to name sometimes. Like we kind of treat it like again, I use the game of chicken, like you you better figure out the way to love me. But really in Christ, we can be honest and say, you know what's most loving is when you say these words. What's most loving is when we actually spend time doing this and like, hey, I know you love doing this and I love that you love doing it.
Brenda Payne (25:35.779)
Yep.
Brenda Payne (25:50.852)
Yeah.
Adam Coppock (25:53.774)
but I don't feel most loved when we do that. know, so actually being as accurate as possible and even being honest with hurts. We can also talk honestly about sexual desires, expectations and seek to understand the other. Again, especially for Christians, we feel like you come into marriage and like sex just happens naturally easy and everybody knows fully what feels most pleasurable and desirable. And we feel like to say something hurts or something makes us feel a certain way and is undesirable.
Brenda Payne (25:55.279)
Hahaha
Adam Coppock (26:22.785)
to name those boundaries even, feels unloving. But actually true belonging is I can be most clear with you and I can be most curious to know you more and then to be kind in response. And so actually that's a place that's almost a surprising place of belonging, of how the gospel frees us to be honest about sexual desires. It also means that we're seen, known, enjoyed and delighted in once more. I mean I think
that the atrocity of the fall's impact on lot of marriages is that wonder of will I ever be enjoyed again? Will I ever be delighted again when we've experienced so much hurt? And the gospel really opens us up to that capacity to recognize that we are, you know, I don't know if we've used this language as much of that capacity to understand we're saints, sinners, and sufferers. You know, that at any given time in Christ, like yes, I sin. I...
Brenda Payne (26:59.535)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Coppock (27:17.825)
don't love the way I ought and I hurt you, but I also am a sufferer. I experience the falls impact on my own body, on my own mind, my emotions, but also when someone sins against me. But I'm also secure in Christ. And when we really are able to recognize that multi-layered identity, it actually allows us to move closer towards one another. It allows us to have empathy of like, I'm not dealing with just somebody who keeps screwing it up towards me.
I actually see that they are suffered too and they're a saint. They're they are beloved as well in Christ. And so we're able to cheer, challenge and comfort. There's your other alliteration. Cheer, challenge and comfort our spouse. And we just don't, you know, it frees us as we think about redemption, freeing us. It frees us from having to be perfect in relationship and just like performing. And, you know, we have the capacity for forgiveness.
Brenda Payne (27:44.996)
Yeah.
Brenda Payne (27:49.262)
Yeah.
Brenda Payne (27:55.619)
Yep.
you
Adam Coppock (28:10.891)
and to repair ruptures and to keep coming back to the table to say, want you, and to take the vulnerable step to work towards real growth together.
Brenda Payne (28:11.193)
Yeah.
Brenda Payne (28:21.839)
As you were talking, the scripture that just kept coming to my mind is Adam and Eve in the garden were naked and unashamed. And I think that's really what belonging speaks to is just that sense of being naked and unashamed. As you were talking more, I was getting more uncomfortable because I realized that there are places that...
that I don't want to be naked and unashamed or I'm still, 35 years of marriage, I just say that in a way of encouragement that in marriage, takes a long time. over, I'm still overcoming insecurities. I'm still overcoming my own suffering story and my own sin bands. I'm still overcoming the way that, you know, Paul has historically, maybe even in the past, related to me and believing he's not going to relate to me that way anymore. And, and I've just found it almost helpful sometimes. I have to have the conversation before the conversation.
Alex Kocher (28:54.353)
Hmm.
Brenda Payne (29:12.945)
Like the hard conversation before the hot conversation is I'm really gonna have a hard time having this conversation because I feel very vulnerable. I feel naked and ashamed or I'm fearful. So yeah, I think that's, just.
Alex Kocher (29:13.65)
Hmm.
Brenda Payne (29:30.093)
I think that whole idea of belonging is just so at the heart of our humanity and so much of what we desire and long for and what we so rarely get. So many people being brought up in homes where they don't experience that with their mothers and fathers, in the church with church hurt, with friendships that are betrayal, then marriages that we come to people, whether it's just selfishness or betrayal. So yeah, it's one of those things, honestly, it just, kind of makes me want to weep.
