 Thank you for joining me as I sit down with Pastor David and Marie Rosales from Calvary Chapel, Chino Valley, as we discuss marriage, raising children and managing difficulties that arise in the family. We're ready to begin, so let's talk marriage. When we're looking at the life of Christ, it's so easily accepted when we're commanded to submit to the Lord. But why are there such a big controversy when this command is given to one another in Ephesians chapter 5? Rebellion is bound up in the heart of a child. We have a sin nature from youth. We're born with a sin nature, right? And the sin nature is in rebellion. It's a rebellion against authority. That's our nature. We received it from Adam. It's called the Adamic nature. It resists to do that which is right, and we have more of a propensity to do that which is not approved of or is wrong. That's in us. That's rebellion. I mean, if there's a sign that says, stay off the grass, you'll see people lean. You see people lean on the grass taking pictures of themselves next to the sign. We are very rebellious. If it says 25 miles per hour, you're going to go as fast as you want to, and I don't care if it's a red light, stop light, you're going to run through it. We're very rebellious. We're seeing more and more of that today. There's less punitive results of breaking laws than before, and all the people are getting away with a lot of things. So I think it's within the nature of man. And so the idea of submitting or voluntarily subordinating myself to somebody else, I think sometimes it works against my self-perception, my ego, my self-importance, sometimes my narcissism. It's all about me, and why are you telling me I can't do what I want to do? And so two people who are like that get married, and now one of them is supposed to submit to the other, and the scripture says, why have I submitted to your husbands? I'm not submitting. It says submit to them as you do to Christ. When you're like Christ, I'm going to submit to you. You hear that a lot. And they do that. They really do. It has nothing to do with how I feel about it. It has everything to do with obedience. When I went into the military, they told me to get up at a certain time. I didn't want to get up at that time. They told me to run a certain distance. I didn't want to run that distance. They told me what I was going to do throughout the day. They owned me. As a matter of fact, that's what our captain, our company commander, told us. He said, you're wearing green right now. You belong to Uncle Sam. And I'm the one who tells you what to do. And you don't own yourselves. You are owned by us. And there was truth to that, because if I didn't do what I was told to do, there were penalties that I was subject to. I was to be subordinate to the command of a person of higher authority. Well, that's mentality a lot of people resist. So now you're talking about marriage and the woman saying, like you just said, John, I make more money than you do. I'm better educated than you do than you are. I have more connections than you'll ever have. I'm a computer analyst, and you're a gardener, or you drive a truck, or you work in a warehouse. They're not thinking of the us about that at all. They're not thinking about this as the way it is for us as a unit. And what happens is the woman thinks of herself to be better educated and better qualified to lead. Where's it come from? The endemic nature. Where's it come from? I think we have a good picture of that with Eve there in a garden deciding to do something, even though she's aware that she had been told not to. There's something within the woman, I believe, that resists the authority of the husband. Yes, and the women's movement had a lot to do with it as well. That was a big movement. The feminist movement? It's still going. And I'm not here to speak on that, but it can be selfishly motivated. I think it is. In many ways. I believe that, like you just said, we're not really talking about the feminist movement at all, but the bottom line is I think that every one of us has been polluted by sin and we're not really aware of what a real relationship is supposed to be. And again, I'll put it like this. This is probably going in an area that I don't want to traipse too deeply into. But in the Hispanic community, I use the word Hispanic simply as a general term because I might have non-Mexican Hispanics watching right now. I know I do. But from a Mexican American perspective, and there's a generalization that I think through Hispanic community, machismo is a big thing. And having a certain image, having the picture of being in control and having authority is a very big thing. It really is. And I think that sometimes my generation call them chicanos. When I started having, and Marie and I started having our babies, I actually put on those little baby carrier things and put my carini. That's when they first started coming out. And I would walk carrying my little girl, my princess, against my heart. I would hold her and I would kiss her and I would show