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Dear
Friends in Christ,
Did you hear the one about the wedding ceremony where the minister asked
the groom, “Do you take this woman for better, for worse; for richer,
for poorer; in sickness and in health?” To which the groom replied,
“Yes, no, yes, no, no, yes.” Of course, we’d all like to sign up for the
better, richer, and healthier parts of marriage when we tie the knot and
forget about all that other stuff. But as we all know, that’s not the
way marriage works because that’s not the way life works.
Whenever I counsel with couples before I marry them, one
of the first questions I ask them is, “What do you think are the biggest
problem areas in marriages these days?” Care to guess what the most
common answer is? MONEY. And that is a very good answer because that is
a very big problem area for most couples. But Dr. James Dobson of Focus
on the Family fame would disagree with that. Instead, in his book
Home with a Heart, he writes the following…
Well, 3 weeks ago I left you hanging at the end of a
sermon in which I was talking about the key ingredients that make for a
great marriage. The first of those ingredients that we looked at
included sacrificial love, or agape love as the ancient Greeks
called it, an unselfish love that always places your partner and their
needs and their desires ahead of yourself and your needs and your
desires. The second ingredient was mutual submission, submitting to one
another as the Apostle Paul describes in Ephesians 5. Well, this
morning, at least for the first part of my sermon, I want to share with
you the final and most important ingredient that a couple needs to mix
into their marriage to make it the best and strongest that it could
possibly be. And that ingredient would be none other than Jesus. When he
is the Lord of the home, when he is the king of the marriage, when he is
the head of the household and the unseen guest who has a permanent
dwelling place not only in the home but also in the hearts of a married
couple, that marriage stands the greatest chance of not just surviving
but thriving in spite of all that the devil and the world might throw
its way.
I believe that is one of the points Jesus is trying to
get across to us in the familiar story of the wise and foolish builders
that we heard a few moments ago and that actually serves as the
conclusion and climax to his famous Sermon on the Mount. In this story
Jesus tells us that there were 2 men who were hard at work building
houses. The one was wise, the other was foolish. The foolish one, we’re
told, chose to build his house upon the sand. Exactly what possessed him
to do such a silly thing we are not told. Maybe it was the location.
Maybe it was the view. Maybe it was the low price he got it for.
Whatever the case, it was a mistake that would cost him dearly, for when
the winds and the rains and the floods came and beat against that house,
that sandy foundation gave way and this brand new home collapsed and
crumbled because it lacked a solid foundation.
Well, it’s sad to say, but there are many marriages
today that are built on sandy foundations. Some couples, for example,
get married with the idea that they are going to live out the American
dream. They’re both going to work hard and try to come up with as much
money as possible so that they can then afford the finer luxuries of
life. But they spend so much time working that they don’t have time for
one another, the time that is needed to nurture, develop, and nourish
their relationship. Then when the storms of life come, their marriage
has nothing solid to stand on and it simply collapses like a house of
cards in a windstorm.
Then
there are other couples who get married with the expectation that they
are going to maintain the same lifestyle that they had before they got
married. So several nights a week he’s out on the softball diamond with
his buddies. Then another night she’s out with her friends at the local
bar. Then on the weekend he’s got to go hunting because after all it is
deer season. The next night they go their separate ways again. And they
never do find or take the time that is needed to grow and strengthen
their marriage. So again, when the winds of adversity or the floods of
conflict begin to beat against their home, there is nothing there to
keep it standing.
But
then Jesus says there was the wise man and he chose to build his house
on the rock. And when the winds and the rains and the floods came and
beat against that house, it stood firm and nothing could shake it. Now
in that story, what do you think is “the rock?” Ask that question of
most Christians and 99% of the time they will say Jesus is the rock.
After all, don’t we sing that in the familiar hymn: “On Christ, the
solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand”? But that’s not
really quite the correct answer, for notice how Jesus puts it in our
text. He says: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them
into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
So the rock is really the words of Christ, the principles that he has
laid down for us in his Word on how we can be a good husband, a good
wife, a good mother, a good father, and so on.
And
notice something else in this story. Just because the wise man built his
house on the rock did not mean that he was now somehow exempt from the
storms of life. Rather, they came to him just like they came to the
foolish man. But because his house was founded upon a solid,
unshakeable, unmovable foundation, it was able to weather those storms
and stand firm against them.
And so
it is with the marriage that is founded upon Christ and his principles.
The storms will come in the form of health problems, financial problems,
problems with the children, problems with in-laws, disagreements, and a
whole host of other ways, but Christ will be there to help you through
them and to give you victory over them.
So
sacrificial love, mutual submission, and Christ himself – mix these
ingredients into your marriage, my friends, and you’ll be amazed at what
they can do to make your marriage not just good, but great.
