This morning I want to talk about "Finding a Way Forward." When you're young and in love, and you first get married... you have strength and energy, a vitality, a zeal for life. You're healthy, you're desirable, the future seems limitless. Opportunities for education and career choices, abound. Your hopes and dreams are very much alive. When you make that vow, "for better or for worse"... you don't know what you don't know. Your love effortlessly accelerates into whole new stratosphere.
But then life happens. You begin the journey of marriage. Alexander Pope said in courtship couples dream, but in marriage they awake. Suddenly, you awake to one another's personality & temperament. Maybe little quirks, oddities, you once adored become grave concerns. You awake to one another's character. Maybe you realize, "I can't trust this person." You awake to their judgment, to the fuller ramifications of their addictions, weaknesses, choices, attitudes. You awake to the condition of their health, the dynamics of their family tree, the limitations of their career path/ potential.
How many times have you heard a couple say, "If we'd known then what we know now, we wouldn't have gotten married!" We know that divorce is becoming more common (not near as common, however, as our news and entertainment industries would have us believe). We know young couples are deferring marriage later and later. When it comes to relationships, we'd rather "dream" than "wake up."
But what if our thinking about marriage is upside down. What if the whole point of marriage is "waking up?" What if God designed marriage specifically to showcase his kind of love?
Jean Vanier, founder of the L'Arche communities, shared a story about a man who lived in Paris. His wife had Alzheimer's. He was an important businessman--his life filled with busyness. But he said that when his wife fell sick, "I just couldn't put her into an institution, so I kept her. I fed her. I bathed her." Jean describes going to Paris to visit them, and this businessman who had been very busy all his life said, "I have changed. I have become more human." Once, in the middle of the night his wife woke him up. She came out of the fog for a moment, and she said, "Darling, I just want to say thank you for all you've doing for me." Then she fell back into the fog. The husband just wept.
(Some of you remember Earl Tipps, longtime Lakesider. That's how Earl loved his wife.)
More awake. More human. Showcasing God's kind of love. Growing, learning... to give/receive Jesus' kind of love. We think our love has to be perfect to get married. But what if God intended marriage to perfect love, to make us more like him?
The famed German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer told a young couple about to enter into holy matrimony: "It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love." What if marriage is to sustain, sanctify, perfect love, and not the other way around?
To find a way forward in marriage we have to think differently about marriage. Most couples assume, "We don't love each other, therefore it can't work out." God says, "No problem. Let me perfect your love, so that when it works out, I get the glory. People will see my kind of love."
This is the profound insight given about marriage in Ephesians 5. It's that Christ's kind of love ought to shape the way husbands approach their marriage. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church-- 30 for we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church."
Lewis Smedes writes, "Sometimes Christ calls us to love people who cannot love us in return. They live in the fog of mental illness, disabilities, poverty, or spiritual blindness. As we serve them, we may only receive fleeting glimpses of gratitude. But just as Jesus has loved us in the midst of our spiritual confusion, so we continue to love others as they walk through a deep fog. . . Biblical teaching on marriage shows us that the union of a man and woman is the icon of the union of Christ and his church. The Book of Revelation envisions the great wedding feast at the end of time, the union of the Bridegroom and his bride."
The fundamental issue isn't how much did you love each other when you got married. The issue is whether you're growing to love each other as God loved Israel... or as Christ loves his Church. What we know about Jesus is that he chose to make "the imperfect" ... sinners like you and me... the object of his affection. God could have abandoned us, he could have divorced us, but God so loved us... he is faithful... he cannot disown himself... he begins, continues, and finishes, he laid down his life for us... and such love is to profoundly shape our love, especially in marriage.
Marriage is to profoundly showcase the power/beauty of God's kind of love. Marriage is so much bigger than just you/I, it exists for a bigger purpose! I want to share some practical ways we can move forward together in love.
1. Move Forward by Embracing Covenant
The idea of covenant is promising to bring out the very best "in," and the very best "for" your spouse, no matter what. This was God's covenant with Israel. You can follow the thread of God's faithfulness throughout the Old Testament. God promises to bless, redeem, and restore his people. And, no matter how deeply Israel deviates from God's way, God remembers to act according to his promise. Sometime read the book of Judges, and count how many times God raises up a deliver for his people. Sometime read the prophet Hosea, and count how many times God asks Hosea to take Gomer back as his wife. It's overwhelming to consider God's covenant faithfulness--God is faithful not because of who we are but because of who he is.
The same is true of Jesus' covenant with the Church. We don't come to Jesus perfect. Far from it! We come with stains, wrinkles, blots, blemishes, all our sin. But what does Jesus do? He washes us, he forgives us, he gives us his Spirit, he sanctifies and perfects us. God promises to bring the work he began in us to completion. We're talking about a "covenant mentality" that is distinct to God and Jesus.