affection to her. But that was not always something respected by my Chicano peers. They looked at that as feminine. They looked at that as being, that's what women do. Men don't do that. My father never did that. My father didn't show affection. My father didn't kiss. My father didn't say, I love you. My father didn't do any of that. And I said, I'm going to be different. I'm going to be a Christian. And just because I'm a Chicano, just because I'm Mexican, that doesn't mean that I can't show affection to my children. So I actually, all those years back, rebelled against the stereotype of what a man is, you know, because I wanted my manhood to be determined by what scripture taught me to be. And so I used Jesus as my example. And so you read your Bible and you see Jesus holding babies, blessing babies, kind to women, you know, honoring his mother. You see those things. And your mind has changed. And you begin to see that masculinity isn't just working in a field or driving a truck or being strong, stronger than the woman. Masculinity is much deeper than that. And you begin to learn what biblical masculinity is, which much of it is yielding. Much of it is dying to self. Much of it is character, you know, having a way about you that causes your wife to respect you, you know. When Marie and I were dating, we knew we were moving towards marriage, you know, fairly early in our relationship because, you know, she didn't go out with other guys. It was just me and I didn't go out with other girls. It was just her. And I was pretty aware that this was going to be it with, with, you know, for me, this was my girl, I was going to marry. I was, I was convinced pretty early on, I just was, we got along so well. And I just knew this is it. And so she did too, you know, this is something we never really talked about, but this is something that I know she knew too. She, that was the way it is. And we were in a store just up the street from here. She used to live in an apartment just up the road a few miles. We were walking through this particular store, and she picked something up and put it in the basket, you know, and I took it back out and put it back on the shelf. And she keeps walking and she was on her own living with some roommates at that time. She picked something else up. I looked at it, I picked it up and put it back. I did it two or three times. And finally she looks at me and she goes, what are you doing? You know, and I, and I just, I was nonchalantly frank. And I said, you can't afford this. This isn't something you need, you know, which was true. She knew it. It was just something she and she looks at me and she said something I'll never forget. You know, I think you'll remember when I say this, but she looks at me and she goes, you know, she goes, I love you. She goes, you're the only man and has ever been in my life. That can tell me what to do. And I'll listen. And that was very true with Marie, you know, she, when I met Marie, one of the things that attracted me to this little girl, because she was to me a little girl, is she had this little snootiness about her. This like, I'm, you know, in Spanish we would say, I'm in control, right? And in that way. And she had that attitude. And that attracted me to her because my mom had that same attitude. And there are similarities. And my mama was one of those and my dad would just kind of, you know, he just, and I'm in the same way. And so with Marie, she had this little attitude that I found very attractive. And and then she turned to me. She said that to me, because I had told her once before, and she really shouldn't do that. And she just smiled at me. But later on said, when you were telling me that, I was thinking, who do you think you are? It's true. I did. I was, I was like, I had a smile. She did. I did have a smile, but I'm thinking, why don't you leave? Why don't you leave? Are you to tell me what to do? Just go. I don't know why I confessed it to you. Marie, how did you get to that place then where you were able to say, okay, I now submit to you? To me, it was very natural, John. I was raised with a mother who was submitted to my daddy. And I think, and Dave was also, we came from the generation. Dave, your mom was submitted to your father as well. It was a, there was a generation once, you know, once that were truly really these women, like my mom, were ideal, ideal women in loving taking, loving her husband and taking care of the children and submitting. And I, it was, it was, I learned from my mom. I learned, I learned from my mama. That was then now passed on. Yeah. Sex expectations. There is. And when you see it, it's like, I mean, when I told Dave, I was a, you know, a teenager, of course, a late teenager in college when I was, when I got bugged at him about the food or what, tell me not, tell me what not to do. But, but, but really, we as, as mothers, ought to give that to their, to our daughters, that they would be able to treat their husband with respect and love. And it's important. Respect is very important in a