Six Steps To A Good Marriage Series

Messages on the home Preached 1971 – 2008

By

Bob Marcaurelle

homeorchurchiblestudy.com bob marcaurelle

MESSAGE 1

Annual Sermons Text: Eph. 5:18-21

Vol. 9 No. 19-20 Bob Marcaurelle

SIX STEPS TO A GOOD MARRIAGE

Most husbands feel they already know the steps to a good marriage. They are “Yes, dear! Yes, dear! Yes, dear! . . .etc.” Well, there’s a lot of wisdom in that, but let’s go a little deeper.

And don’t let the word “STEPS” fool you. Don’t think all you have to do is write them down and start doing them. Each one is a battleground where we need to set priorities, destroysome idols to self we have erected, and make daily efforts. It’s like a doctor who tells you to do three things for your health.

1) Lose 25 pounds. 2) Stop smoking. 3) Exercise thirty minutes every day.

Satan is launching an all out attack on your home. The home feeds the church, the government and the culture, so if Satan corrupts the home, he corrupts all society. Here in Ephesians 5 Paul tells us to “be filled with the Spirit” (5:18). Then he applies the Spirit filled life to husbands, wives, parents and children (5:21-6:4). Then in 6:10-18 he tells us to put on the armor, for our war with Satan. Going to battle for your home, first we have. . .

I. SELECTION: MARRY THE RIGHT PERSON (2 Cor. 6:14)

1. The Person (Eph. 5:18).

What is the first step in cooking rabbit stew? TO CATCH A RABBIT! Satan attempts to destroy our homes before we create them by getting us to marry the wrong person. This is the quickest road I know to living hell on earth. I heard a pastor this week say our homes are in trouble today because pastors do not do in-depth premarital counseling.

I disagree. Sure, some premarital counseling where the basics are touched should be and are being done by parents, pastors and friends. But YOU CANNOT CARVE ROTTEN WOOD. If you choose a lazy, selfish, moody, spoiled, inconsiderate, “me first” person, all the premarital counseling and seminars and books in the world will not help one bit. On the other hand, if you choose a hard working, kind, “other’s first” person, you can have a good marriage with no formal counseling. Marriage problems are really PEOPLE problems, and if you marry a bum or a spoiled brat you are headed for heartache.

Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 6:14. He tells Christians, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?” I can hear you now. Don’t talk to me about this, he (or she) lights my fire, gives me goose bumps. Well, romantic love and being “in love” have received a bad rap from the church, but those who put it down need to read the Song of Solomon.

Romantic love is a wonderful gift from God and I for one believe God wants this fire to burn all the way to the grave. Your wife or husband should be your lover, your friend, your partner, your very self. But if romance is ALL you have, if you don’t build on it friendship and partnership and equality and sacrifice, it will die. You’ll be like the black man I worked with in high school. When he knew I had a date he would say, “You’d better watch out. When I first met my wife she was so sweet I wanted to eat her up! Now I wish I had.”

The older I get the more I see the wisdom of the Holy Spirit using here, the picture of an UNEQUAL YOKE. It’s like putting a race horse and a poodle together to pull a wagon. They will pull against and fight each other every step of the way. They are anything but a team and the constant frustration makes them sick of the sight of each other. Marry someone with a SIMILAR BACKGROUND and SIMILAR INTERESTS. I’m not talking about being just alike, but I am talking about wanting the same things in life.

Most of all marry someone with SIMILAR SPIRITUAL FOUNDATIONS. And this means far more than being a church member. Paul, in our text, would way marry someone “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:15). And this is not someone who has had some dramatic “second blessing” experience. It is someone who is daily filled with Jesus. It means you marry someone who loves the Lord, who serves the Lord and wants to be and tries to be like the Lord. You can’t carve rotten wood but a new born committed Christian will become more like the Lord through the years. To see what this means look at 1 Corinthians 13. It is a description of love but it’s also a description of Jesus and the person who lives like Him. Love is. . .