Part 1: Good Medicine for Your Marriage
(Series: Heavenly Help for Your Family)
Revelation 2:1-7
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - June 11, 2006
*Most everybody knows the closing words to those old childhood fairy tales: “And they lived happily ever after.”
*How’s your "ever-after" going? Well, maybe not so good, because it turns out that there are a lot of bumps on the road to ever after. And the devil is lurking around trying to do every thing he can to hurt your family.
*But here is some great news: God wants to help your family! And if you are married, God wants you to have a happy marriage! So let’s look into the Word of God this morning and see what to do.
1. First of all, receive God’s guidance.
*The Lord tells us to do this down in vs. 7, where He says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” We need to listen to what the Lord has to say to us, and thank the Lord that God is willing to speak to us!
*He speaks to us most clearly by His Word. He speaks to us through the Holy Spirit, and He speaks to us through the things all around us. As Ps 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.”
*God also speaks to us through our relationships. He uses human relationships to help us understand Heavenly relationships. Friendship is an example because we know what it means to have a trusted friend: Someone we enjoy being with, someone we can depend on, someone who cares for us.
*We understand friendship -- And then in Prov 18:24, we hear God speaking of Himself as a friend who sticks closer than a brother. And in John 15:13, we hear Jesus say, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” God uses human friendships to help us understand that He wants to be our Best Friend.
*Marriage is another example of God speaking through relationships. The Bible tells us that Christ is the Bridegroom and the church is the bride of Christ. So all of the love, trust and companionship of the best marriage is a taste of the relationship that God wants to have with me and you.
*God uses human relationships to help us understand Heavenly relationships, but the reverse is also true. For example, we husbands are commanded to love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. In these verses, the Bride of Christ in Ephesus has grown cold in their love for Jesus. And the Lord is speaking to all Christians here, but if we will listen and apply these truths to our marriages, we will also have happier homes.
2. So receive God’s guidance. Then remember where you were. (1)
*The Lord tells us this in vs. 4&5, when He says, “You have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen.”
*“You have left your first love,” Jesus said. The word picture here is a definite and sad departure. It can mean sending someone away, like a husband divorcing his wife and sending her away.
*We do tend to leave our first love -- Both in our relationship with Christ and our relationship with our mate. The fire grows cold, and problems do arise. But I like what Kent Crockett once said about problems in marriage:
“Let’s suppose that everyone on this planet is an absolutely identical clone of you. You all have the same preferences and opinions. Everyone thinks the same. Each individual sees from your viewpoint.
Now imagine—hypothetically, of course—that you are married to you. Would you have a perfect marriage? Would you ever argue with yourself? What if you both wanted the last piece of chicken? Suppose neither of you wanted to take out the trash. What if you were both in bad moods?
Yes, you would still have arguments with yourself if you were married to you. You would find out how difficult it can be to live with yourself. You might even ask yourself for a divorce!” (2)
*Of course we will have problems and disagreements over the life of our marriage. But the Lord says remember your first love. Keep on remembering how good it was at first.
*I think of Adam. Do you think Adam was happy the first time he saw Eve? Yeah! Remember Adam’s situation in Genesis 2. He had a great home -- Not like the Garden of Eden -- It was the Garden of Eden!
*Adam had a great job: Taking care of the Garden and all of the animals. His health was good; no bills to pay! He had a great relationship with God. Adam walked with the Lord in the cool of the day. It seems like everything is great, but in Genesis 2 the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. (Gen 2:18, 21&22)
*So do you think Adam was happy the first time he saw Eve? Of course he was! And he said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Gen 2:23)
*In other words: “Eve, I am much more with you than I could ever be without you. You complete me.” In the original language of the Bible, Adam is expressing a tremendous excitement, a joyous astonishment at being married to this woman. His statement would read more like this, “I have finally found the one who can complete me, who takes away my loneliness, who will be dear to me as my own flesh. She is so beautiful! She is perfectly suited to me. She is all I will ever need.” (3)
*Oh yes Adam and Eve went through some terrible troubles -- But they could look back and remember the good, and that’s what the Lord wants us to do.