marriage. And, and many, many, many women don't respect their husbands and they really let them go, let them know that. And it's not a good thing. How many times do they have to hear us complaining about them? And I was, you know, I was taught to, my mom always taught us to keep our mouths quiet. And, and I think that's worked. It has worked. And I don't really need to, and I don't have anything that I need to say. I mean, of course, I've gotten angry before, but not, I've never had anything that's really a big deal. And, you know, if you call it a big conversation, if you communicate, if you open your heart, if you're honest, and if you respect each other and speak to each other with, with, with, with loving respect, you know, we learned the hard way. I mean, I'll be honest with you. I mean, I, we, when we first got married, I was not what I am now. I mean, it's taken many years for me to learn the lessons I give so freely. Marie had a wisdom about her, though. She, she, she gained it quickly. You know, she was not about to step into the lion's den. She wasn't going to pick a fight. And she wasn't, you know, she wasn't, she wasn't going to, she wasn't going there with me. She didn't do that. And so that helped me. That helped me because she knew, I'm a strong man. She knew, she knew that, no, you're not, you're not, I'm not that guy that a woman can dominate. I'm just not, you know, some guys are easy going to, I'm not, that's not my, the way I've been cut, you know, that's not the cloth I was cut out of. And Marie knew that. And so, for me, and it's biblical, you know, Ephesians five says that the husbands love your wives. But it says to the wife, respect your husband. And so the word respect and it pertains to the husband is, is the way he interprets what love is. So if Marie were to say, honey, I love you, but showed me disrespect, I would know she didn't love me. So for me, I would rather know she respects me than to wonder about her love for me. And the way I know she loves me is to respect. And so it's just a very easy thing to see. And so Marie, Marie knows that she knows that I'm not, I'm in our relationship, I am not the one you can, you can mock, I'm not that guy. And you can't, you can't tell me what to do. You're not going to, you know, and it's not because I'm so, I just know it's not going to work. You cannot do that. She knows that. So what she has learned to do is she's learned with me how to communicate. So I hear her. So I hear her, you know, and me, I've made the effort to hear her and understand her. So that's really where the answer has been for us is if I tell Marie, I could do this. And I do on occasion, if necessary, maybe I need you to do this, I can do it that way. No, she doesn't run around saying, oh, my personhood has been violated by a command. You know, because there aren't some women who get all worried. How dare you speak to me like that? I'm not your, you know, handmaiden and this and that. You know, well, if the woman is so quick to respond, I wonder if the husband has made her feel like the queen she's supposed to feel she is. Because if she knows how valued she is, then then Marie knows how valued she is, then I can ask her, I can say, baby, I need you to do this. You know, I need this done. And she loves me and respects me and she does it. So there's no fight. There's no argument because I've loved my wife and she knows that. And I've lived a life before her that is honorable. So she respects me. And that's the key. That's what Paul taught. You know, yeah, I could, I could say I want this done. And, you know, she may do it. She may, but if I say, baby, I need this done, you know, it'll help me. Well, her heart is to make sure that I'm comfortable and I'm cared for. She does those things. And not everything's that important. I mean, it's not as if everything I've ever said she does or that I'm always showering her with. I'm not saying that. But I guess sometimes she may forget. Or sometimes I'm not as tender as I should be. It's not that at all. It's the overall quality of our relationship that she sees and that I see. So husbands love your wife. Wives respect your husbands. That's how it works. And so if Marie tried to put me down and make me feel low, I would know she didn't love me. If I asked her to do something and she keeps not doing it, I would feel disrespected. But if there's a medical reason, if there's something going on in her little brain that she just can't remember, then my loving grace to her is going to be there. And I won't expect her to do what she can't do. But again, that's just many years being together. That's years of working it out and learning to dance. For the us. It's the us. It always is us, John. That is a word that we'll put on our headstones. It was us. It was us. Yeah. I like what you said, Pastor, that there's a responsibility in our response as men to understand. And the way you said it, I don't quite remember. But I like how you said it, is that when a woman does something, we need to respond in such a way that it makes