How to Celebrate Marriage God’s Way with Scott LaPierre the author of “Marriage God’s Way”

Hello, good people. Dr. Brad Miller here with you on the Beyond Adversity podcast.

This is the podcast where we help you to grow through what you go through

navigating adverse conditions in your life, to achieve peace, prosperity,

and purpose. And we love to talk to people who have navigated

challenging aspects of life and have something to teach us. Scott

LaPierre is our author guest with us today, and he has several

walks in life that he has had his share of challenges and opportunities.

Today, we're gonna be talking particularly a little bit about marriage,

but it also has to do with some parenting because he is the parent of

nine children. He and his wife are gonna talk about how that brings

some challenges into life. But we are certainly pleased to have the

author of Your Marriage God's Way, Scott LaPierre. Scott,

welcome to Beyond Adversity.

Thanks, Brad. Glad to be here with you and with your listeners.

It is awesome and I think we're going to kind of talk about marriage

as part of the context also of your life, your household, and how

everyone has a household and how there's challenges there. And

I guess got to ask, you have nine children, and a spouse and your

wife. And that alone is gotta be crazy, my man, it's just got to be

crazy. Tell me one crazy story out of your household life that has

to be happening.

Okay, that's probably a pretty fitting additive for our home what our

home feels like at times. Yeah, I have nine kids. The oldest is 14, the

youngest was born in September. And so it does seem pretty wild and

busy around here. In terms of a crazy story, that's interesting. So we

had a little time before the show. And you might have asked me, I

apologize, you sprung this on me. No problem. I'm just joking around.

You know, I'd say just trying to balance our lives in general is pretty

crazy. Being a senior pastor would be a full time job without throwing

in the children. But you know, having nine kids would be a full time

job without throwing in the pastoring or authoring. And so

yeah, it's life in general can be very overwhelming and stressful

at times to try to keep things in balance.

Well, that's what we try to do here on our podcast is help people

to identify some of the issues that they have, and then to work a

process there to get through to a better place. And so in your life, I

know you've had a few challenges, whatever may be either in your

marriage or in your family life, what would you say are some of the

real challenges or some of the adversities you may have faced that

you have had to deal with here?

You know, I guess I could have mentioned this earlier, my father

passed away, unexpectedly last year, and my parents, we've been

very close with my brother and my brother actually died of a drug

overdose when I was growing up. so then it was just just me, I was

the only child and my parents have followed us around. After I got

married, they moved closer to us in California. When we came up

to pastor of this church in Washington, they followed me up here.

When my dad passed away unexpectedly, my mom was pretty

lonely and I met with her and nights are particularly difficult. I said,

Well, you know, if you want to move in with us, Mom, we can look

for a place together and so we've been living with my mom as well.

We had to get a bigger house and we've been renting something.

We're buying something in June. So that was tough losing my dad

unexpectedly, we thought we had a few, quite a few more years left

with him. He had Alzheimer's and I guess one thing I would share

with your listeners is that often, when difficulties happen, we can

remember the truth of Romans 8:28, that God works all things

together for good. Because at the time, I didn't really see any

good for my dad's passing. But in hindsight, I think there was

really a lot of good when I was able to get a little distance

and reflect on I mean, one thing is just, as you probably know,

when someone has Alzheimer's, that last chapter of life is

dad to remain with us longer, I feel like the Lord allowed him

to pass with dignity, if that makes sense. We're getting toward

pretty unpleasant. I feel like, while I would have wanted my

that chapter when he's not he wasn't really remembering

names, wasn't really having conversations. And so it was

nice. We had a nice, wonderful last day with him. Going to

church in the morning was a Sunday. We had lunch together

as a family. After church went to evening service together. And

then Mom had called that night and she was really panicky on

the phone. I had not heard her like this before. I thought maybe

dad wandered off or maybe he wasn't thinking right and was

had gotten upset or something who knows. So I raced over to

the house and my dad was lying on the floor and he had

choked on and my associate pastor was with me and we

delivered CPR for until the ambulance came and then they

came and worked on him for an hour but they weren't able

to save him. So that's why I say it was shocking because even

though he had Alzheimer's, we thought he had

sure

a few years where perhaps,

I lost my dad about five years ago and he had last

year or so of his life, he had significant memory loss.

