A Life In One Direction - Genesis 2:24 - April 29, 2012
Series: After The Honeymoon - #3
This morning we are continuing our series on marriage, entitled, “After the Honeymoon.” You’ll remember that last week we began to look at Genesis 2:24 where we read these words: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” And what we learned first of all is that marriage is a response to God. Scripture says, “For this reason,” - that’s a response to God - marriage is a response to God’s goodness in bringing a man and a woman together. So marriage is both a gift from God, and is itself, God ordained. It’s His plan for joining the lives of two people together.
And then when we began to unpack that verse further, we started to see that not only is marriage God’s intention for uniting two people together, but that God also has a basic, three step plan, that’s meant to help your marriage get started on the right foundation and become everything that He has desired and planned for marriage to be. And if we don’t get these steps right, our marriages are going to fall short of what they could be, and of what we ourselves, would really desire for them to be.
First there is to be a leaving. This is a forsaking of the loyalties that bind us to our parents but not a forsaking of our parents themselves. God’s desire is not that we turn our backs on mom and dad when we get married, but rather that our allegiance shifts from the family we grew up in, to the family that we are now building with our spouse. And a number of you came up to me after last week’s message and shared how that has been, or in many cases still is, an issue in your own household. And if that’s the case I just want to encourage you to work those things through with one another because it is affecting your marriage and your marriage will never be all that it can be until that leaving properly happens.
Understand this: when that leaving doesn’t take place, as God intends for it to, you are hurting your spouse and sabotaging the life that you are trying to build together. In the book of Ephesians we read that husbands are to love their wives “just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:27) A few verses later we read that not only must a man love his wife in this way but that a wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5:33) Yet when that leaving doesn’t take place, a husband isn’t loving his wife, as Christ loved the church. He’s not laying his life down for her. He’s holding something back and not unreservedly giving himself for his wife. And it’s not just the men but it’s you women as well. If you don’t properly leave mom and dad then you are not respecting your husband as Scripture says you ought to be. This brings tension, hurt and pain and division into our marriages. God’s plan is something better.
His plan is that you leave your parents so that you might cleave to one another. That’s the same word used of our response to God when we read in Deuteronomy 30:20 that we are to “hold fast to Him; for this is your life.” I remember back in the 80’s there was a t.v. commercial for Crazy Glue which showed a construction worker, Crazy gluing his hardhat to the underside of a iron girder, and then holding himself up off the ground by holding on to that same hardhat. The idea being that the bonds formed by the glue will hold fast through anything. That’s a picture of what God intends us to understand that that marriage bond is supposed to be like. We are to hold fast to one another so that nothing can come between us. And just like with Crazy Glue, if you allow anything to contaminate the bond between the two items you are trying to join together, the glue won’t hold as it should. The bond will be prone to failure. Marriage is very similar. If husband, or wife, is holding on to a greater loyalty, a greater bond, to parents, children, friendships, or work, than they are to their spouse, that relationship will be more susceptible to marital breakdown and unhappiness as well.
So there needs to be a leaving, and there needs to be a cleaving, in order that there might be a weaving of those two lives together. Because the truth is, when you get married, you typically get married to someone who is very different from yourself. Yes, you might have similar interests, or hobbies, or tastes in music, you might enjoy similar leisure activities, you will hopefully have a similar understanding of God’s plans, purposes, and desires for your life, but at heart you are still two very different people. Which is good, because if you saw everything the same, if you shared the same strengths and weaknesses, one of you probably isn’t necessary to that marriage!
Keep in mind that one of God’s intentions in marriage is that your character would be being transformed into the image of Jesus. Marriage can be this tremendous proving ground where the fruits of the Spirit – and what are they? … - “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” are being developed in our lives. That often takes place in the crucible of relationship when we are stretched and pushed and pulled out of our comfort zones. And when two people, from different backgrounds and life experiences are brought together in this intimate marriage relationship, there are bound to be those rough edges that need to be smoothed out, and in the process your character is being reshaped as you seek God side by side. Your goal as you travel through life as a couple is to weave your two lives together, to become in many senses, one life lived together and headed the same direction in pursuit of the same dreams, the same passions, the same purposes. As you do life in this way the two become one as physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually your lives are woven together.
This isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do because life threatens to pull us in all sorts of different directions. Every one of us knows the stress that comes into our lives when we feel we are being pulled in two different directions at once, when there aren’t enough hours in the day to get done what we feel we need to do. And it affects our relationships, doesn’t it?
