Introduction:
A. There’s an old joke that goes like this: “Do you know what are the most difficult years of marriage?” 1. Answer: “The ones following the wedding!”
2. Once when I was looking through my card file for material on marriage, I had to laugh when I noticed that the next card in my file after “marriage” was on the subject “martyrdom.”
B. If you known me very long, or listened to my preaching for a while, then you probably know that I am an optimist and an idealist.
1. I love to paint with large, positive strokes.
2. I love to preach inspiring, optimistic messages.
3. It is my goal to aim at perfection, and challenge us all to raise our sights to the highest possible targets.
C. But when it comes to the subject of marriage, I sense that it would be a disservice to you if I begin in the realm of the ideal.
1. As we go through this series on marriage, I want us to understand the commands of God regarding marriage, and I want us to aim for an ideal, but as we begin the series, I think we need to start with reality.
2. Today, I want us to take a realistic look at the difficulty of marriage, and I hope we will come to realize that all marriages are imperfect, but are worth all the effort required to make them healthy and keep them growing.
3. Personally, I’m exceedingly thankful for my marriage with Diana.
4. Thankfully, we have never had a bad marriage, but we do have to keep working on our great marriage to make it even better.
D. In our text in Matthew 19, Jesus has been asked a question about divorce. The question is: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
1. In other words, can a man or woman dump their mate if they feel like it?
2. Jesus replied, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (19:4-6)
3. So, what was Jesus’ answer to the question: “Can a man dump his wife because he feels like it?” His answer is an emphatic “NO!”
4. Jesus takes us back to the very creation of man and woman and declares that God’s intention for marriage from the beginning is permanence.
a. What God has joined together should not be torn apart.
5. The Pharisees asked, “Why then did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” (vs 7)
6. Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (vs. 8-9)
a. So, Jesus explained that Moses gave this teaching as a concession because of the hardness of the people’s hearts, but divorce was not, and is not God’s plan and hope for humankind.
7. After hearing all of this, the disciples of Jesus made a sobering comment, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” (vs 10)
8. From their vantage point, if divorce was not a possibility, then it might be better not to marry at all
9. I want to challenge us and our culture to approach marriage with that kind of commitment and vision.
10. We must enter marriage with the commitment to make the marriage covenant work.
11. For the rest of our lesson today I would like to help us sort through some myths about marriage that encourage us to quit when we face difficulties in our marriage.
MYTH #1: PEOPLE CAN HAVE A PERFECT MARRIAGE
A. Or stated truthfully, there is no such thing as a perfect marriage.
1. Does or has your marriage had problems? Be honest! Of course it has, it goes with the territory.
2. The fact is, there is no such thing as a perfect marriage, because to have a perfect marriage you have to have two perfect people.
3. I know no one who can bear that label…not even me!
4. There are various degrees of marriage - from horrible to quite good.
5. Even the best marriage has room to grow.
B. When I meet with an engaged couple in premarital counseling, I try to get across the point that when two imperfect people marry, the result will be an imperfect marriage.
1. That’s a simple, realistic fact of life.
2. The average engaged couple has difficulty taking my comments seriously. (I know I did when I was engaged)
3. The engaged couple’s eyes are aglow with love. They are enthusiastic about the wedding.
4. They often comment, “Isn’t it amazing how much we have in common, how we enjoy the same things, how much we think alike?”
5. It’s hard for them to picture that in a few months, if they were honest, they might be saying, “Isn’t it amazing how different we are, how unalike we think, how dissimilar are our responses to life?”
6. One preacher I heard about has stopped doing premarital counseling. Instead, he requires that each couple agree to do post-marital counseling. He has discovered that couples are much more receptive to his help after they have begun to experience the challenges of marriage.
C. So, marriage ain’t easy. All marriages face many challenges. Some challenges are the same for every couple. Others are different.
1. Some face tough issues such as spousal abuse, substance abuse, mental illness, workaholism and other destructive behaviors.
2. Even if you do not confront anything as difficult as those, the healthiest couples face issues such as: differences in family backgrounds, problems with in-laws, financial difficulties, differing temperaments, irritating habits, varying approaches to raising children, and the complex area of sexual adjustment.
3. I have yet to meet a couple that has not had to confront some of these realities and come up with their own creative ways of coping with them.
4. Those marriages that look perfect, may be very good ones, but they have come to that point through a painful, perfecting process.
5. Other marriages that look perfect, may be rather miserable, and people are just hiding their pain and problems.
6. So, remember, there is no such thing as a perfect marriage.
MYTH #2: THERE IS ONE PERFECT PERSON OUT THERE FOR YOU TO MARRY
A. The myth goes like this: If you marry the right person, you will have a wonderful life together. Period! Your problems will be minimized. Yours will be a storybook love affair. These kind of marriages are peopled by handsome men and beautiful women who have darling little children. These people live in lovely homes and have substantial incomes. They are successful in their work. Harsh words are never spoken. Disagreements are few and far between. If both are Christians, God will see to it that nothing will happen to this family.
1. Have you bought into that myth?
2. If you have, then when things begin to go wrong in your marriage, and they will, then you might conclude that you have married the wrong person!
B. If you buy into this myth, then you will begin to think that maybe the perfect person for you is still out there somewhere, and you need to trade in the one you’ve got for a better model.