*I remember Thanksgiving of 1974, standing in the bathroom at a friend’s house in Memphis. And as I looked into the mirror, it was as if I was looking down two roads into my future. One of those roads was my life with Mary, and the other was my life without Mary. Right then I knew that I did not want to go down that road alone.
*I remember sitting in a McDonald’s one month later on the north side of Atlanta, waiting for Mary’s plane to come in. And right there I decided to ask her to marry me. That’s the best thing that ever happened to me at McDonald’s!
*Listen, you may have had a big fight on the way to church this morning -- But there are good things to remember!
3. So the Lord says, “Remember where you were.” Then in vs. 5, repent of your wrongdoing.
*Listen to His words again: ". . . repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent."
*Repent. The Lord here is making an urgent appeal for instant change in our attitude and actions. And there are areas where all of us need to repent, but let me focus on 2 things today:
*The first is to turn toward forgiveness. Since we all need to repent, we all need to be forgiven. And we all need to forgive. If you know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, then you are forgiven by God. And He wants us to know the freedom and healing power of forgiveness. Use the power of forgiveness to heal your marriage.
*Turn toward forgiveness, and turn toward purity. The Lord reminds us how important this is in vs. 6, where He said, “But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”
*Does that have anything to do with moral purity? Yes it does, because the Nicolaitans were a group of counterfeit Christians: Heretics who tried to turn Christian liberty into license. William Barclay tells us that the Nicolaitans were "shameless in uncleanness." Clement of Alexandria says they “abandon themselves to pleasure like goats, leading a life of self-indulgence . . .” They seduced people into eating meat offered to idols and into immorality. (4)
*Their attitude on sin was, “Hey, Jesus already took the punishment for our sins -- So if it feels good, do it!” But Jesus says here, “I hate that kind of living.”
*God wants His people to live pure and holy lives. Can you imagine Jesus being unfaithful to His church? No, and He certainly wants us to be faithful to each other. Unfaithfulness is almost a Humpty Dumpty situation -- Almost. But the Lord tells us to repent, and God can put the pieces back together again, if we will let Him. We all need to make a strong commitment to moral purity.
*Greg Asimakoupoulos is a pastor in California, and he says that weddings in their church always include the lighting of a unity candle. At one rehearsal Greg was explaining the symbolism of the candle ceremony, and told the wedding party, “After the middle candle is lit, blowing out the two side candles means the two become one.” Then one of the guests said in surprise, “Oh, I thought it meant no more flames!” (5)
*In a way, that’s right -- Because God wants His people to live pure and holy lives.
4. The Lord says, repent of your wrongdoing, and then repeat your first acts of love.
*In vs. 5, Jesus said, “Do the first works.” Here the Lord is looking for love in action, and the idea is to start right away! But how do we show our love?
*Gary Chapman is famous for teaching the 5 love languages:
1-Words of affirmation
2-Quality Time
3-Receiving gifts
4-Acts of Service
5-Physical Touch
*There is a lot to learn about these 5 love languages, but one thing all of them have in common is giving. Our God is a giver and He wants us to be givers too. He wants us to find all kinds of ways to give love.
*Take our words for example. Does giving the right words matter? Cliff Notarius and Howard Markman once studied newlyweds over the first decade of marriage. And they found a small but key difference at the start of the relationships. Among couples who would ultimately stay together, only 5 out of every 100 comments about each other were putdowns. But among couples who would later split up, 10 of every 100 comments were insults. That doesn’t seem like a big difference at the beginning, 5 out of a hundred compared to 10 out of a hundred. But that gap multiplied over the 10 years, until the couples headed downhill were flinging 5 times as many cutting comments.
*And Notarius said, “Hostile putdowns act as cancerous cells that, if unchecked, erode the relationship over time. In the end, relentless unremitting negativity takes control and the couple can’t get through a week without major blowups. (6)
*Find something nice to say about each other! It’s not that hard. And when you are tempted to say something ugly -- Zip it up! Just keep your mouth shut long enough to ask God to give you the right thing to say, and He will.
