This Thing Called Commitment Series

This Thing Called Commitment

I remember back in 1998 when I saw my wife for the very first time. She wasn’t my wife at the time, but I knew I was going to like her. I met her at college, back at good old Central Christian College. We got to know each other. We were at the New Student Orientation together. And of course, there was a lot of flirting going on, I’m not gonna lie. Our relationship progressed and we started dating. Pretty soon, we were at a place where we both felt like this was the one God had picked out for us. College decisions had just worked that way and God was working to bring us together. So in June of 2000 we got married. We said our “I do’s” and went off into wedded bliss. We had just committed our lives to each other.

Most of you remember those feelings don’t you? Those days of dating someone new and exciting. It was so fun and you were totally into that person. You couldn’t stop asking about their life and you were totally into them. You went to sleep thinking about them, you dreamt about them, you woke up thinking about them and you thought about them all day long on a continuous 24 hour cycle. Before you knew it, you were married and that was an adventure in and of itself right?

Now I need you to help me answer some questions. Let’s say that after Misty and I had been married for 9 months for instance, let’s say I started to get a little bored with it all. So our relationship cooled and I started taking some time off. I told Misty I needed some space and that I needed some “Stan” time. But I told her that I would give her all of me on Tuesday mornings between the hours of 9 & 11 am. In that time there was no one else, I was all hers. The rest of the week though, I was spending time with other women. I was flirting around with them and having a good time with other women. I still knew Misty but our relationship was suffering. Now we were just kind of co-habitating in the same house. We were just roommates. How many of you would call that commitment? How many of you would call that faithfulness? I hope not.

That is absolutely not commitment. Yeah that “new car” feeling has worn off so we’re going to start taking less care of it, that’s ridiculous. Ephesians 5:22-27 actually compares the marriage relationship to that same kind of relationship between us and Christ. Let’s read it. Now this passage tells husbands and wives how to live with each other and how to deal with each other, but looking a little bit more closely, what else does it say? What can it teach us just as Christians about Christ? It teaches us that there are certain things that are important to Christ. One of those things is the church. And to make a long story short, we are the church. Not the building, this building will never win someone to Christ. We as individuals are a part of a bigger team. We are a part of something bigger. Individually we make up the church. This means that there is supposed to be a certain relationship between us and Christ.

That relationship is compared to a marriage relationship. Those of us who are Christians, at some point we all walked down the aisle. The Bible says that we are the Bride and Christ is the Bridegroom. We walked down that aisle, we saw Christ standing there. He had a tear in His eye because we were so beautiful to Him. We were committing our lives to Him when we became Christians and made Christ so happy He cried tears of joy. We looked Christ in the eye and said, “I do”. The first few months were great, remember? Then things started to cool off. It wasn’t quite as exciting as it was in the beginning. We started to say things like, “Well you know Jesus, I need some “me” time.” And on the side we have all these other idols and things in our lives that are taking the place that Christ should hold in our lives. You told God, “Look, you can have me on Sunday mornings between the hours of 9 & 11 AM, and for some of you that’s a stretch. God you can have me on Sunday mornings, but the rest of the week is mine.” And you leave Christ at home or here in the church building and you go off into the world to do whatever you feel like doing. How many of you would call that a commitment to Christ? How many of you would call that being faithful to Christ?