Why Marriage?
Genesis 2:22-24
Mike Bowie tells the story of his 6 year old daughter asking the question while they were driving in the car. “Dad, are Anjolina Joli and Brad Pitt married?” Why do you ask? “Don’t they have a kid and they’re getting ready to adopt another one?” Yes. “Aren’t you supposed to have kids after you’re married?” Yes. And then he added, Why are you going to buy the cow when you’re already getting the milk? “What does milk have to do with that?” Well, the world just has a different way of doing things but that’s the not the way we do it in our house. It’s college, career, marriage and then family. He repeated it several times and then asked her to repeat it too. She then said, “College, career, marriage and milk.” And then Mike says, Lauren asked the question that many people have asked, Why marriage? Society is a lot like Lauren. There are a lot of misconceptions and misinterpretations of relationships and marriage.
Recent studies have found that….
· More than half of all couples now live together before getting married compared to just 10% three decades ago and the divorce rate is exceeding 50%
· Since 1960 there has been an 850 % increase in the number of cohabiting couples who live with children, and an estimated 40% of all children are expected to spend some time in a cohabiting household during their adolescent and teenage years
· The Census Bureau projects that within 3 years families with children will comprise only 28% of all American households
· 31% of kids under 18 live either with single parents or no parents at all, more than double the 12 % in ‘60.
· More than a third of children are born outside of marriage
People get married for all kinds of reasons. Some people get married for romantic reasons. Others get married for passionate, sexual reasons. Some people get married because that other person provides them with the security they need in their life. Some people get married out of necessity. But the fact of the matter is that marriage has been created for something far greater. Why marriage? Today, we’re going to look at three answers to that question and hopefully come to a deeper understanding of and commitment to marriage as God’s plan.
First, marriage reflects heaven. Gene Gregory writes, “Some years ago Gladys and I bought a computer that was a display model. We used it for a number of years. As a matter of fact, we just finished having it rebuilt so the church can use it while the church’s computer is being repaired. Now, that computer served us well and I was able to do a number of things with it, but it never did all it was supposed to do, because when we bought it, it came without some of the software and without the manual. I didn’t have the manual and no one ever taught me how to do much with it. The same is true of marriage and of your home. It may be OK, it may be good enough to get by. Your children might not be arrested and you might even stay married to the same person until you die, but it will never be all it could have been if God is not the center of it.” Marriage is more than a contract between two consenting adults. It is a covenant between three persons: man, women and God. This is the relationship where God is most fully known in the presence of both man and woman. Marriage is more than walking down an isle, cutting the cake, having a great reception and then enjoying the honeymoon for the rest of your life. It is a mystical union that reflects heaven. Gen 2:34 “Therefore man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife and they become one flesh.”
Marriage is the only union where man and woman are intimately joined together where God forms a living covenant reflecting the relationship that God wants to have with us. Nothing brings God greater joy than a relationship here on earth which is what God has designed in heaven. Marriage is meant to reflect a picture of heaven. Gen 1:27 “God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” When God created them in his likeness and his image, they literally became reflection from heaven.
Most marriages don’t reflect heaven because they fail to realize the time for this image to develop. Image: developing film in a darkroom. Marriage is like developing film in a camera. To develop film it most go through a process. Film goes from a negative, then to a dark room and through several chemical processes until it finally become a photograph. Most marriages never make it to the final printed picture because they get stuck in the negative stage. Just a few months after the honeymoon, you begin to realize that it is no longer a romantic dream but now is a realistic nightmare. You know the old saying, A honeymoon is a Short Pause - between - I Do and You Better. It was once all love and kisses and now the underwear in on the floor, the house is a mess, the clean clothes haven’t been put away, the toilet seat is up, the wax and strips for waxing the legs sits on the counters for days, there’s long hair clogging your sink and most of the time she has a headache. Most people quit marriage in the negative stage and they never get to experience the transformation, utter joy and intimate connection which you could never have imagined in your wildest dreams.
The problem is to get the image of God developed in your marriage you have to first go through the dark room. The dark room is where your marriage goes through a strenuous process to be fully developed and transformed into the character and image of Christ. The dark room was when you were diagnosed with cancer. The darkroom is when you had to file for bankruptcy. The darkroom is when you realized your spouse was having an affair. The darkroom is when you had a problem with an addiction which needed to be dealt with. The darkroom is when you pinned all your hopes and dreams on that baby to be only to miscarriage. The darkroom is when you’re fighting so much and trying to deal with all the hurt feelings and disappointments in your marriage that you realize you have to decide if you’re going to stick it out or walk away. What’s your darkroom? The good news is that in the darkrooms of life where we experience so much pain and hurt, if you work through it, you can be drawn closer to your spouse and God uses that experience to develop in you and your marriage a personal picture that reflects heaven.