Well,
what I want to do with the rest of my time this morning is shift gears a
little bit and address those who are not married but who are hoping
someday to be married. And I want to share with you some ways in which
you can properly prepare for this wonderful institution. And the first
suggestion I have is this: Be patient and prayerful. When I was a
young boy, I remember specifically asking God to lead me to the girl
that he wanted me to marry someday. And though I meant that prayer with
all my heart, I have to confess I didn’t always trust that he would do
that. So at times I took matters into my own hands. I made mistakes
along the way and sometimes dated girls that I knew weren’t right for
me. But thankfully God had his hand on my shoulder and though it took a
while and involved a very circuitous route that I wouldn’t have chosen
for myself, he finally led me on July 27, 1974 to this sweet girl named
Marilyn Hartmann in the small town of Campbell Hill, IL, a girl who far
exceeded and continues to far exceed my greatest dreams and expectations
that I had in mind for a wife.
So be
patient and prayerful, my dear single friends. Don’t rush it. Don’t
force it. Rather trust the One who loved you enough to die for you on a
cross and if it is his will that you be married, he will lead you to the
one that he wants you to spend the rest of your life with.
Then a
second suggestion I have is: Receive your parents’ blessing for the
marriage. Why? Because first of all, your parents, though far from
perfect, have a wealth of wisdom and life experience that you don’t have
that enables them to sometimes judge a person’s character in a much more
objective way than you could ever hope to do since you are so close to
this potential mate. You know, there’s an old saying that love is blind
and there is so much truth to that. Love, or what you may mistakenly
think is love, can be so blind to the faults and flaws and imperfections
of this other person that you can’t see the disaster that looms ahead of
you if you get more serious with them and ultimately get married. But
your parents often times can, so trust their judgment. Then secondly,
remember that your parents are the ones who gave you life. They are the
ones who brought you into this world. So they love you more than anyone
else on this earth and because of that love, they only want what is best
for you. So again, they are worthy of your trust. And then lastly, if
you don’t have their blessing, sooner or later that may very well come
back to bite you because in-law problems consistently rank way up there
with the other most troublesome areas of marriage like finances and poor
communication. So seek and receive your parents’ blessing before you get
married.
Then
thirdly, be faithful to one another once you are engaged. I know
that sounds like a no-brainer, but I think it needs to be said,
especially in this day and age where people are not always people of
their word and where a promise made is not always a promise kept. And
understand that that’s exactly what an engagement is. It’s a promise
that I am now committed to this one person for the rest of my life. I am
no longer part of the dating pool. My heart belongs to no one else but
my beloved to whom I am engaged.
Interestingly, in the Bible when a couple got engaged or betrothed to
one another, they were from that moment on regarded as husband and wife
and even referred to as such. We see this especially with Jesus’ earthly
parents, Mary and Joseph. In Matt. 1:18-19 it says: “This is how the
birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be
married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be
with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband
was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace,
he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” So not only were they
regarded as husband and wife once engaged, it would have taken a legal
divorce for that engagement to be broken. Now I realize that was more of
a cultural thing back then, but it still gives us some insight into how
seriously God regards engagement. So don’t pledge yourself to another
person until you are absolutely sure that this is the one you really do
want to spend the rest of your life with.
And
then my final word of advice to single people is this: Don’t live
together before you get married. Though this was a rare occurrence
when I began my ministry back in 1981, it is now the norm. I believe
it’s something like 75% of couples today live together before they get
married. Though this was once regarded and even referred to as “living
in sin,” it is now seen as the wise thing to do before you actually tie
the knot, just to make sure you’re compatible with one another. Yet
simply from a statistical standpoint, it is far from the wise thing to
do. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development, which is not a Christian organization:
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Living together is considered to be more stressful than being
married.
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Just over 50% of first cohabiting couples ever get married.
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In
the United States and in the UK, couples who live together are at a
greater risk for divorce
than non-cohabiting couples.
Now why
is that? That’s a question I’ve pondered a lot over the years and I’ve
come to what I think is a very simple and obvious answer. Since living
together outside of marriage places a couple outside the boundaries of
God’s will and is therefore nothing less than living in sin, then that
couple is depriving themselves of God’s blessing for their marriage
because – now listen to this – God will never bless sin. Search the
Scriptures, my friends, and you will never find one single instance
where God looked upon a sinful situation and said, “I like that. I think
I’m going to bless that.” But you can find plenty of sinful situations
where he withdrew his blessing and even brought down his judgment on
those who knowingly and willfully violated his will.
So
don’t live together before you get married. And if you have or if you
are, my suggestion would be to fall on your knees in repentance before
our holy God, understanding that repentance is more than just saying,
“I’m sorry. I was wrong,” but it also carries with it the idea of
change, the idea of doing an about-face, the idea of giving up what you
are doing wrong. When you do that, when you genuinely repent of your
wrongdoing, not only does the forgiveness of Christ flow freely into
your life and wash you clean of all your sins, but the blessing of God
comes right along with it. And from the good, the bad, and the ugly that
I’ve seen in marriages over the years, I know one thing for certain. I
would never want to enter this relationship and face all its challenges
without the aid, assistance, and blessing of almighty God.
Well,
our time for today is up. Next week when we get together we’ll leave our
study of the 6th Commandment and move on to a fascinating
look at the 7th Commandment which is “You shall not steal.”
And we will discover once again that though we may have been robbed a
bank or burglarized a home, we have still violated this commandment many
times and in many different ways, all of which serves as a reminder to
us of just how desperately we need a Savior named Jesus. Until then, may
the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and
minds in Christ Jesus at all times and in all situations.
Amen.
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