them feel loved. And I think a lot of times that's where it can go a little sideways when it's that. But again, even for me, and I can say this for the church, Pastor David and Marie, it's not just Pastor David and Marie. It's your guys is us. It's always us. I was sharing something. I think when we do our YouTube thing where you ask me random questions, you know, you had asked me about food, what food I like. And it was very natural, you may remember, John, I was sharing, well, Marie and I like and Marie and I just, you know, I don't think of myself. I think of us. That's the way I think. And somebody wrote on the page, you know, in response to that. And it's in and he wrote Marie and I, he says, my wife and I love the way you say that because that's, it's us, you know, nothing in life, this is true. Nothing in my life gives me pleasure if she's not part of it. That's the truth. You know, she has to be with me always. It's just us. There's a song, how about us? You remember that song? I do, but I hate it. But it's true every time we say, even when we did the random question about cars, you'd say, Marie and I would like to have a car that we can cruise in. I would never buy a car for myself. I buy it for us. What is she like? See, because there are cars I like for me, but I think mama wouldn't get in that car. It would hurt her back, right? You know, I think of things like that. I like copras. Love copras. But I say, I would never even get a replica car, because they ride rough. She wouldn't be comfortable. And she doesn't like smaller cars, so I'll make sure I get a larger one. Yeah, it's always us. It's never me. It's always, it's always what's best for the Rosales from Marie and David. And it's always Marie and David. And that's very practical for those who are even watching, because when it is about us, when we can take that concept as a married couple and say, let's make it about us, then it changes the dynamic of the entire marriage. Well, a man loves and cherishes his own body, Paul said, while he takes care of himself, why doesn't he take care of her? And when you understand that the two became one, then it's no longer about me. And it isn't everything I do. And this is the truth. Believe it or not, some won't. I don't make decisions about for me. I always make them for us, always, you know, always, you know, and everything, you know, vacation. I talked to my wife for, maybe I'm considering taking some time off. What's your schedule look like? I never just say I'm taking time off and you're, no, what's your schedule look like? Do you have things? Are you free? And so my own, my own physical well being is tied up with what makes her happy. Everything is, everything, you know, and I think that's, and I think that's husband loving your wife. That's what I think it is. And not every man does that, John. Not every man can do that unless the spirit of the Lord frees them to and awakens them to. Why do I have a good marriage? I do have a good marriage, but why? Because Marie and I have decided together, follow the Lord and do what he says. And in homes, I can tell you the homes that are not reading the Word of God and living by it. They have problems. But when man and a woman decide to read God's Word and decide to together follow what God says, your marriage is blessed. It's really simple. So the wife said, I don't want to do that. Well, as we've been going through our readings or devotions, this says, this is what we're supposed to do. Let's agree to do it. And that's what we do. And so if God says it, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. That's kept us together. That's the truth. That's kept us together. We have a higher authority that we answer to, not just what I want. That's the truth. And the answer. Yes. For us, it has been. And if people say, I wish I had a marriage like yours, that's what we do. So we're in the Word. My wife has been under my ministry for longer than we've been married. You know, she grew to respect me even as a fledgling teacher because she saw I really wanted to do what I was teaching. So over the years, she's seen that I have actually done what I was teaching consistently for years. And it's won her respect. It's won her respect. And if there's anything that matters to me as a husband, it's the respect of my wife. Because, you know, you see how I am, you know, even this weekend, we were talking about this earlier, John, but you know, it's pastor's appreciation month and all. And you kindly surprised me. And it did surprise me even though it was second service and you'd done it in first, but I still got startled when you walked up on this. Yeah, I got startled. And I knew you were going to come because you'd done it for service. But with that said, when you just said on behalf of the fellowship that, you know, I forget how you said it, we appreciate you or whatever, that matters a lot to me. Of course it does. And the people stood and you saw how I was kind of just looking like surprised. Because, you know, I appreciate that with all of