Image Do you remember the story about Tony Toto, of Allentown, PA.? He operated a pizza parlor there. Tony Toto survived at least 5 attempts on his life, all arranged for or carried out by his wife, Frances, and her lover. Twice she arranged for assailants to beat him over the head with baseball bats. On one occasion she put a tripwire across the basement stairs in their house, hoping that he would trip over it and plummet to his death. Twice she arranged for him to be shot. The first time she drugged his chicken soup so he would sleep soundly, and he was shot in the head, but miraculously survived. The 2nd time he was shot in the chest, but only sustained minor injuries. Even more miraculous than Tony’s survival was his attitude toward his wife once he found out she was responsible for all of this. Tony, a self-confessed lady’s man himself, said that he held his wife blameless. When she was found guilty and sent to prison for arranging for his murder, he took their 4 children and visited her every week. Then when she was released from prison, she went back to their red brick home to resume her married life with Tony. With his arm around her, Tony said in an interview, "We’re more in love now than ever before. I don’t understand why people break up over silly little things.”
Do you remember your darkroom? God can use your darkroom to make your marriage what he intended it to be, a reflection of heaven, or you can allow it to break your marriage. Darkrooms can be terrible and they can be painful but know that it is only in the darkrooms of life that you can meet God most fully and it is there that you are drawn closer to your spouse more than anything else you can do. It is when you stick it out, work through it and you get to the other side that then you can experience a taste of heaven and others can begin to see a little bit of heaven in you and your marriage too.
Marriage not only produces an image of heaven but second, it helps us accomplish our life purpose. In Genesis 2:21God said,” It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him…So the Lord caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs….and made a woman out of the rib.” When God created woman and man for each other, there was an unspeakable bond which connected them together.
To claim your life purpose you need two things. First you have to journey inward. All of us have a life purpose but we have to go below the surface to discover that which God has wired within us. The problem is that in our culture, that’s the place where we are most comfortable and thus where we spend the vast majority of our time. But God put deep within us a purpose and passion. Why? Because he wanted it to be a very part of our being and he wanted us to work for it. It is in the process of the inward journey that we come to know ourselves and we have to deal with our shortcomings, our anger, our biases and our failures before we can ever get to the purpose God has in store for us. When God call us to do something great, we have to go deep. God has created us with a purpose and a plan. He wants to do great things in your life. But you have to first go on an inward journey.
Second, you have the right people around you to help and support you achieving God’s purpose. It’s only when you have people around you that help you to go deeper, that help you deal with your pain and shortcomings, people who can nurture and push you to go beyond your comfort zone and that can encourage you to go beyond your own abilities, desires and energy that they can help you pull it out of you. Marriage. God desires to pair us with a partner. Marriages fail because they don’t realize it’s not about personal happiness or fulfillment but it is about helping one another fulfill their dreams and God’s purpose for you. God designed marriage so a husband and wife can be a helper to one another and not a hindrance.
Charles Swindoll shares this story: “On May 24, 1965, a thirteen-and-a half-foot boat quietly slipped out of the marina at Falmouth, MA for Falmouth, England. It would be the smallest craft ever to make the voyage. Its name? Tinkerbelle. It’s pilot? Robert Manry, a copy editor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who felt ten years at the desk was enough boredom for a while, so he took a leave of absence to fulfill his secret dream to sail across the Atlantic. “Manry was afraid, not of the ocean, but of all those people who would try to talk him out of the trip. So he didn’t share it with many, just some relatives and especially his wife, Virginia.. “The trip? Anything but pleasant. He spent sleepless nights trying to cross shipping lanes without getting run down and sunk. Weeks at sea caused his food to become tasteless. Loneliness led to terrifying hallucinations. His rudder broke three times. Storms swept him overboard, and had it not been for the rope he had knotted around his waist, he would never have been able to pull himself back on board. Finally, after 78 days alone at sea, he sailed into Falmouth, England. “During those nights at the tiller, he had fantasized about what he would do once he arrived. He expected simply to check into a hotel, eat dinner alone, then the next morning see if, perhaps, the Associated Press might be interested in his story. Was he in for a surprise! “Word of his approach had spread far and wide. To his amazement, 300 vessels, with horns blasting, escorted Tinkerbelle into port where 40,000 people stood screaming and cheering him to shore and Robert Manry, copy editor turned dreamer, became an overnight hero. And then he writes, “His story has been told around the world. But Robert couldn’t have done it alone. Standing on the dock was an even greater hero: Virginia, his wife. Refusing to be rigid when Robert’s dream was taking shape, she allowed him freedom to pursue his dream and was his greatest source of support.”
I realize that I would not be where I am in my life if it were not for my wife. Giovanna is an intimate part of me pursuing God’s vision and God’s purpose for my life. She helped me and stood by me and if I didn’t have her love, support and encouragement in my life I couldn’t have accomplished what I have. She cheers me on when the road gets tough, gives me advice when I don’t know what to do and tells me when I’m headed the wrong direction. And even though I mess up, mainly when I don’t listen to her, she is there for me. She is connected to me because she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. There is nothing I can’t do when I have the support of those who love me and are around me. Everybody needs a cheerleader in their life.
Now Giovanna wouldn’t be where she is if she didn’t have such a supportive, loving, caring, sacrificing good looking husband. Oops there I go getting away from my sermon notes again. But seriously, can I tell you the biggest compliment I have ever received in my life? Giovanna once told me, “I wouldn’t be the person I am if it weren’t for you in my life.” I was utterly floored by that comment. I have never forgotten it. Now I don’t share this to toot my own horn but rather to show that everybody needs somebody. Marriage is not about you and your needs. It’s about supporting and helping your spouse pursue their dreams and God’s purpose for their life.