I came across a study recently that said that after eight years of marriage, couples don’t have anything to say to each other anymore. Most couples, in the time leading up to and the first year or so after marriage, can’t find enough time to share with each other all the things they want to talk about. At two years of marriage they were still sharing together for 20-25 minutes a day. By year six that time had dwindled to about 10 minutes. And two years later, in year eight, they didn’t really have anything to say to each other anymore. Somewhere along the line they had been pulled in different directions, their time, energy, and desire had been drained away by other things and they didn’t have anything left for each other. They were just doing life in the same vicinity as each other but they weren’t living life together and their lives certainly weren’t woven together.
And that slipping away from one another happens so subtly. It came home to me when our kids were quite a bit younger and someone was watching them so Heather and I could get out for some time with each other. I remember sitting in a restaurant, across the table from one another, staring into each other’s eyes, not with romance and desire, but because we didn’t seem to have anything to share with each other anymore. Have you ever been in that place? Every time we opened our mouths to speak, we talked about the kids. But we were struggling to connect with each other. Why? Because we hadn’t been doing it all along. We had allowed ourselves to get caught up with the things of life and had forgotten to put each other first. God’s desire is not just that we take this journey in life generally headed in the same direction, but that our lives would be intricately woven together, one with another.
To help us understand what that might look like we have another couple who has agreed to share with us a little bit this morning about their own journey so far – about what’s worked for them, what hasn’t worked, what they feel they’ve done well, what they might do differently if they could go back and do it all again. At this time I’ll ask Ken and Marg to join me up here, please.
Ken and Marg, I think you’re fairly well known by many of the folks here this morning, but why don’t you just take a moment and tell us how you met, and how many years you’ve been married for now?
As you consider what we learn from God’s word about the two becoming one and our lives being woven together, what have you found challenging in doing that in your own lives? Have there been certain times in your marriage when that was more difficult than other times?
What helped you through those times? What kept you connected or drew you back together?
What things have you found that have really helped you in weaving your lives together?
Knowing what you know now, is there anything that you might have done differently in those early years?
What advice would you give to those just starting out on this journey themselves?
Thank you for sharing! Let me pray for you and then you can go back down to your seats. [Pray…]
Some kids were interviewed awhile back and asked questions about dating and marriage. One little guy, aged 9, was asked “What would you do on a first date that was turning sour?” And he responded by saying, “I’d run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns.” (www.sermoncentral, Illustrations) That might be an option, although not a good one, when you are dating, but it is definitely not an option when you’re married. God’s desire is that your lives would be woven together.
Earlier in the service ______________ read for us a passage from the book of Ruth. I want to read just a verse or two of that for us to hear again this morning. Ruth replied to Naomi, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” (Ruth 1:16-18)
I like those verses because they speak powerfully of the level of commitment one person can have to another, of how two lives can be tied together. How much more so ought this to be the case in our marriages. Two people moving the same direction in life, seeking God together, joining their lives one to the other so that they become one in purpose, passion and vision for their marriage and their future.
But maybe you’re here this morning and your realize that that’s not where your marriage is at and you’re wondering how to get there, or maybe this has been a big struggle in your home and you can see how the two of you are no longer one but you’re each headed your own direction and living life in the vicinity of one another but not together, and you’re wondering where do I go from here?
I’m going to suggest to you that it starts with time – time spent building into three aspects of your life. These areas are not mutually exclusive, they build on, and to some degree, are connected to one another.
Husband and wives need to set aside time on a regular basis so that they can bond emotionally. This is time for just the two of you. Time to laugh together, to get to know one another, to hear each other’s hearts, to share in each other’s interests and passions, to discover new passions together. Deuteronomy 24:5 says this: “If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.” (Deuteronomy 24:5, NIV) Not to stay at home and lounge around, but stay at home and bring happiness to his wife! To build into their marriage! What a tremendous gift that would be to one another if we were to be as diligent in our time for one another as that!
Over the years I’ve had two or three women, whose husbands had retired, mention to me that they their newly retired husband was going to drive them crazy because he was home all the time. I’ve had others tell me how wonderful it is to finally have their husbands home again and all to themselves after they’d retired. What’s the difference? I would suspect that in the instance where the wives were delighted to have their husbands home, that they had been building into that marriage, and making time for each other all along. Retirement was a time for them to bask in the presence of their best friend and find the time for those things that they had enjoyed sharing all along.