It's a tough one. That's a tough one. Then, you got your

family, you got your wife, you got trust around your pastor

on the pastor. So there's dynamics of that going on. So

how'd you, when you when your dad did pass, and all that

happened, and you're dealing with a dad dynamics of your

mom, now moving in with you, other things, what are

the actions you took to make sure that you kept your

life together spiritually, you and your marriage with

your parenting. There's certain pressures that come with these stresses.

Yeah, for sure. So many times, I kind of think about

the end of the parable, the Sermon on the Mount, when

Jesus tells the parable of the two builders, and he talks about

these storms that beat on this house, and there's two houses,

they seem to be identical regarding the way they're built.

They experience identical storms, the storms that that

beat on, these houses are not described any differently

from each other, and one house stands and the other one

falls. And so it has nothing to do with the house itself, and

has nothing to do with the storms as the one experience,

less or more severe storms. And the other just had to do

with the foundation they were built on. And so I think,

yeah, you know, my dad passing mom living in with us,

there could have been, these are the sorts of stresses

that can affect a marriage. I found when I perform

marriage counseling, that it's often some external factors

that have caused some of the conflict in the relationship,

kind of those storms that are beating on the house or

beating on that marriage or was threatening to cause

that marriage to collapse. So yeah, it comes down to

our foundation, what what we're building on, and if we're

building on Christ in His teaching, then we're going to be

able to withstand those storms. That's why a lot, you know,

Brad, a lot of my counseling, and I'm sure this the same for

you and your ministry, as a pastor is to point people toward

Christ and strengthen that vertical relationship. Because

when that relationship stronger, it usually strengthens the

horizontal relationships. And so when people come in for

counseling with me, the one of the first things I'm doing is

talking to them about what their relationship with the Lord

looks like, what their devotional. How much time are they

spending in the Word of God? How much time are they

spending in prayer? I think that can be kind of confusing

to people, because they are coming in and they want to

use. Unfortunately, people frequently kind of want to ref.

They want someone that's gonna say who's right and

who's wrong. They want you to look at their spouse

and criticize your spouse when they tell you how badly

their spouse and that's obviously not helpful. They want

you to look at them and say, You're right, and he's wrong, or

They want a confirmation of their point of view.

Well said, Yeah, defend them and instead, you're kind of

pressing them about their relationship with Christ. The

reason is that if you can help that relationship to grow,

then typically their marital relationship will grow too

because I'm convinced that a strong relationship with

Christ produces a strong marriage and a strong marriage

can produce a strong family, but a weak relationship with

Christ is going to be a weak marriage. I mean, that's why

one of the things that I stress to people is that our marriages

are reflections of our relationship with Christ. So when I do

marriage conferences, I'll frequently say something like, Why

do you treat your spouse the way you do? Just take a

moment to think about the answer to that question. And

I'm telling you that the reason you treat your spouse, the

way you do is because of your relationship with Christ. Your

relationship with your spouse is an outpouring or a manifestation

of your relationship with Christ, I mean, a husband that loves

Christ is going to love his wife, a wife who wants to submit to

Christ is going to submit to her husband. And so it is really the

an overflow of our relationship with Christ in our relationship with our spouse.

So you see a tramp different type of relationship, you know, between

the two parties in blue with God here, the vertical and the horizontal,

here, like to use the analogy of the cross, you know, the cross has the

vertical post, and then the horizontal crossbar. You know, that vertical

is what takes us connects us with God and horizontals with other people.

It sounds like what you have or the action that you're advocating that

people take. This is important kind of duality, to understand how

people can transform their lives as you get to be an action taker.

You cannot just sit back and let it just happen to you. What you're

advocating is just a really recommitment or reunderstanding of

your spiritual Christian commitment. Is that fair to say here, Scott.

