I want to land on my feet in life, don’t you?
So, on big subjects that the world is really goofing up right now, we need solid answers. We need to be able to navigate the landing. I’m talking about Christian people being real and our faith making a difference in the way we approach life. So on the subjects of Truth, Ethics, Identity, Human Life, and Purity, our thinking is going to have an impact. It’s going to affect our personal lives, our homes, and we’re also going to impact our world whether we want to or not. So we’ve been looking at God’s word to help us land on our feet in a world that’s upside down. Among the many subjects that really matter today is marriage.
Today is family Sunday. Today and in the future, Family Sunday is going to mean that we’ll have whole families, children included, taking a more active role in our time of worship together, like today. And it means I’ll try to match the message on those Sundays to things that will connect with the younger set.
Guess what? Children care about marriage! Even if they don’t understand much about it, they do understand that it’s important to them, and they are watching your marriage and my marriage to see how it’s supposed to work. Bottom line is: marriage matters. To people of all ages and walks of life, marriage matters. And if you’re one of those young people who isn’t married yet, I want you to hear today how God wants people to have a good marriage, and how that can happen. I want you guys to land on your feet in life. So, today, whenever I ask, “Where are you going to land?” you shout back, “On our feet!” Let’s try that. The world is upside down on a lot of things. Where are you going to land? [On our feet!]
I want to start with just giving a brief “state of the marriage union” address this morning. Here are some current trends in marriage.
Current trends in marriage
Marriage Rates
A guy from England said, "The increasing divorce rate is rapidly making America the land of the free.” His American friend said, "Yes, but remember the marriage rate is increasing too. That shows America is still the home of the brave."
Well, he’s sort of right. The marriage rate is increasing in some ways – like the age at which people marry or the number of times people marry.
Divorce Rates
Divorce in the US nearly doubled since 1960. It reached its highest point in the early 1980s and has decreased slightly in the past 10 years.
Financially, divorce costs the nation about $33.3 billion per year. Emotionally, no one can measure it.
Americans Still Like Marriage
67% of Americans disagree with the idea that marriage is outdated, according to a 2014 report from the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture. A 2013 Gallup Poll shows that 75% of Americans are either married or would like to get married.
But it’s also true that…
More Americans are Single
In 2014, the number of single American adults hit an all-time high, now at over half of the adult population. At the current rate, when today’s young adults hit their 40’s and 50’s, ¼ of them will likely have never married.
Unwed Childbearing Remains Alarmingly High
Over 40% of all births in the US are to unwed parents. The 2014 Census poverty report shows children in single-parent homes are 5X more likely to be poor compared to children in married-parent homes, costing taxpayers around $7 billion a year.
More Couples are Living Together Without Marrying
A study last year showed that 44% of Americans think that living together before marriage is a good idea, despite research that suggests the opposite is true:
The number of people who cohabit and break up is about double that of divorces, so the number of people emotionally going through a split is actually a whole lot higher than just the divorce rate. More than 80% of the people who first live together will break up or will marry and divorce. It also more than doubles the danger of domestic abuse.
Somehow, we still get eyebrows raised at us when we say that living together before marriage is damaging and wrong.
Redefinition of Marriage
God says marriage is between one man and one woman. You know all those emails you got and people that you heard, warning us not to sit on our hands and let marriage be redefined? It turns out they weren’t crazy, alarmist extremists after all.
You don’t have to hate homosexual people to love God’s design for marriage and to want to protect it. But the recent Supreme Court decision means that marriage is going to erode even more, and Christians are going to be faced with more difficult decisions because of it.
Fragile Families with Children
This was another trend noted in the studies I looked at. The percentage of children in “fragile families” – the mixed homes and single-parent homes that result from all the break ups and mix ups we’ve been talking about. Half of our nation’s children will live in a single-parent family at some time before they reach age 18. The result is a “fragile family” – a family where the children are many times more likely to drop out of school, end up in prison, be abused, do drugs, become pregnant as teenagers, live in poverty, and to also end up divorced as an adult.
½ of an entire generation is walking on this precipice. One half.
Every one of us in here has been touched directly or indirectly by a failed marriage. What’s scariest to me is that we see these trends happening, and that we would begin to accept them as the norm.
What are we to do? I want to tell you that we don’t have to give in. We swim against the current. We can choose to uphold and practice something that’s becoming more and more rare. You don’t have to approach marriage like some hopeful throw of the dice. You don’t have to live together first. You don’t have to turn to divorce to deal with the challenges of being married. And, yes, if your family is one of those “fragile families,” it doesn’t have to bow to the statistics.
Your marriage, or future marriage if you’re looking forward to it, can make it, with the helps that God has given to us. I’m not going to present some new ideas today – just some truths that we tend to overlook and need to hear again. Because,
“Where are you going to land? [on our feet!]
Here are some helps from God…
1. Restudy and appreciate God’s design for marriage
I go to Fiesta Cancun for lunch. I need to decide: do I want queso dip? I don’t have to have it. It’s an extra. I can order it, and it’s pretty good. But it’s an option.
Society wants to tell us that marriage is an option that you add to a relationship if you want to; like queso.
God wants us to understand that the whole concept of marriage was created by Him as the basic building block of humanity.
Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage. He didn't have to hear about all the men she could have married... and she didn't have to hear about how well his mother cooked. One thing’s for sure – neither of them ever questioned if they had married the right person. Eve was definitely “the one” – the only woman in the world for Adam! Adam wasn’t “Mr. Right.” He was “Mr. Only.” That’s part of God’s design for marriage:
The Right Choice (Marry the right person)
A newspaper in Castle Rock, CO carried the story of a proposal by an 8-year-old boy. When he asked his girlfriend to marry him he was turned down because in her family only relatives married. When he demanded an explanation she said, "If you and me were relatives we could get married, but we’re not. In my family my daddy married my mother. My grandfather married my grandmother, and my uncles are all married to my aunts. So you see, we can't get married, 'cause we're not relatives."