1. The truth is: there is no one and only perfect person for you to marry.
2. And the truth is: you may have made a poor choice, and married a very imperfect person.
3. But there is no perfect person out there, and you can work to make any marriage better than it is.
MYTH #3: WE ARE TOO INCOMPATIBLE TO MAKE THIS MARRIAGE WORK
A. The truth is, that we may be very different, and our marriage may have many problems, but these do not have to doom a marriage to failure.
1. Problems don’t have to break up a marriage, in fact, they can actually stabilize and strengthen the marriage as the couple works positively through their problems and incompatibility.
2. Present marriage statistics point out that far too many couples, when confronted with the normal routine problems of marriage, throw up their hands and say, “Well, I guess we are incompatible!” And they make their way to the divorce court.
B. The Swiss psychiatrist, Paul Tournier, suggests that we exorcise this term “incompatibility” from our vocabulary.
1. He wrote, “So called emotional incompatibility is a myth invented by jurists short of arguments in order to plead for divorce. It is likewise a common excuse people use in order to hide their own feelings. I simply do not believe that it exists. There are misunderstandings and mistakes, however, which can be corrected where there is a willingness to do so.”
C. As I’ve been saying today, all marriages, even healthy ones, have their problems. However, in the marriages that are healthy, those problems are appropriately addressed.
1. Successful couples will work towards adjustment, bending over backwards to understand each other’s feelings and opinions.
2. Successful couples cultivate their love, which can still be present, even when there are seemingly irreconcilable differences.
3. Successful couples realize that marriage is a relationship between two adults. It is not for children, or people acting like children.
4. Unfortunately, some of us, who by chronology are adults, are emotionally still teenagers.
5. If we are going to have vital marriages, we must approach them as adults, realizing that maturity is the capacity to postpone immediate gratification for the ultimate good.
6. Mature adults can develop a love relationship by looking to the well-being of our partner instead of our own personal happiness.
D. The Apostle Paul strips away all of our sentimental, phony definitions of love as he writes, in I Cor. 13:4-6, (Philips Translation) “This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not
keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast
anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.”
1. Love is the antidote to incompatibility. It helps you adjust yourself to your partner.
2. Love strips away self-pity, grudge-holding, and the petty criticisms which destroy the husband-wife relationship.
3. This is unconditional love. It does not strike a bargain that says, “I’ll scratch your back, if and only if, you will scratch mine.”
4. This love says, “I’ll scratch your back anyhow.”
5. If you are willing to love this way, you are set free from the incompatibilities which can destroy your marriage.
MYTH #4: GOD DOESN’T WANT ME TO STAY IN A MARRIAGE THAT MAKES ME
UNHAPPY
A. How many times have you heard people say, “I have the right to be happy…” and you know they are doing something they know is wrong, or are about to do something they know is wrong.
1. What we must realize is that the statement: “I have a right to be happy,” is a false notion.
2. Truth is: There are things that are more important to God than your “happiness.”
3. We do have the right to joy, but joy doesn’t come from doing what I want to do, it comes from being right with God by living in obedience to God.
4. Sin never leads to joy. It sometimes results in temporary happiness, but not lasting joy.
5. Divorce is sometimes necessary in cases of domestic violence and infidelity, but much of the time, divorce is not the best route to true happiness.
B. However, our ultimate joy and happiness comes from our right relationship with God.
1. True happiness is found in God.
2. In God, we can experience joy, even in the midst of suffering and pain, including the suffering and pain of a difficult marriage.
Conclusion:
A. So, are we in agreement today that “Marriage Ain’t Easy!” Amen?
B. Beware of the myths that undercut our commitment to marriage and our endurance in marriage. Truth is:
1. There are no perfect marriages.
2. There is no perfect person for you to be married to.
3. There is nothing that can make you too incompatible to be married to your mate.
4. There is something more important than just your happiness.
C. I want to end this sermon in a way that I’ve never done before…I want you to watch and listen to a music video.
1. Every time I hear this song on KLOVE, I pause and think of the powerful message of this song.
2. Casting Crowns’ lead singer, Mark Hall, had this to say about the song: “Marriage is tough. We bring a lot of fairytales to the picture when it comes to marriage. We bring them to the altar with us [thinking]: ‘This is going to be perfect. We don’t have to be apart. We can just wake up together every morning and no one is going to have morning breath. We’re not going to have any problems.’ And then the problems hit and you don’t know where to file those into your picture…The idea I’m trying to say is: ‘Can you lay down who you thought I was and love the me that is? Can we take this from where we are now and realize that I can’t be that person?’ Only God is going to be able to make this work and broken people can be broken together. To me, it’s probably the most important song on the record.”
3. So, here is Casting Crowns” compelling ballad, “Broken Together.”
(After video)
D. We are all sinners in need of God’s forgiveness.
1. We are all broken and imperfect in so many ways.
2. We bring that sinfulness and brokenness to our marriages.
3. So, can we just be broken together?
4. And will we allow God to bring healing and transformation, both in our individual lives and in our marriages?
5. That’s my hope for this sermon series, that we will allow God to work in us and in our marriages.
6. So I hope you will be present and be ready to put what we learn into practice.