Yeah, I think that's great. I think that's very accurate. You know,

there's that triangle analogy that if you've got the husband wife

down on the corners and Christ at the top, as they grow toward

Christ, they're going to grow toward toward each other and to

kind of ask people do you understand that when the Lord as

a husband, if he Since 525, is the primary command to Husbands

love your wives as Christ loves the church, and gave Himself

for her, and to ask her husband, you know, do you understand

that you love your wife, not because you necessarily feel like it

at the moment, but you love your wife, because you love Christ.

If you love Christ, you will want to obey His commands to you,

and to talk. And so sometimes, you know, people go by their

feelings or their emotions, and it's like, you know, I don't feel

like loving my wife, or I don't feel like respecting my husband.

Well, at that time, you have to draw on another relationship,

a higher one than the one with your spouse. Because if you

draw on the way you feel toward your spouse, you're gonna

probably ignore the person yell at them. Who knows what,

but if you draw in your relationship with Christ, that's where

the motivation comes to treat your spouse the way that God commands.

Let's talk for a minute, some practicalities about how to

do that if you're going to have a strong marriage, or gonna

be a strong parenting or deal with tragedy of death and so

on. What are some of the ways that you make this

connection to God to a higher power and certainly in

how do you what are some of the ways you didn't integrate

that into these vital relationships? Your marriage, your kids, your parents?

Yeah, that's a great question. Like, what does this look like

practically? One of the phrases that I frequently mentioned

whether preaching, counseling, writing, is Christ centered?

What does it look like to have a Christ centered marriage

or Christ centered home, a Christ centered family, and

essentially, to have Christ at the center of something is to

focus on Him. So if we're going to have Christ centered

marriages or Christ centered homes, then that means we

can't just go to church Sunday, worship the Lord Sunday,

and then not look like Christians. I don't mean we're being

terribly worldly or wicked. I'm just saying, we go to church

Sunday. And then there's no family worship or no family Bible

study or prayer throughout the week, that's not a Christ

centered home. a Christ centered home is one where we

worship together Sunday morning. But then we also are

having Bible studies and prayer time during the week. I'm

not saying it's gonna happen every day. There's, there's

times Katie and I sit back. And it's like, hey, we haven't

been, you know, in the Bible as much as a family like we

should. But practically, if we're gonna have Christ centered

marriages or Christ centered families, that means we're

going to bring the family together around the word of

God, we're going to, you know, when we have meals

together, I'm not saying every single conversation has

to be have some, you know, verse at the center of it, but

that conversations will frequently be, you know, what did

you think about last Sunday sermon? What have you read

in the word recently, if it has ministered to you? What if you

know, my wife will frequently have the kids write down a verse

that they read that day that spoke to them, and then they're

supposed to share about it at the table. I mean, to be clear,

with my oldest with nine children, and the oldest is only 14, there's

a lot of our time together that's difficult, chaotic. It's trying to get

kids to set up, set up trying to get him to pay attention, you know,

don't have this picture of like nine kids and perfectly on a couch

together, you know, totally attentive to their father. It's busy, it's

hectic, there's discipline, there's frustration.

Right? So I guess we're just going to ask this point, just out of

curiosity, are all these children or any adopted children? Is there

any, all natural?

Because, yeah, they're ours. You know, we got married, this is not a

commentary on what other people have to do, that we got married,

we have the conviction to just let God give us what he

wanted to give us. We kind of wanted to get to the end

of our lives and feel like we had God's fingerprints on our

family. But he built our family for us. He could have given

us three kids or four kids. He's given us nine so far, my wife

turned 40, a few months ago. So maybe that's, that's all

we'll have. But yeah, we just have that conviction to let

God kind of be in charge of our of our family.

Well, that's amazing in and of itself, my friend who

amazing in and of itself. It has to do with what I wanted

to talk to you about next and that has to do with discipline,

or have to do with how you organize life. You've

mentioned already a little bit about some of the

disciplines that you use in terms of Bible verses, the

dinner table, things like that. How have you disciplined

your life and in your marriage in your family in order to

live out some of the things that you're talking about here?

And in order to have done or to overcome when challenges

do come? What do you do now? What how do you live life?