*Learn to give all kinds of love, but nothing is more important than giving your commitment. Larry Cunningham lives in Billings, Montana, and he told about the time they were visiting friends. The phone rang and it was a call from their recently married daughter. After several tense minutes on the phone, the mother told the father to pick up the extension. The newlyweds had had their first big fight.
*Larry said that in a few moments, the father rejoined them and explained, “Said she wanted to come home.”
-“What did you tell her?” Larry asked.
-And the daddy answered, “I told her she was home.” (7)
*That was a dad who understood commitment. Jesus wants us to make a commitment to each other, and keep the commitment. And Christ speaks with the ultimate authority, because no one is more committed than Jesus Christ. No one is more committed to you than Jesus Christ.
*Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it -- For you. Jesus Christ gave His life on the Cross for you, so we can commit our future to Him. We can give because He gave! We can make a commitment to each other, and keep the commitment. We can and we should do the first works.
5. God wants to help you have a happy family, so repeat your first acts of love. And rejoice in your relationship.
*The Lord gives a very stern warning in vs. 5, “Repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.”
*The Lord gives a very strong warning here. Is it possible for a church to die? It happens all the time. Is it possible for a marriage to die? It happens even more. But the Lord gives this warning because He wants our church and our marriages to be fully alive.
*In vs. 7, Jesus said, “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”
*God wants our churches and our marriages to be alive and overflowing with joy. So the Old Testament tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength; the New Testament tells us to “rejoice in the Lord always.” Then in Proverbs 5 in words too vivid for me to read here, God tells us to rejoice in the wife of our youth.
*Jeffrey Harper was at a wedding when he reminded us how important marriages are. On that day, Jeffrey told the couple, “Today has become a holiday, which will be celebrated every year for the rest of your life. This will probably be the only time you have the power to declare a certain day a holiday which will be observed by others. It will be celebrated wherever you are as waiters sing, ‘Happy Anniversary,’ or your children throw surprise parties for you. (8)
*God wants you to rejoice in your relationship!
*And let me take it back to the beginning here, because these words were not primarily written to help your relationship with your spouse. They were written to help us Christians have a better relationship with the Lord. So all of us should be doing all of the things we have talked about this morning:
-Receive God’s guidance.
-Remember where you were.
-Repent of your wrongdoing.
-Repeat your first acts of love.
-Rejoice in your relationship.
*All of these things will help your relationship with Jesus Christ, and they will help your marriage too, because the best thing you can do for your marriage is to have a closer relationship with Christ.
*And if you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, it doesn’t matter if you have the best marriage in the world. Without Jesus, you are on the way to losing every good thing you have. But Jesus loves you. He died for you and rose again. He will forgive your sins and give you eternal life. Trust in Jesus as your Savior and Lord today.
1. The basic idea and 3 of the 5 points in this message were inspired by SermonCentral sermon “Restoring the Romance” by Gene Gregory - Rev 2:1-5
2. Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint, Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004, 7-8
3. Adapted from SermonCentral sermon “Three Essentials for a Happy Marriage” by Aaron Burgess - Eph 5:1-2
4. Adapted from the Barclay Study Bible - EPHESUS - A RUINOUS HERESY - Rev.2:1-7 (continued)
5. Greg Asimakoupoulos, Concord, California. "Rolling Down the Aisle," Christian Reader. (Found on Bible Illustrator for windows - Topic: Unity / Index: 3724-3727 - Date: 12/1997.2217 / Title: Humor: Extinguishing Old Flames)
6. Dr. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family Bulletin, May, 1994. (Original source: U.S. News & World Report, February 21, 1994, p. 67.) (Found at sermonillustrations.com - Topic: Marriage)
7. Larry Cunningham (Billings, Montana), Reader’s Digest. (Found at sermonillustrations.com - Topic: Marriage)
8. SermonCentral sermon “A Wedding Ceremony” by Jeffrey Harper - Isaiah 43:1-4
