Knots
Pt. 2 - Knot Work
We talked about how our relationship status is the number 1 way of categorizing people in our society. We are either a "have knot" or "have no knot". Relationships are one of the most important and most impacting aspects of our lives. I have witnessed relationships bring the best and the worst out in people. I have witnessed relationships producing the greatest blessing and watched as people blossomed due to relationships. I have also seen relationships produce more pain than drugs, bankruptcy or sickness combined. In order for us to survive relationships we must learn to navigate knots. So last week we talked very directly to those with no knots. I told you that it is essential to get God involved early in the selection process. Otherwise you will then have to ask Him to perfect what He didn't select. I told you that you that if you want to have a garden experience, then you can't bring someone into your garden from the swamp. Good seed doesn't turn bad soil into good soil. Soil usually influences seed not vice versa. And finally I told you that you need to know who you are and you shouldn't mess with anyone who doesn't know who they are. They will suck the purpose out of you if they don't know who they are!
So let's go one step further today and tie into those with knots.
Let me stop for a second and let you in on a secret . . . the enemy WANTS your marriage . . . he’s convinced the single people that marriage will solve all their problems and convinced the married people that divorce will solve all their problems! He keys on knots because it is about covering. It is about scattering. He knows that knots are the number one thing he can leverage to destroy us. He can use a knot to distract and a weak knot to devastate. He knows that if he can destroy the home he can destroy the seed!
So, if we can recognize his method of attack, then we should be extremely aware that just as much as God is involved in putting us together the enemy is involved in trying to separate us! Oh, some of you missed that . . . God was involved in putting you together! I know your best friend, great aunt, sister played match maker and set you up but God was involved! Behind the scenes, with brush in hand God was painting you into a relationship! You thought you chose your mate but according to Matthew God was involved.
Matthew 19:6 Because God created this organic union of the two sexes, no one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart.
They are no longer two, but one. So a man must not separate what God has joined together."
So God was involved even if you didn't know it! We think that we orchestrated and planned the marriage. So since we are responsible we can let the work go to waste. However, what God has put together. You didn't do the work! You are enjoying the work of his hands.
So let me take you to a passage of Scripture that I believe shows us some positive things about preknot but also speaks to what we must do to keep our knot tied!
Genesis 29:14-30
Laban said, “You’re family! My flesh and blood! ”When Jacob had been with him for a month, Laban said, “Just because you’re my nephew, you shouldn’t work for me for nothing. Tell me what you want to be paid. What’s a fair wage?” Now Laban had two daughters; Leah was the older and Rachel the younger. Leah had nice eyes, but Rachel was stunningly beautiful. And it was Rachel that Jacob loved. So Jacob answered, “I will work for you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” “It is far better,” said Laban, “that I give her to you than marry her to some outsider. Yes. Stay here with me.” So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel. But it only seemed like a few days, he loved her so much. Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife; I’ve completed what we agreed I’d do. I’m ready to consummate my marriage.” Laban invited everyone around and threw a big feast. At evening, though, he got his daughter Leah and brought her to the marriage bed, and Jacob slept with her. Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maid. Morning came: There was Leah in the marriage bed! Jacob confronted Laban, “What have you done to me? Didn’t I work all this time for the hand of Rachel? Why did you cheat me?” “We don’t do it that way in our country,” said Laban. “We don’t marry off the younger daughter before the older. Enjoy your week of honeymoon, and then we’ll give you the other one also. But it will cost you another seven years of work.” Jacob agreed. When he’d completed the honeymoon week, Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maid. Jacob then slept with her. And he loved Rachel more than Leah. He worked for Laban another seven years.
This is perhaps the most "LifeTime TV" ready love story in the Bible. Jacob was so in love with Rachel that he was willing to commit 7 years of his life to hard labor for her hand in marriage. Then he discovers after the honeymoon night that he has been tricked (which speaks to the truth that just because something feels good doesn't mean it is right! You can't always trust your feelings.)! But he is so in love with Rachel that he goes back to work for 7 more years! This is so foreign to us in today's society that we can't even fathom this type of love or commitment.
So I would like to share with you, based on this account, the number one, key ingredient to keeping your knot tied. It is a four letter word.
Probably love right? All we need is more love and we could make it! Perhaps lust? I mean Rachel must have been fine! One version said she had a nice figure. If things were hotter in the bedroom, then we wouldn't be on the verge of divorce. Nope those things are good but love is a choice (not a feeling) and there will be days you will choose not to love each other very much. Lust is great. Everybody enjoys the feelings, the goose bumps, and the excitement. But that won't keep you. Your interest will wane at different seasons. No, the four letter word that is absolutely essential to keeping your knot tied is WORK! Jacob's life reveals that there is work involved in winning but what we must also learn that . . .