Yeah, so if someone's listening to this, and they're

saying, you know, I wish that we were doing these

things more as a family. So those haven't been the

habit or pattern or routine. I would say it takes time

to establish these. establish certain trends or patterns

and our families and don't serve search for perfection.

Don't think that if you know, you don't read the

Bible or pray together every single day that that you're

a failure. I would say you know you if you look back and

it's like, you know, last week we didn't pray as a family as

much as I think we should have or we weren't. We didn't

have as many family Bible studies as we should have. Just

strive to do better the following week. This is not about

perfection. This is simply about trying to point our

children toward the Lord. It's not a performance based

religion, it's not like, we think that if we spend enough

time in God's word, and God's gonna bless this and

totally turn our kids into, you know, the next missionaries

and pastors or something, we're just relying on God's

grace and trusting that if you, you know, we put our

children to the Lord, and he's gonna bring about

what's best in their lives. I will say this, that if there's

for the men who are listening, because God has called

men to be leaders in the home and in the church, then

more of it rests on our shoulders. So it's nice if women

share the word with their children. But God has called men

according to Ephesians, six to be the spiritual leaders. So

that responsibility largely rests on our shoulders

and so it's not a wife's responsibility to say, Hey, let's

go have family Bible study. It's a father's responsibility

to say, Hey, let's go. Now a wife can say, you know, this, it

would be a good time tonight, if we, you know, there's

nothing else on the calendar. I mean, Katie frequently does

that we our lives are busy and she'll say, you know, it would be

good if we did our family bible study at breakfast, or if we

gathered together in the evening, but she still expects me to

be the one to lead that

So your observation in your approach, you're the teacher

and your wife is not allowed to teach or is not. You believe

biblically that it's her place to teach. Help me understand

where you're coming from?

Good. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. I don't want this is a sensitive topic

and I wouldn't want there to be any misunderstanding. I definitely

would not say that my wife doesn't teach or share. When we have

our times around God's word, she shares valuable insights.

Many times when I'm preaching, I've said when I was going

over the sermon with my wife, because I go over the sermon

with my wife. Every week, there's a there's a family, that when

our children were younger, that would send two children over

to watch our kids. So my wife and I could go over the sermon

together. There were frequently times where Katie provided

some very valuable insight or thought that help helped shape

the sermon for me. I'm just saying that because God has called

men in Ephesians, five to be the first Corinthians 11, to be the

head of the relationship, it's an unfortunate thing. When women

say, you know, I wish my husband was more spiritual, or I wish

my husband would lead more. I wish my husband didn't look at

these things that he shouldn't look at, because it's pretty clear

that God in Ephesians, five, you know, Ephesians 5:25, gives the

command, love your wives, and then the following verses tell us

what it looks like to obey that command because you can see

the command in verse 25. Love your wives as Christ loves

the church. Well, then why are there any verses after

that, because verse 25, as the command and then the following

verses tell us what it looks like to obey that command and the

following verses say that a husband is going to sanctify and

cleanse his wife, with a washing of water by the word of God.

It doesn't say that the wife is going to sanctify and cleanse

her husband, with washing of water by the word of God

looking to that responsibility, a husband has to be the

spiritual leader in your home, but it in his home. But it

definitely doesn't mean that a wife doesn't have valuable

contributions. I mean, Genesis 2:18, you know, God's

creating, and at the end of each day, it says, God saw

that it was good, God saw that it was good. And what's

the first time that he saw something that was not good?

When man was being alone, when man was alone, he says,

It's not good for man to be alone. And it's interesting when

that occurred, it was before the fall. We generally think of

everything being good, or nothing being not good, until

after the fall, yet God looked and saw man being alone

prior to the fall of something not good. And he says, I will

create him a helper, comparable to him. And sometimes

women kind of cringe at that verse, or being called helper,

but it's actually more of a commentary on a man than it is

on a woman. What I mean by that is, it's like God looked

and said, Man needs help. You know, he's an adequate or

sufficient or scallop here, Brad Miller isn't going to make it.

They need some help here. And so that's what a wife does.