I'm just sitting here checking up a little bit, just thinking like that just feels so, what you described feels so loving and so beautiful and I just can't imagine a person that wouldn't want that and that is something that the gospel can give to us in our marriages if we're willing to embrace how Jesus says to relate to one another and I think the work starts with, as you both have pointed out, our own relationship with Jesus first and being secure there.
Alex Kocher (30:23.856)
And I'm glad you said Brenda that it takes time because you know my daughter got married last year and they spent several months living with us and it just caused me to remember how hard those first several years are and how many newlyweds believe the lie that like when we've gotten married and we've made this commitment to each other then we're what I see people believe is like then I'm really gonna believe that he wants me then I'm really gonna believe
Brenda Payne (30:38.297)
Yeah.
Alex Kocher (30:53.84)
that she accepts me. I'm really gonna believe that she sees me and is committed to me. And in my personal experience in my own marriage and then walking with other people in marriage is that actually this first couple of years of marriage are so hard because it's not this feeling of like we're committed to each other and we want each other and we love each other and we see each other. It's actually like my gosh what did I do? He doesn't want me. He doesn't see me. Is she really for me? Does she even like me?
Brenda Payne (30:54.105)
Mm.
Brenda Payne (31:09.294)
Yeah.
Brenda Payne (31:21.58)
Mm.
Alex Kocher (31:23.93)
And the stakes feel so high because we made this what we hope to be a lifelong commitment to each other. And I just always want newlyweds to take a deep breath and just say like this one flesh relationship does not happen when you walk down the aisle. It is day after, it's really minute by minute, day by day of the Lord knitting you together, teaching you how to see one another, how to love one another, how to care
Brenda Payne (31:39.904)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Kocher (31:52.366)
stay connected in the midst of conflict and it takes so much time and so if you're in your first couple of years of marriage and you think why is this not happening something must be really wrong with us we're doing it wrong or I've chosen the wrong person like I just want you to hear us hear Brenda say hear me say we're 30 something years into marriage Adam you're 20 something years into marriage right like it's we're still trying to figure it out there does grow to be a feeling of trusting
Brenda Payne (32:04.623)
Alright.
Adam Coppock (32:10.06)
Thank you.
Alex Kocher (32:22.33)
relationship if you've put the work in over time but it is not magical it is just it is hard work and time.
Brenda Payne (32:27.951)
Mm-mm.
Yep, that's a really good word. Well, Alex, let's go to the last characteristic of our image-bearing and how it plays out in marriage. How does the gospel speak to rest and beauty in marriage?
Alex Kocher (32:41.404)
Yeah, I love this one of rest and beauty because it does speak to I think our limitations as image bearers that we are not the finite creator. We are the dependent creation. But it also speaks to the fact that God put us in a beautiful garden, not only to experience beauty, but to to create beauty together. And yet in the fall that gets twisted where we start to look for all beauty all the time, all rest all the time, and we slip into comfort and escapism.
or we don't look for any rest or beauty and we drive ourselves and we drive those around us. And so what I think we see with Jesus coming to defeat the sin and the demands of the law is that he's secured for us to rest in our relationship with him and in our relationship with God. And that also secures for us this capacity to be in restorative relationships, to be
in relationships that can be about creating beauty and life for one another. And then he gives us the spirit to enable us to honor our own limits.
Brenda Payne (33:45.487)
Hmm.
Alex Kocher (33:51.64)
our spouse's limits, to practice boundaries and to be creative. We have this spirit of creativity. So I think that means that we can find restoration and healing in marriage and in relationship with others. We get to partner with God in ways of creating and enjoying beauty inside of our relationship, but also creating it for others to experience in our homes.
Brenda Payne (34:00.278)
Mm.
Alex Kocher (34:21.605)
And then we can enjoy God's good gifts together like food and sex and recreation and nature and all the ways that we can enjoy his good gifts and we can find ways as we like to say Brenda to bring order out of chaos not just in our own individual callings but also in our calling as a couple. the gospel just restores us to the enjoyment of rest and the beautiful things that God's given us.
Brenda Payne (34:24.719)
Hmm.