my heart. But the fact that my wife could stand and appreciate me, that matters. That matters the most. That matters. If others didn't, but she did, that's all. That's all I want is for her to respect and appreciate me, right? And so others do. And I'm grateful to God that they do. But there's only one person that I really want to respect me. And that's this girl here. It's a fact. It's very plain, very basic. All these years of respecting pastor and pastor, all these years of loving your wife, it boils down to what you said is spending time in the work together. Yeah, and serving God. Serving God. Yeah, that's our whole life, John. If I were to ever retire from ministry, I think these two old people would know what to do with their lives. It'll be quite an adjustment for us when the day comes that I'm not the pastor of this church, when I yield it. It's going to be quite a thing for us to discover who we are at this point in our lives. Who are we now? Because I am my service to God. And when I step out, it's going to be when I know God says, it's time to move on to the new thing I have for you. Because the new thing he'll have for me will keep me doing the same kinds of things I'm doing right now. Because I could never stop being a spiritual leader. I would lose myself if I didn't do what God called me to do and be what God called me to be. And so that's why, you know, that's why we're just preparing our hearts for that future is coming. But no matter what it is, Marie taught me when I taught a little, she met me when I taught a little home Bible study with a handful of people, and she may end up with an ex-pastor who has a handful of people in a Bible study. That's what she may end up with. But you know what? Doesn't matter, as long as we have each other. That's all. Because I'll always be her pastor. That's right. Well, you're going to make room for me somewhere in there. Yeah, I guess. We don't have no room for you. This is for either of you to respond to. But I'd be interested to hear how you would both respond to the statement. If you heard somebody come up and say, well, what does the Bible really mean when it says wives should submit to their husbands? I mean, I'm a capable independent woman who is also a new Christian. And I don't like that idea. Some people say at my church, some people at my church even say it isn't relevant anymore. How would you respond to that? No submission. You have anarchy. You can be an Antifa wife if you'd like. Serious. Yeah. No authority. Just do what you want. That's rebellion. And if you want to have a good marriage and a good relationship, then you have to recognize that God has established roles and boundaries. And you have to recognize that if you're a new Christian and you're saying I don't have to do that, then you've already embarked on a life of rebellion because you're not submitting. You're not submitted to the Word of God. And in not being submitted to God, you're going to be in rebellion and your marriage will not be blessed. And so if your husband's a Christian and you've become a Christian, then make up your mind to do what God says in his Word. Is it easy? No. You know, Marie and I have been together for a long time. And it wasn't automatic and it wasn't instant. I mean, I married a good woman. I married a woman who, like she said a moment ago, was raised in a home with a mother who is submitted. And my mother-in-law is an amazing woman. I love her very much. She was a good wife to her husband as they're married 50-plus years and, you know, till he went to be with Jesus. And so Marie had a good model. And her grandmother was just a wonderful woman. And so Marie has a great heritage and all of that. But even so, I came from more of a dysfunctional background. You know, my mom became a Christian 25 years after she was married. I mean, she'd been married 25 years and then she gave her heart to Christ. And so mom had some things and dad had some things to learn and to unlearn. So I came from a place of some rudimentary things that were good, but I wasn't the beneficiary of the lessons that were learned after that because I was no longer in the house. And so what happened is I had to learn on my own by reading Scripture and especially Scripture. Because remember, we were young and you don't look at another young couple about being a model to you. You just don't. And if you don't have older people around you that you can look at and say, oh, you know, and maybe be mentored, then it's a kind of a rough road. And so we had a rough road here in this church. We have married couples ministry. We didn't have that when we first got saved. We didn't have the marriage retreats and marriage conferences to be able to partake in. We didn't have that. So we were on our own and the only people we had as models were other young couples who were still going through the same things that we were learning. What we ended up doing is we ended up, well, I was a Bible teacher. And so we ended up just discovering the Word of God together. And then I started doing