1. What wins . . . keeps.
We must also learn that what you work to win you must work to keep. We could point to the Children of Israel to learn this too. If you win the Promised Land but can't keep it what is gained? If marriage is the Promised Land we all long for, but then you can't stay married or you wake up and hate the person you are sharing a bed with then what has been gained?
We seem to know this about everything except marriage! We know you can't lose weight by giving up donuts and then after losing weight go back to eating donuts and hope to keep the weight off. You can't build a savings account by cutting spending and then keep your savings by going back to spending more than you make. What we do to win we must do to keep!
The reason we can't keep is because we don't like work! We read that husbands should honor but that requires work. We read that wives should submit but that takes work. It is easier to be lazy and do what feels good to me. It is easier to demand my own way and to refuse to compromise. It is easier to stay mad and to harbor bitterness than to do the hard work of forgiving. It is easier to fight than to do the hard work of getting along and finding a way to navigate the challenges.
Our generation is selfish. We have become so self consumed that it is has made living together, united much harder. Hear me . . . Looking out for #1 will only lead you to being alone. Sometimes it seems we work harder to untie than we do to stay knotted.
My question is what did you do to win? Are you still doing any of that to keep? I have taught you a spiritual principle that has natural truth too! It is easier to obtain than maintain. Guys we were Prince Charming while dating! I mean we were balloons, roses, love notes, cuddles and long "goo goo eye conversations" to win but now we can't offer up any more than grunt and a scratch! Some of you ladies were a princess before knot. You wouldn't let him see you unless you were dressed to the nines, every hair was in the right place and everything that could have makeup on it did. But now that you won all he sees is wrinkled . . . clothes, bathrobes, half way put together. Listen, I realize life is more hectic now. I realize schedules are tighter. I understand that kids get in the way. I understand that careers crash the party. But if we don't keep working we don't keep! You think you don't have time or energy to work at this now? You wait until it goes bad and see if it takes more energy and time to undo or redo. It would have been easier and less painful to do the work before the knot started coming untied! Preempt the loosening.
Some of you are mad right now because you thought you were going to get the magic formula. Some secret potion. Some recipe. Some trick. You the thought the pastors surely had some unknown method of making marriage work. The truth is we have figured it out. It is called getting up and working at this thing every day!
You are sitting on the sidelines waiting on a miracle but you won't do the work! You won't take them out to eat. You won't fix your hair. You won't sit and talk . . . you would rather yell. You won't quit spending. You won't lay down your attitude, your own wants, own rights, own way, you won't shut your mouth or keep your opinions to yourselves.
What wins keeps. Do work! Perfect marriages don’t just happen they are paid for/purchased with work.
Then this question is always asked or used as an excuse to quit working. How long do I have to work at this? I have been trying for like 3 weeks and I don't see any results! Let me help you . . .
2. Work for the prescribed time frame!
What do you mean? What is the prescribed time frame? Till death do us part! Too many of us expect to work everything out in one day when the prescribed time frame is until death.
Jacob was willing to work as long as it took and we want to throw in the towel after one week of biting our tongue. Well I tried. We want to untie a knot because we had two bad months in a row. We want to give up because we haven't been intimate in 22 days. Come on. This is the work of a life time. This is an all day, every day, and no days off endeavor.
We want quick fix but a good marriage is a long walk in the same direction. Turn a sprint into a lifelong journey. This is not about having a good month! This is about having a good marriage! If you blew it in 2013 get it right in 2014! Live past your pains. Live past your issues. Live past your fights.
3. Do Work Early
Too many wait and try to work when it is too late. Get help early and often. If you don’t work early then the molehills will become mountains and there are very few mountain climbers or mountain movers left. What we seem to have now is mountain viewers who like to look at mountains and then leave. Why is that we only make moves once everything is such shambles that there is no hope left? We make preemptive strikes to protect ourselves but if we would learn to take preemptive strikes to protect us we would be better off. Adjust now. Fix now. Talk now. Counsel now. Forgive now.
Final thoughts:
If you are scared of or don't like hard work you should avoid tying a knot.
Relationships/Marriage is work . . . period. It is the relationship that requires the most and gives the biggest return on investment. If you are not willing to do whatever it takes (compromise, counseling, time, and energy) to make it work then do not get married! There is no miracle that will dismiss you from further work! Just because Lazarus was raised from the dead didn't mean he never had to go to work, eat, and exercise. The miracle only positions you and makes you even more responsible to continue the hard work of maintaining what you have obtained! The miracle of creation only led to God demanding and expecting man to maintain it!
If you have already tied the knot then I would say to you that you must do everything, exhaust every effort, and pay any price to make the most of God's work!
Recommit to hard work this morning! Hard work hurts. Hard work isn't always fun work. But hard work always pays off!