In the first instances the couples had perhaps not done that quite as well and had long before started living two separate lives so that when they were finally thrown together again they no longer had much in common. They were essentially strangers living separate lives under the same roof. Folks, don’t let that be you! Build time for each other into each week if you can. Make it happen! Here’s a question for you men to consider: What would it mean to your wife, to your marriage, if you built meaningful moments with her into the course of each week? How might that strengthen, and enrich, and ultimately make your marriage closer?
So make time for each other to bond emotionally. But be sure to make time together to bond physically as well. Some people find this difficult to talk about but we ought not to struggle with it. God created us a physical beings. Part of that is our sexuality. And physical intimacy is very much an important part of the marriage relationship and the marriage bond. And all the guys, I can see it in their faces, are thinking, “Preach it brother!” But guys I say, “physical intimacy,” rather than just, “sexual intimacy,” because men and women tend to have different needs, different perspectives in this area. A wife often feels close to her husband when they are holding hands, or have their arms around one another, when there is that physical closeness of just being with one another. Husbands, your wife wants you to hold her, to cuddle with her, to walk hand in hand with her. Wives, does that make you feel close to your husband when you do those things? Do you enjoy and appreciate those times?
Ladies, you need to understand something though. Those things don’t affect your husband in the same way. Not that he might not enjoy those things, but they tend not to have the same effect on us as they do on you. A woman tends to need to feel close to her husband before she wants to have sex, but know this, your husband wants to have sex with you in order to feel close to you. We start in different places and if we’re going to enjoy that physical intimacy and weaving together in all its richness, we need to understand what needs our spouse has and how we can best meet those needs.
In the book of 1 Corinthians we read these words: “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (1 Corinthians 7:3–5, NIV) We’re going to talk more about that passage in another message in this series but for now let me just emphasize that the physical intimacy that can be shared between husband and wife can be very important for the closeness that that couple experiences.
So as husbands and wives we need to work at weaving our lives together emotionally and physically, but perhaps most importantly, we also need to weave them together spiritually. As couples we ought to be praying and worshipping and serving the Lord together. Marriage is for God’s glory and if we aren’t seeking the Lord together in our marriages we are missing the crucial element in our relationship, the third chord that binds a couple together. God has brought you together, you’ve been joined together in His sight, so seek Him together in prayer and in His word. This is a chance to hear each other’s hearts, to pray for one another in the things you are facing together in life, and to seek God’s direction together, to read His word and grow together in the Lord. Many couples never, ever pray together and that really is unfortunate because they are truly missing out. I can’t share from Heather’s perspective but I know that I have been richly blessed and encouraged at times as she has prayed with me and for me during the last 15 years. Build your marriage upon God. Let Him be the tie that binds you closely together. If these aren’t things you are currently building into in your marriage I invite you to put them to the test. Start praying together regularly, and reading the Bible and talking about what you are learning and how it touches your lives and see if doing so doesn’t begin to weave your lives together in a new and deeper way!
These emotional, physical, and spiritual bonds that you can share in marriage are bonds that you aren’t going to be sharing with anyone else in the same way. Your relationship with your spouse is to be the first priority of any human relationships you might have, and it is mutually exclusive which means it is just shared between the two of you. The two really do become one. Ephesians 5 makes it clear that in this sense the picture of marriage becomes a useful tool to help us understand the mystery of the relationship between Jesus and the church. Both relationships are mutually exclusive for we are to have no idols in our lives that God come before God. He demands our everything: we’re told to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our strength, and with all of our minds!
And Jesus has showed us how. Beginning in verse 25 we read these words … “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25–27, NIV)
That’s what we remember as we share in the Lord’s Supper this morning. We are remembering the love of Jesus for His bride, which is the church – you are the bride of Christ, for He loved us and gave Himself up for us in order to make us holy, cleansing us of sin and shame and darkness, in order that we might be a radiant bride, without stain, wrinkle or blemish, but holy and blameless in the sight of God. And as the bride we submit ourselves to Him, knowing that He desires the very best for us, good things, things of blessing and healing and hope and restoration first, in our relationship with God, but then also in our marriages, our families, our friendships, and our churches. Let this table today be to you a tangible reminder of God’s love for you that He sent His son Jesus, to die on the cross as penalty for our sin, that we might be forgiven and enter into the grace God has prepared for us.
I’ll ask the servers to come and join me at this time. And then I’ll ask you to join me in prayer as we bow our heads.
[Pray and give thanks for body and blood and for what it all means.]
Distribute Bread and Cup. [Give instructions so guests know what to do.]
Let us eat and drink together remembering both the love and the gift of God that have been shown to us in Jesus our Lord.
Song.
Closing prayer.