Here’s the great thing: God will give you the power to fulfill your life’s purpose and dreams when you help somebody else. “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD.” Proverbs 18:22 Find a good spouse and you find a good life and the lagniappe is that you get even more favor from God. Marriage does not always go according to our plans. It’s so easy for us to complain but I am reminded that God has given me a good wife. Because of her, I have unlimited purpose and possibility because the favor of God is on us. So the next time you want to complain about your spouse, think twice. God called him/her in your life not to be a hindrance but your helper. He or she is God’s blessing in your life. Since Katrina, Giovanna and I have had some dark rooms and there have been times when even the d word has come up. But through it all, we decided we were as committed to each other as we were to the plan God has in store for us and that’s a God honoring marriage.
A healthy marriage requires intentionality and hard work. Marriage doesn’t just happen, you have to make it happen. It takes work. And that means sometimes you have to bypass romance to deal with the reality. Marriage takes work. And the reality is it’s been difficult at times and it takes work. It’s like the wife who told her husband, “We’re in this thing for life. God said it’s until death do us part. And I tell you what, ain’t nothing going to happen because if something happens then to happen somebody’s going to die.”
John and Margie Cooper were married in 1941. They settled down on a farm with high hopes of becoming the nation’s largest onion growers. But 4 years later after Margie had given birth to 2 children, she fell victim to polio and spent the majority of her years completely bedridden. Gone were all the payoffs that John had expected to receive from his marriage with Margie. Gone also were all aspirations of a big farm because you just don’t compete in "big" farm industry if you have to give a big chunk of your time to a wife who has polio. When John and Margie celebrated their 50th wedding, someone who didn’t know him well asked John to explain his years of unselfish devotion to an invalid wife. John said, "How do I explain my years of devotion to Margie? Well, I promised in the beginning that I’d stay with her no matter what, and I’m a man of my word." An essential ingredient to a happy, long lasting marriage is making a promise, working through the dark rooms. supporting and being there for each other and never looking back.
Third, marriage plants seed for the future. God said we are to be fruitful and multiply. The greatest joy and the greatest fulfilling challenge is being able to have children and raise them in such a way that they know God, they follow God and they know God has a purpose for them. When you have kids, life is no longer about you. It is now about your kids and the responsibility you have to raise them as followers of Jesus Christ so they and then their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and on and on can serve out the purpose of the Lord. Children are vital for marriage because they become the link that will allow us to pass on the faith from generation to generation. Image In his latest book, Revolutionary Parenting, George Barna reveals his findings after interviewing more than 10,000 parents and their adult children who have remained passionate, committed Christians active in their local church and ministry. He saw a crisis in American parenting and wanted to discover the keys to raising what he calls spiritual champions.
- First, revolutionary parents coach their children in life. They develop a deep personal relationship with their kids, giving both quality time and quantity time. They coach their kids in the moment, set goals for them to reach and then help them reach it
- Second, revolutionary parents focus first in their life on raising a spiritual champion and that starts with their own commitment to Christ as a passionate follower of Jesus. You cannot pass on what you don’t have or understand
- Third, revolutionary parenting is raising your children in the faith and playing the primary role in that, not the church. The church is there to support but your number one job is to pass the faith on and establish their faith and morals. That also means helping them pick their friends
- Fourth, revolutionary parenting sets clear rules and expectations and enforces them, restricting what they watch on tv and setting an early curfew by 11 PM
- Fifth, revolutionary parenting means you are in charge and should be respected by your children. It means keeping your emotions in control and giving reasons for the decisions and punishments you administer. Above all they are consistent in their decisions.
- Sixth, model the faith. Pursue God and spiritual habits like reading the Bible and seeking its guidance in your decisions, being active in a community of faith, serving others and praying regularly and openly. Teach your kids these skills and help them think and you will help them make decisions independently of the world and based on their faith
They also remind us this life is not about us. Psalm 127 “Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift.” Children become an extension to their parent’s marriage. It is from you that they learn about forgiveness, love, care and what a Christian marriage looks like. When children come along you now are not only there for your spouse as a helper but now you are to mentor for your kids what a God’s honoring marriage looks like so they can not only experience but pass it on to the generations for the ages. That is why it is critical that you paint a positive picture which honors God and blesses other people. Kids don’t need to see parents that are perfect but they do need to see marriages that are centered on Christ, committed to one another and struggling against the world to stick it out and move beyond the darkroom to an image which reflects God.
That means you can’t take a day off from marriage. Everyday, your children should see a piece of heaven in your relationship. So let me ask you: do your children see a picture of heaven in your marriage or do they see a picture of hell. Only you will determine the tone and nature of your marriage so that future generations will be blessed.
Why marriage? It produces a picture of heaven. It allows people to fulfill their life purpose by having the support and encouragement they need and it lants seed for future generations. Why marriage? Because God needs us to further the kingdom of God which is in heaven and not is being built and established here on earth.