That was God's way of providing the help that we need to

be to be, I don't know if I'd use the word success. I don't like

that word, but to be all that God desires us to be on the side

of our wives of that greater

God given potential is one of the phrases I like to use in this

kind of context. But let's talk for a minute about how your

books and your teaching has to do with helping people to

be their best. You have several books based on the theme

of doing life, God's way. Marriage: God's way, Parenting:

God's way, and so on. So let's talk about these books. What

are people going to learn from your books? First of all, you

have several Marriage: God's way, Parenting: God's way and

some others. What can you learn for your books that they

can apply to their life in terms of what it really means and

for them to live God's way.

Good. Yeah, thanks for having me. That's a question

that I love to answer. So they are basic Christian living

books. Their books that relate to daily Christian life and

the Bible speaks to us about all these different areas of

life, marriage, finances, work, you know, parenting, and these

are sermons. These are books drawn from my sermons. And so, I

would like to say that if anyone read my books, even if they

didn't like something, they wouldn't be able to say that they're

not biblical, because they're, I believe they're thoroughly biblical.

They're drawn from the sermons that I've labored over each

week, you know, for 20-30 hours per sermon. I mean, that's

how I ended up publishing books. As my wife said to me, you

know, you're pouring your heart into these messages. Every

single sermon each week is like a love gift to our

congregation, you really, it would really be great to

get more mileage out of these sermons, if you turn them

into books. Well, I'm already trying to, you know, I'm already

feeling overwhelmed. I kept kind of putting her off. But this is

one way God used Katie in my life, to nudge me to publish these

books. And so I guess what I'm

Gonna roll around about every week, don't they

Ya? Yeah, that's always looming, you know, for us, isn't it.

And so it's very easy to put my wife off for some time.

But I really believe God used her to encourage me in this

direction. So if anything, I'd say the books are, are very

thoroughly biblical, they they're not my opinion, or thoughts,

it the best I can, I'm trying to present to people what God says

about these different areas of life. If you open the book, I

don't think you're going to see, you know, Scott LaPierre's

opinion, on marriage, on finances, on trials and suffering my

book and during trials God's way, it's basic, it's not, you know,

I, it's not how I think people should respond to trials. It's how

God's word talks about trials, what God wants to do through

them, and how he can use them in our lives to conform us into the image of into Christ.

Well, that's a, that's also several titles there that can be

helpful to people. I kind of suspected, maybe you'd call

them from your sermons to where you were describing

your sermon preparation process. When folks do that,

and that's great that you put it out there, because

otherwise you're this opens up a whole new world of

possibility for your the impact of your message. So let's

talk about the impact of your messages for the second

here. Can you just share at a time when the outside of

your own family, you mentioned about how being

some influence in your mother for instance, but outside

your own family, either you and your congregation or

maybe readers or your books, or some of the other

resources that you put out that you know that what

you've shared has had an impact on someone and there's

been some tangible visible life change happened in your

marriage, or parenting or whatever It would be? Because

I'm looking for to use the parlance testimonial here,

Scott, do you have any stories to share with us?

You know, I have a touching one I'll share with you that I

believe is going to stick with me for a while. I was at church

Sunday morning. There was a gentleman and his wife and

their they had a child and a stroller with them and they were

coming toward me. It was one of these scenarios where I

could tell they recognize me, and I didn't recognize them.

It's one of those ones where you're kind of searching and

you're like, Lord, how do I these people know me? How do

I know them? What is their name?

Bring me the name Lord. Yeah,

Yeah, as a pastor, you don't want to be in a situation where

you can't remember. So this gentleman comes up and he

says, you know, do you remember me? And I said, I'm sorry,

Goes on and on. The ledger goes on, I have the greatest joys I've

I really don't. I apologize, can you refresh my memory. He

said, I was at a conference that you spoke at on

children, you and the blessing the children are, and then

I went up to you after your message, I think I caught you

at your booth. I asked you if you would pray for us, because

we were having difficulty having children, but we want to

have another child. And you prayed for us right there. And I

said, okay, and I didn't even didn't even remember this moment.