Marry the right person! Who is that? Well, if you’re a follower of Christ, I can tell you that the right person is at least someone who shares your faith in Jesus.
2 Corinthians 6:14-16 (NIV)
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?...
Sometimes your spouse leaves the faith, or maybe you became a Christ-follower after marriage, and that’s where you live. God has words and helps for those who find themselves married to an unbelieving spouse. But, if you’re still putting together your list of ideas about the person you’ll marry one day, put this at the top of the list: make certain that person shares your faith in Jesus.
A Lifetime commitment
While some of us hear this and think, “Well, of course!” too many people don’t realize that this is more than just a great idea.
Matthew 19:4-6 (NIV)
"Haven't you read," he replied, "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."
Asked about his secret for staying married, Jon BonJovi said, "My wife tells me that if I ever decide to leave, she is coming with me."
Good for Mrs. Dorothea BonJovi! God’s design is that this relationship last as long as you both shall live, not “as long as you both feel in love.”
Faithfulness – before and after marriage
Being faithful to your spouse is part of God’s design for a reason. It’s because that marriage relationship has to be different from all other relationships. This honors marriage.
Hebrews 13:4 (NIV)
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Young people, listen: you need to decide now that, whoever you marry one day, you’re going to keep yourself pure for that person, before you even meet him or her. You can begin being faithful to your spouse by the decisions you make right now!
That’s God’s design. That’s the way to have the best marriage. And there’s no argument, no university study, no census data that will ever prove otherwise !
I believe in these ideas because these are God’s ideas. They work because God prescribed them. I’ve also seen every one of them successfully practiced by couples who did it right. If you want your marriage to land on its feet, follow God’s design.
So, “Where are you going to land?” [On our feet!]
We need to commit to that in our homes.
Here’s a 2nd help…
2. Understand that you are not your spouse
I trust that God knew what He was doing when He put Adam to sleep and took a piece of his side and didn’t make another man. Adam didn’t need another man to be his soul mate, just like he didn’t need any of the animals to fill that role. He didn’t need a copy of himself. He needed one who was like him – bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh – but still different. Complimentary.
Have you noticed all the ways people try to get us to say that there’s no difference between men and women?
Kids, how many of you think that boys and girls are different from each other?
It was God Who invented the differences between male and female.
I like to put it this way: God made us different. Duh.
1 Peter 3:7 (NIV)
Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
One’s not better than the other. We’re different.
Rocky Balboa said to Adrian, “I got gaps; you got gaps; we fill each other's gaps.”
Men and women have a different chromosome pattern in every one of their cells. It’s the basic source of maleness or femaleness. Normally, women in the US outlive men by 3-4 years. Men have a higher basic metabolism and a greater brute strength. The 1st finger of a woman’s hand is usually longer than the 3rd. Women’s blood contains more water, and their lungs are 30% smaller. Men’s hearts beat more slowly. Women can withstand high temperatures better. The list of physical differences goes on and on. The list of emotional and psychological differences is even longer.
On purpose, God made us different from each other. Deep down, we’re glad for it. So why do we sometimes act like we want our spouse to be the same gender we are?
• She married him because he was such a "strong man." She’s mad at him because he’s such a "dominating male."
• He married her because she was so "fragile and cute." He’s impatient with her because she’s so "weak and helpless."
• She married him because "he’s a good provider." She’s frustrated with him because "all he thinks about is business."
• He married her because "she reminds me of my mother." He’s fed up because "she's getting more like her mother every day."
• She married him because he was "happy and romantic." She’s angry at him because he is "childish and fun-loving."
• He married her because she was "steady and sensible." He’s tired of her because she’s become "boring and dull."
• She married him because he was "the life of the party." She’s leaving him because "he's a party boy."
When asked his secret of being married 54 years to the same person, Billy Graham said, "Ruth and I are happily incompatible." You are not your spouse. He or she is not you. Learn to appreciate that early on and it will save you a boatload of headaches later.
You are not your spouse. When you remember that, Where are you going to land? [On our feet!]
3. Use God’s design for all relationships in your marriage too
Marriage is a unique human relationship. But using the principles we use for ALL human relationships is a way to make it great!
God tells us to use a different set of principles in our relationships. Here are some of them. As I read these, ask yourself, “If a husband or a wife did this at home, would it help a marriage be better?”
Galatians 5:26
Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Ephesians 4:32
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Colossians 3:9
Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices
Colossians 3:13
Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
1 Thessalonians 5:11
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
Imagine the change many marriages would have if husbands and wives would just apply some of these principles they’re supposed to apply to everyone.
Listen, if you’re not married yet, but you want to practice it, here’s where you can do that! Get good at other relationships! Take good Bible principles like these, practice them with other people, and when it comes time to use them in a marriage, you’ll be ready!
Then where are you going to land?! [on our feet!]
It sounds like a good marriage is a lot of work, doesn’t it? It is! And it’s worth it!
If marriage didn’t take work, or if God didn’t intend for us to put work into it, why would we have all the instruction about marriage that we’ve looked at here today? Lots of people think it’s just a throw of the dice and you might make it or you might not.
I say, “Where are we going to land?”
[On our feet!]
Conclusion:
We want to help make marriages strong, so that families can be strong. We want to make families strong so that the Church can be strong. And we want to see the Church be strong, so that more people can come to know Jesus as Lord.
This all comes down to that. We want people to meet Jesus Christ and to love Him most of all…
