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LOVE FOR A LIFETIME
Malachi 2:13-16
Matthew 19:3-12
September 13, 2009
John Eldredge, who writes to men about men’s issues, describes his initial emotions about his wife. “I met Stasi in high school, but it wasn’t until late in college that our romance began. Up till that point we were simply friends. When one of us came home for the weekend, we’d give the other a call just to ‘hang out’ – see a movie, go to a party. Then one summer night something shifted. I dropped by to see Stasi; she came sauntering down the hall barefoot, wearing a pair of blue jeans and a white blouse with lace around the collar and the top buttons undone. The sun had lightened her hair and darkened her skin and how is it I never realized she was the beautiful maiden before? We kissed that night, and although I’d kissed a few girls in my time I had never tasted a kiss like that. Needless to say, I was history. Our friendship had turned to love without my really knowing how or why, only that I wanted to be with this woman for the rest of my life. So, why is it that ten years later I didn’t want to be married to her anymore, and divorce looked like a pretty decent option for both of us?”
It is rare to marry someone you have neutral or negative feelings about. Most of us marry someone we are head over heels in love with. We marry someone that we just cannot wait to spend every waking moment with. So, how is it that we move from this person being our deepest longing to the point where we are apathetic about them, or maybe even hate them bitterly? How does that happen? King Solomon writes, “This is my lover, this is my friend” (Song of Songs 5:16). That’s where we start out; they are our best friend and most intimate lover. What goes wrong?
Ninety percent of all Americans will get married; and fifty percent of those marriages will end in divorce. And, the justification for killing the marriage will be the innocuous phrase, ‘Irreconcilable Differences’. No two people are exactly the same. No two people will ever agree on everything. Even in the best and most powerful of marriages there will always be ‘Irreconcilable Differences’. That’s really just a catch phrase that means, “I don’t want to try anymore. This isn’t fun anymore; this is hard now; I want to go somewhere else and do something different.” How do we get from, “From the minute I wake up until I go to sleep at night I can’t wait to be with you”; to Irreconcilable Differences?
It starts with a misunderstanding of what marriage is. If you are married in the state of Texas, whether in a church, or by a Justice of the Peace, you are binding yourself with a strictly secular legal contract. When you sign the marriage certificate and mail it back to the county to be registered; you have just entered into a contract. Contracts are negotiated and entered into by the mutual consent of two parties. The responsibilities of each of the parties will be agreed upon beforehand; they may be specified in writing, or they may be communicated orally. (I will love you forever, and I expect you to love me back.) If either party fails to complete one of the negotiated responsibilities, the other party is entitled to relief. Relief can take many forms, with a variety of penalties, including the dissolution of the contract – which, in this case, would be divorce.
But, if you paid attention during our Old Testament reading this morning you noticed that God did not call marriage a contract; he called it a covenant. And, a covenant is a whole different animal. A covenant is an unchangeable, non-conditional, imposed legal agreement that stipulates the conditions of the relationship. In a contract there is an if/then statement; if you make me happy, then I will stay married to you. In a covenant there is no if, there is only the ‘then’ – I will stay married to you.
The Lord God does not work with contracts, he works exclusively with covenants. He covenanted to Israel, “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God” (Exodus 6:4-7). There is no ‘if’ there. It’s not if you love me, or if you worship me, or if you are obedient to me. There is only the ‘then’, I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. It doesn’t matter what the people do; how much they throw away his love, or how rarely they worship, or how disobedient they are – he will still keep the covenant. God says marriage should be a covenant and not a contract.
If you were married in a Christian ceremony you took vows. Your vows probably ran along the lines of, “I take you to be my wedded husband/wife; to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.” Notice, that is a covenant and not a contract. There is no ‘if’; there is only the ‘then’. In a Christian marriage ceremony the vows are not a response to something the other person has done. The vows are statements that stand completely on their own. Now, listen to this, because this is important. God says, “Fulfill what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not fulfill it” (Ecclesiastes 5:4-5).
If you have been participating in the Love Dare you saw a commitment to covenant on day 22. The Love Dare for that day said, “Love is a choice, not a feeling. It is an initiated action, not a knee-jerk reaction. Choose today to be committed to love even if your spouse has lost most of their interest in receiving it. Say to them today in words similar to these, ‘I love you. Period. I choose to love you even if you don’t love me in return.’” Jackie and I had a lot of fun with that. For two days anytime the other one said something that got under our skin or struck us wrong we would muster up a cheesy smile and say, “I love you. Period.” That love dare is nothing more than a reminder to keep the vows we made when we covenanted to be married. I am going to love you whether you love me back or not. There is no ‘if’.
Unfortunately, most Christians view marriage from the secular aspect of a contract. If you make me happy, then I will love you. So, what is it that comes along and kills the happy? A better question might be what doesn’t come along and kill the happy? It seems from the minute we say ‘I do’ there is a never ending assault of people and issues that try to get us to void our vows. However, some issues, and some decisions, seem to be more deadly than others.