what it said because at first you can teach it, but not really do it. And I started trying to learn those things. And it took years. It's not a quick thing. It's a decision that you make to pursue something over a lifetime. So what you see now with these two old people sitting in this chair, one old man in his cheeky. What you have is the result of pursuing in the same direction, just moving in the same direction over time. That's what you see. And people say, well, you're just old. You got used to each other. No, no, no. There are a lot of old couples that are mean that you wouldn't even want to be around. They have polarized in their relationship. Well, you see them at the store. The guy's walking behind the wife and she's saying, you're not going to eat those things. And he's all grumbling. Don't tell me what to do. I'm a man. You see those people, the mumblers and angry. And Marie and I have seen that. I have seen that. Just because you're old and been married 50 years doesn't mean that you're good, that you've got a good marriage. Sometimes you don't and you can see them. And I'll look at her and I would say we were at, I'll give you an example, we were on a vacation. I think one of the very first times we were privileged and blessed to be able to go to Hawaii. That's a place that both she'd been before I'd never been. And so I love, I love Hawaii, just the smells of the plumeria and everything. It's beautiful. And the Hawaiian pancakes, the killer. They're so good. But anyway, oh yes. Yes, stop. So anyway, we were, we were in a restaurant and we're talking 20 some years ago now. We're in a restaurant and right across from me is an older couple. They're older than us. And he's got his newspaper and he's holding it, reading it. And I'm looking at the wife as she's eating her breakfast in silence. And I turned to Marie. You remember? I turned to her. That will never be us. That will never be us. Go to restaurants now and you see guys with his, his, his iPhone. You know, she's on her iPhone and you ask yourself, what are you guys doing together? I mean, what's the point? I mean, you can't read your messages some other time. You can't dedicate some time to one another to ask how was your day? What do you want to do? You can't do that. If there's anything that I think is causing separation is those kinds of things. It's the technology that was used for a benefit that has become a real hazard. So, I, you know, Marie and I, every once in a while, we'll be together and maybe we'll get on our phone for something. But I'm pretty quick to say, let's put that down and we'll talk, we'll look at that later or whatever. And because you got to guard these things. And so, yeah, I think that you need to, you need to just submit yourself to things that the Lord pursued the Lord. If you're really saved, you're going to do that. If you're, if you're not wanting to do that, I think you have a, a right to begin to question where you stand with the Lord, whether, whether you really understand what it means to be a sinner saved by grace, but you really understand what it means to work together in Jesus to make the oneness real. And that has to be your goal. There's nothing more valuable than that. Listen, John, I say this often, you know this one of these days and it's just true. And I say this not for melodrama. I say this because it's true. It's true. And more true now than it was 10 years ago. One of these days, maybe in that pulpit, my wife's going to stand. She's going to say, this is the man I was married to. He's in heaven now. One of these days, it's going to happen. I'm ready. She'll be ready. I don't want her lying about me. I want her to say, he was a good man. He loved me. He loved his children. He loved his grandchildren. That's what I want. I want that more than anything. I want that more than anything. And she will do that because she has done that, right? And if I should have to be the one who says, this is the woman that you never knew, I will not speak with regret. I will say this was my prize. My gift God gave me. So I work at that. That's all that matters. One day, these two little old people are going to be planted together. We're going to be planted together, John. She'll be here. My body will be there. We'll together be with Jesus. It was worth it. That's the thing. And my kids will have a heritage and a legacy. And my grandchildren will have a legacy. They'll say, I want to have a marriage like my grandparents have. What's better than that? What's better than that? There's nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Because I influenced a generation and another one. I don't see that. I don't see anything more valuable than that. That's, that's biblical. And even to our church. Yeah. I hope our church knows we love each other. I think it does. Thanks again for tuning in. Let's Talk Marriage is a ministry of Calvary Chapel, Chino Valley. If you've enjoyed this video, then please like and share it. We will see you again next week on another episode of Let's Talk Marriage.