John Piper says "covenant is... the ground in which the flower [the marriage] grows." "Because if you're in a season right now where the flower is wilted and you think the solution is to pull the plant up, that's not the solution. The ground of covenant, the ground of promise, the ground of no divorce... that's the ground where it can re-flourish. And it does."
Lewis Smedes says, "When you make a promise you have created a small sanctuary of trust within the jungle of unpredictability"
I like what Zig Ziglar says, in Courtship After Marriage. A lot of people believe they've married the wrong person. Zig Ziglars says, "if you treat the wrong person like the right person, you could well end up having married the right person after all." That's what God did in Christ Jesus! Zig Ziglar also says that its, "far more important to be the right kind of person than it is to marry the right person." Resolve to bring about the very best "for" and best "in" your spouse no matter what.
2. Move Forward by Being on Guard
Adultery and divorce was a systemic problem in Israel's history. In Malachi, God confronts the unfaithful men of Judah in the most striking manner. He says, "... You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, "Why?" It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant."
"Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. The man who hates and divorces his wife does violence to the one he should protect. So be on guard, and do not be unfaithful." (Malachi 2:13-16)
Be on guard! We often have their air of invincibility. But we are far from it. One person has said, "Sampson was the strongest, Solomon was the wisest, King David had a heart for God. What makes you think you are stronger than the strongest, wiser than the wisest, and righter than the most righteous?" The Bible warns us that the heart is deceitful above all things, and who can understand it? In the New Testament were continually admonished to "examine our hearts."
One way we can examine ourselves is by reading God's word. The Word of God is like a mirror that perfectly reveals what God see in us. The Word lays everything bear for full examination. In addition, the Holy Spirit convicts all people in regard to their sin. That nagging conscience is the Holy Spirit nudging you to do inner work in your life. When our heart is wrong, we suppress the Word of God and get out of step w/Spirit.
But God also uses your spouse, friends, and peers. Your spouse is often the first person to point out signs of danger, do you listen? Your friends are the first to ask questions about new relationships and changes. God also uses the collective conscience of people around you to alert you to sin. We're really without excuse. It's our responsibility to steer away from anything endangering marriage relationship.
3. Move Forward by Sharing Grace/Truth
Dan Allendar says, "We must never be naïve enough to think of marriage as a safe harbor from the Fall.... The deepest struggles of life will occur in the most primary relationship affected by the Fall: marriage." Dan Allendar & Trempor Longman III, Intimate Allies.
This can only mean that the very survival of your marriage is based on giving and receiving grace. Giving and receiving grace are two entirely different things. When you give grace, it's easy to imagine yourself in a place of superiority--as if you are giving something you yourself don't also need. But we're to never take a posture of superiority in regards to God's grace. The only way to keep us humble is to be reminded that we've already received far more grace than we'll be able to dispense. We've been forgiven quadrillions, and God asks us to forgive seventy times seventy.
Ephesians 4:32 says, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." In other words, live in forgiveness. Readily receive and dispense that grace.
Galatians 6:1 prescribes gentle, non-arrogant restoration in relationships. "Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted."
Ephesians 4:15, "speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ." Ephesians 4:29 says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." Ephesians 4:31 says, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice."
Grace isn't just a way forward, its only way forward. Words are grace-o-meter.
4. Move Forward by Pursuing Intimacy
There are two types of intimacy in a marriage. Obviously, there is sexual intimacy. The Bible even says the husband and wife have a duty to fulfill their marital obligations to one another. But the Bible also speaks of another layer of intimacy that transcends the merely physical. Couples should enjoy that deeper intimacy with God.
1 Corinthians 7:5, "Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control."
There you have it. Sex and prayer all wrapped up into one verse! The best way to explain this verse is to that that sexual intimacy is one level of intimacy. When you come together physically, a certain level of vulnerability and trust must exist.
But think how much more vulnerability and trust occurs when a couple additionally prays together. When the husband gives his wife a window into his spiritual life. When a wife does. When they share their faith, expressing their hopes, dreams, longings, hurts, together before God.
Lara and I prayed together four years before our wedding night came along. The spiritual intimacy was so intense, and the bond that we formed, was like super glue. I realized by praying with her that if we continued to abide in Christ, nothing would undo our relationship, we would always find a way to move forward, and we have.
It doesn't matter so much this morning what your love was, or what it has been in the past. What matters is what your love is becoming, and whether your letting Christ showcase his kind of love in your relationships. If you're struggling in your marriage, I'd encourage you to read the Word together. Pray. Journal. Worship. Get into Small Group. Examine heart. Ask for help. Invite accountability.