And he said, Well, I wanted to bring you the child that God has

blessed us with, after you prayed with us. And then he reaches

in the stroller, and he pulls up this child, and shows me this child.

I mean, it was incredibly touching and he said, I just I drove all

the way here, just to be here this morning and introduce you to

this this son that God gave us we believe after he prayed for us

at that conference. You know, that was really touching because

I believe children are a blessing. The Bible speaks so so well

of them. And I'll just say this, if I if I have another moment

here, Brad, one of the. When I say this, I'm not trying to

condemn anyone and that's the sincere truth. My heart is

to see people protected from experiencing regret. One of

the most common regrets that I've noticed from people is they

wish they'd have more children and, again, that's not to condemn

anyone who has stopped having children or hasn't had more

children. It's more to help people not have that regret when

they get older. Many people have told have told us, we've

talked about children, the blessing there. It's one of the

messages I'll deliver at conferences, and then you'll hear

people they'll come up and they'll be crying and they'll say,

you know, we wish that we wish that we'd have more children.

So I would just invite people to consider the way that God's word

describes children before they take any, you know, severe steps

to stop having more of them. Because it can, it can leave

people with regret. And I'll be the first no children are a lot

of things, they can be expensive, they can be difficult. I've

heard it said that children can give you some of the greatest

joy and some of the worst pain that you experience.

On this side of heaven. I believe I've seen my children are

pretty young. So we haven't experienced any, you know,

incredible rebellion or anything, but I know some people who

have and it's been excruciating for them.I do know that that

there's a lot of sacrifice associated with, with children. But it's

the only time I mean, it's the only time God uses you to

bring an eternal being into existence. That's your house is

not eternal, your job's not eternal. Your car is not eternal.

The books that we write are not eternal, that the children that

we raise are eternal beings. It

ever had happened this past Sunday, when I was able, I have three

children, and I was able to baptize with my granddaughter.

My granddaughter, this past Easter Sunday, as we're speaking

a few days after Easter. And so that's what the greatest

joys of my life because it was a real indicator of that

lineage of Christ being handed down from father to daughter,

granddaughter, and big thrill, big thrill. And so what you've

shared there is the thrill of how people have responded to the

message. And really, the message that doing life God's way is

the way to go. And your marriage and dealing with adversity

and dealing with parenting and so on. And, and I know that you

have resources to share with people, you've got several books,

and you've got other resources once you share with us, what,

what people if you want to find out more about Scott, where

can they find out more about you and get access to some of

these resources regarding doing lifeguards away?

Yeah, thanks, Brad. So, my website is the main place to go

scottlapierre.org and I'm guessing he'll put that put that in the show notes.

Put that in your show notes at drbradmiller.com. Absolutely. Yeah.

So my my website, scottlapierre.org. That's where people can find

my books, my conference messages is kind of the hub they can

find my social media, my YouTube channel with my with my

videos on my sermons and so forth. From there but

the other thing I'll mention is my have a free gift to your

listeners. It's a book, a short read, it's more of a pamphlet

almost called Seven Biblical Insights: For healthy, joyful, Christ

centered marriage is seven biblical insights for healthy, joyful,

Christ centered marriages, and people can get that from, from

my website, just my free gift to your listeners, and I hope, you

know blesses them and points them toward Christ.

You know, you're talking to me about books earlier in the

books that you feel like God's put in your heart for you to for y

ou to write in the future. And maybe you've heard this before,

but there's not a ton of money in books. Most of the people that

write books, they're not doing it for the financial gain. They're doing

it for the spiritual game that they feel like, there's something God

wants them to share with others. So I'm just blessed to know that I

would write something that people would consume and that it

would strengthen their marriages and their relationships with the Lord.

Well, good stuff there. And you can head on over to scottlapierre.org.

And you can find it at our website, drbradmiller.com. We'll have

connections in our show notes, and his books and his whole series of

messages about to doing life or living God's way among the several

titles, your marriage God's way. Our guest today on the beyond the

adversity podcast, has been Scott LaPierre, we thank you for being

our guest today on Beyond Adversity. Thank you, Scott.