Brenda Payne (34:42.105)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (34:50.761)
Mm-hmm. And as somebody, I have said many times on our podcast, who loves to play, play is just real important for couples. Like we have to play together. We have to enjoy beauty. We have to have fun. We have to have discovery and wonder together, separately to share and then together. And, you know, there is something even of the beauty of experiencing some form of beauty and then having that person that you can go and tell that at least knows you.
Alex Kocher (34:56.389)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda Payne (35:19.939)
to talk about this was beautiful, this was awesome, you know. So one of the things that you guys have done in each of these categories that I really love is you've talked about how Jesus undoes the effects of the fall in each of those four characteristics, but you also in every point talked about how the Spirit enables. And so, you know, one of the things I don't want us to miss or our listeners to miss, and I know that we would testify to, is that none of...
none of redemption can be done apart from the work of the Spirit. We don't get saved apart from the Spirit. We don't grow in Christ-likeness apart from the Spirit. This is a very humble, dependent journey on God. When you were talking, Alex, about kind of that view of marriage as I get married and I get all the good stuff right away, I think about, you know, in...
In our salvation story, there's justification that comes first that we are declared righteous and so there's kind of this legal act, we get married, this legal act, but then sanctification is lifelong. And it's exactly what marriage looks like. It has to be a, it's a lifelong pursuit and a lifelong endeavor, but it is completely incumbent upon our spirit dependence and the Holy Spirit working.
in us and us working out what God is working in us. I don't know if either one of you would want to speak anymore just to the Spirit's work or the transforming power that we have through the Spirit.
Alex Kocher (36:46.221)
I was just thinking yesterday in anticipation of this, I love that we have set this up really Trinitarian and I don't always think in a Trinitarian way, but like we have God's beautiful design. We certainly have the fall and the twisting, but then we have Jesus coming to untwist and redeem what God planned and then leaving us with the spirit to enable us to continue to enact his good design and marriage.
Brenda Payne (37:13.966)
Yeah.
Alex Kocher (37:16.125)
I'm not just speaking to the Spirit, but I just I love this idea of marriage being very Trinitarian that the Father Son and Holy Spirit are all at work in our marriages and they're not only not only that we are hopefully reflecting that to the world but that it is it is a Trinitarian design so to speak the way that we carry out marriage
Brenda Payne (37:19.31)
Yeah.
Yes.
Brenda Payne (37:37.239)
I love that. think that's really beautiful, Alex. Well, we have said with each of these podcasts that we are going to have a tool. You've been recording some tools that will run with each podcast for these particular areas of the story that we're in. What tool is going to go with this particular episode, Alex?
Alex Kocher (37:56.782)
So the tool we have is making a good repair, is just, is language that comes out of attachment theory that we want to attune and contain and repair well, which means we want to see people, we want to care for them well. And then when we don't do that, we want to be able to make a repair and a repair is just really a good apology. It's a good way to seek forgiveness and to restore the relationship. And so we're going to talk about what are the elements of making a good repair.
Brenda Payne (38:28.022)
And I would say, I when I think about the impact of the gospel on my marriage, think forgiveness for sin and comfort and suffering. And so that whole idea of repair, repentance, forgiveness is just key, crucial, foundational. You can't move forward in a redemptive marriage if you're not willing to go there for sure. So, well, beautiful. I love this episode. I hope that it's been helpful to our listeners as well. Our last episode.
Alex Kocher (38:48.828)
Right.
Brenda Payne (38:57.936)
is going to be on restoration. And you know we think about restoration being the the final things of like when we meet Jesus, when we go to heaven, or when Christ returns. And it's an interesting conversation if we think about well what what difference does that make about on our marriages? How can the hope of God making all things new and whole again encourage us to persevere in our marriages? Or how does it allow us to have a renewed vision of who our spouse is becoming and who they will ultimately be?
particularly if they're in Christ. Like we will one day actually see them as God intended them to be. So I think there's just a lot of us we look forward, a lot of future grace that can hold us and keep us and give us the grace we need for the struggles and the joys that we have today. So looking forward to that discussion and we will see you guys next time.
Alex Kocher (39:39.707)
Mm-hmm.