Titanic: Keeping Romance Afloat Series

TITANIC: KEEPING ROMANCE AFLOAT

Reel Relationships - Week 2

Revelation 2:4-5

INTRODUCTION: (Video Clip montage from Titanic - mpeg 2:58)

It was that tragic, true story that served as the backdrop for the blockbuster film Titanic, which steamed past all other movies to become the top grossing movie of all time. It earned $601 million. It was the #1 movie in America for 13 weeks in a row. Thousands of people returned to see Titanic two, four, ten times, and they didn’t return to see a big ocean liner sink in icy waters. (Oops, sorry if I ruined the end of the movie for you.) No, they returned because of the romance. They returned because there was something about being embraced; to have someone’s arms around you as you stood on the bow of the ship of life, to know that you are loved beyond reason, as in the case of Jack and Rose.

As tragic as the sinking of the Titanic was, over 1,500 lives lost, you can multiply that number a million times over and record the death toll of marriages. So many couples began this maiden voyage called marriage with great excitement; vows were exchanged, cake was eaten, people danced, rice, balloons, joy filled the air. The new ship called “Wedlock,” felt strong, invincible, unsinkable. But along the way, something happened, the excitement wore off and now it’s a struggle to keep romance afloat, in fact for many it now feels like the whole thing is going down.

Maybe you’re a bit like the guy who discovered this half crumpled note written by his wife to her best friend trying to express what was going on in her life and marriage Listen to what she wrote and he found. “We were so in love when we got married. It was nothing for us, in those early days, to sit and talk for hours. Even when we weren’t speaking there was a sense that we knew what the other was feeling. It’s hard to know when we really grew apart. His job became more and more demanding, and I was always with the kids, and it may have been that I gave them too much attention, and he felt excluded. But looking back, I honestly feel, that if I hadn’t been speaking to them, I wouldn’t have been talking to anybody. He comes home so tired, he can hardly say hello, let alone tell me about his day, or even pretend to be interested in mine. I hate it. I long to speak to him. Sometimes, for a moment after we made love, I would believe he felt close to me, and as we’d lay there, I would begin to tell him so much of what I’d been longing to say. But so often as I would begin to share my heart, I would realize that he had already fallen asleep. And then a strange thing happened. Somehow, I just learned to live without him. It was as if something inside me shriveled up and died.”

Now, if you happen to be standing on either end of a note like that, or feelings like that, I think God wanted you here today. Instead of drifting apart, instead of shriveling up and dying somewhere on the inside, God’s desire is that your love would increase, even overflow for each other. So how do you keep romance afloat? We all realize that marriage is not always smooth sailing. There are storms to negotiate, there are icebergs to navigate along the way. So, this morning, I want to give you some navigational tools for keeping romance afloat.

These tools are straight from Jesus, some words that he said to a church in the book of Revelation. In the Bible the church is referred to as Jesus’ bride, and I want you to listen to what Jesus says to the church in Ephesus, a church that was going through the motions of devotion, but lost their sacred romance with God. Rev. 2:4-5: “I have this against you. The love you had at first is gone. Remember how far you have fallen. Repent, and change he way you think and act. Return to me and do what you did at the first.” Now, literally that verse is speaking directly to people who have drifted away from God, but I also believe it contains a very simple formula for recovering passion & maintaining love in any relationships. Did you see the 3 things that we can keep romance afloat? Three simple words; remember, repent, and return.

I. REMEMBER:

The first thing Jesus says is, “Remember how far you have fallen.”Probably just like you, we have pictures all over our refrigerator. When we built our house we talked about whether we should get a white, black, or stainless steel refrigerator? You know what? It wouldn’t matter! Especially now that we are grandparents! It’s covered with pictures. And do you know what I love about that? Every time I go to the frig, which is often, I look at those pictures, and I see so many things that I value.