Silence is fatal in a marriage. When you make the decision not to share with your spouse you have just crossed over into very dangerous territory. When he thinks, “As soon as I get home she’s going to ask about my day. I’ve had a day that won’t end, and I’m tired of talking. I’ve used up my words. I’ll just tell her everything was fine”, he has just made a serious mistake. When she thinks, “This is going to make him mad. I’m tired of fighting. I just won’t tell him about this”, she has just made a serious mistake. The Apostle Paul says, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26). That’s Paul’s way of saying, “Do not skip the conversation. Control your temper, and deal with this now!” I have to admit this one is a problem for me; especially if it concerns a topic that Jackie and I have already wrestled with over and over. When the same old problem pops up again it is really tempting to just not deal with it, let it go, it’s not going to make a difference anyway. But, silence kills marriages – so I can’t afford to go there.
Justifying bad behavior will kill a marriage. Trying to make excuses for our own shortcomings is failure to keep the covenant. “If you had been a better spouse I wouldn’t have had to look outside the marriage for love.” “That’s the way I was raised.” “That’s just the way I am.” Those are copout excuses where we try to justify our own sin. We are responsible for what we do or say.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard prisoners say, “She knows better than to push my buttons when I’ve been drinking. So, it was her fault that I hit her.” Blaming your spouse for your physical abuse of her is wrong. Blaming your parents because you choose to speak to your spouse with sarcasm, or insult, or profanity is wrong. Blaming your spouse because you are an adulterer is wrong. Honoring a marriage covenant requires us to stand up like grown men and women, and take responsibility for our behavior.
A lack of credibility will kill a marriage. A husband who says, “I’ll fix the broken washing machine tomorrow”, then never gets around to it; has no credibility. A wife who says, “I’m too tired for sex tonight, but I’ll be available tomorrow”, then never gets around to it; has no credibility. It doesn’t take long for our spouse to figure out we don’t mean what we say. It doesn’t take a husband or wife long to figure out if we don’t mean what we say about the washing machine or sex, we probably don’t mean what we say about loving each other, or keeping our lifelong commitment either. Jesus said, “"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much” (Luke 16:10). In a marriage that translates into this; if you want your spouse to trust you in those big marriage covenant vows, then you better keep all of the little promises along the way. Otherwise, you have no credibility.
Adultery is probably the single biggest killer of marriages. It is a betrayal that strikes us to the very core. There was a promise of intimacy that would never be shared with any other living person, and that promise was trampled. A third person is literally brought into the marriage bed, and that’s one too many. Many years ago Phyllis George was interviewing Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys. In the middle of talking football she suddenly blindsided him with, “Roger, how do you feel when you compare yourself with Joe Namath, who is so sexually active and has a different woman on his arm every time we see him?” Staubach didn’t skip a beat. He said, “Phyllis, I’m sure I’m just as sexually active as Joe. The difference is that all of mine is with one woman.” Touchdown!
How do we end up in adultery anyway? We started with John Eldredge, let’s finish with him. He says that every woman needs to know that she is chosen; it is core to her identity. She is continually asking, “Will you pursue me, do you delight in me, will you fight for me?” And, every woman lives with the constant fear that the answer will be, “No. You’re not beautiful and no one will fight for you.” Psychologists all agree that a woman’s self concept of whether she is worthy to be chosen or not comes from her relationship with her father. If her relationship with her father has been healthy, then she will continually expect her husband to keep choosing her – over and over.
Every man needs to be seduced. Every man wants to scale the castle wall, slay the dragon, and rescue the maiden. And, he expects the maiden’s complete love as the reward. If there is no reward, there is no reason to suffer wounds from the dragon. A man longs to hear the maiden cry out, “Save me, and we will be together!” In a healthy marriage the wife is continually crying out, “Save me from the dragon and I will give myself to you!” And, the husband is continually storming the castle to prove to her that she is chosen. If he does battle with the dragon, only to find that she is not there – he will choose another castle. If she continually cries out but her rescuer never comes – she will look for another knight. According to Eldredge, that’s how adultery creeps into a marriage.
In the eyes of God, marriage is not a contract, it is a covenant. That means there is no ‘if’; there is only the ‘then’. I choose to love you whether you deserve it or not – period. Unfortunately, there are thousands of ways to damage the marriage so severely that we abandon our vows; silence, justifying bad behavior, a lack of credibility, and adultery can all inflict fatal wounds. We can hurt ourselves so badly that we forget why we got married in the first place. “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). There is so much potential for good in a marriage. Don’t let the bad swallow it up.
Jennifer Dion, Fireproof Your Marriage: Participant’s Guide (Vista: Outreach Publications, 2008), 41.
Paul Franklyn, editor. The United Methodist Book of Worship (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 1996), 130.
Ken Taylor, “Learning to Live with Forgiveness”, What Makes a Man? (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993), 69.