Terry Kenne from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, talked about her daughter planning a small family wedding at their church. When Terry and her husband arrived early on the day of the wedding to make sure everything was ready, they noticed a banner from the missions conference was still behind the pulpit. She said, “Its message seemed appropriate for our occasion, too: WORTH THE RISK.” (Terry Hartsell Kenne, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Christian Reader, "Rolling Down the Aisle;” www.PreachingToday.com)
Getting married is risky, because you really don’t know what you’re getting into.
It’s like being on an episode of the Food Network’s TV show Chopped. Sandy and I enjoy watching the show, which features a competition between very experienced chefs. They're each given a “mystery basket” containing some strange ingredients. This last week, a basket contained a pig uterus and other strange items. The chefs open their baskets all at the same time, and whatever is there, they must use it to create a delicious meal that impresses the judges. Now, these chefs are all very well trained. They can make an appetizer. They can whip up a great dessert. But when they open up a basket to discover they have to make an appetizer with mussels and waffles, or a dessert with tomatoes and tofu—that's when things get real interesting.
Marriage is a lot like that. When you get married you open up your “mystery basket” and discover the ingredients God gave you to work with. And let me tell you. There’s always a surprise in each basket: an unexpected illness; a personality quirk that drives you crazy; or an unknown wound deep below the surface. The basket is full of surprises; but no matter what you find, you still have to create a marriage that works (Skye Jethani, Wheaton, Illinois, www.PreachingToday.com)
The question is: How? How do you make a marriage work despite the surprises that come? How do you create a delicious and lasting relationship even with some difficult ingredients? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Matthew 5, Matthew 5, where Jesus talks about marriage in His Kingdom.
Matthew 5:31-32 It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (ESV)
This is all a part of Jesus’ explanation of what the Law means when it says, “You shall not commit adultery.” Here, the command against adultery means don’t divorce. In the previous section (vs.27-30), Jesus said the command against adultery means don’t do it even if it’s just in your mind. In other words, don’t lust; don’t look at another woman with the intent of imagining sex with her. So if you want to make your marriage work...
DON’T LOOK AT OTHER WOMEN (OR MEN).
Don’t consider other prospects especially if you’re going through a rough patch in your own marriage. Don’t even entertain the thought of another spouse, because such thoughts will tear your own marriage apart.
Many famous people have been married multiple times: King Henry VIII (six times), film star Elizabeth Taylor (eight times), and TV actress Zsa Zsa Gabor (nine times). However, there is someone that very few people know about, whose been married more times than all three combined! He could easily claim the title of the world’s most married person.
His name is Glynn “Scotty” Wolfe; and starting at age 22, Wolfe married 29 times. Some of the marriages ended in days, while other lasted years. But why so many?
Well, psychologists suggest that as soon as he committed to a person, he experienced varying degrees of remorse. His marriage would experience bumps in the relational road, and he’d start looking for other options.
He fathered over forty children; and when he died, many of his ex-spouses were still living. Even so, he died alone and penniless. His lifeless body – with a tattoo of a tied knot on his forearm – went unclaimed in the county morgue for months. (Moreland and Muehlhoff, The God Conversation: Using Stories and Illustrations to Explain Your Faith, IVP, 2017, p.152; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s a sad story, but a good picture of what can happen when your own marriage hits some bumps in the road and you start looking for other options. Please, don’t do it if you want your marriage to last.
Some time ago (Dec 2009), the Family Research Council published the results of a study exploring the effects of pornography on marriage, children, and individuals, using divorce lawyers as a primary source. Citing the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the study noted that 56 percent of divorce cases involved “one party having an obsessive interest in pornographic websites,” while 68 percent of divorce cases involve one spouse conducting an affair with someone they met over the internet. (Nathan Black, Family Group Releases Study on Effects of Pornography, www.christianpost.com, 12-02-2009; www. PreachingToday.com)
These men and women were looking for satisfaction in someone other than their spouse. They were not grateful for what they had, thinking there might be someone better “out there.”
Suleyman Guresci, of Izmir, Turkey, divorced his wife of 21 years after a bitter six-year court battle. In an effort to find the ideal woman, Guresci turned to a computer dating service – the kind that evaluates your written profile and suggests matches for you. From a list of 2,000 prospective brides, the computer selected his former wife, who (unbeknownst to Guresci) had signed up for the same service. Guresci's response? He decided to remarry his wife just nine months after their divorce.
He said, “I did not know that my ex-wife had been the ideal counterpart for a marriage. I decided to give it another try by being more tolerant toward her.” (Raymond McHenry, Stories for the Soul, p.176; www.PreachingToday.com)
Guresci came to realize that his wife was the “right person” for him. He didn’t need to look anywhere else.
I like what Zig Ziglar had to say about this: “I have no way of knowing whether or not you married the wrong person, but I do know that many people have a lot of wrong ideas about marriage and what it takes to make that marriage happy and successful.
“I’ll be the first to admit that it’s possible that you did marry the wrong person. However, if you treat the wrong person like the right person, you could well end up having married the right person after all.
“On the other hand, if you marry the right person, and treat that person wrong, you certainly will have ended up marrying the wrong person.
“I also know that it is far more important to be the right kind of person than it is to marry the right person. In short, whether you married the right or wrong person is primarily up to you” (Bible Illustrator #1621; 4/1993.7).
So if you want to make your marriage work, don’t look for the “right person” in anyone other than your spouse. Don’t look at other women (or men). And 2nd...
DON’T LOOK FOR LOOPHOLES to get out of your marriage.
Don’t look for excuses to divorce. Don’t look for reasons to split; look for reasons to stay together.
The ancient scribes and pharisees thought they found an allowance for divorce in the law. That’s why they spoke about “a certificate of divorce” in verse 31.
It’s a partial quote from Deuteronomy 24:1; but when you look at the quote in its context, the passage in Deuteronomy prohibits a man to remarry his first wife after he has written her a “certificate of divorce” and she marries again. If her second husband would die, the first husband can’t have her back (Deuteronomy 24:1-4).
The Law did not permit divorce. It just acknowledged that divorce was taking place and set some boundaries around it. It was actually designed to protect the wife from unscrupulous and abusive husbands.
Well, the Pharisees twisted the words of this passage and used it as a loophole to allow for divorce. In fact, they had a standing argument over what that loophole was. The passage in Deuteronomy speaks of a man writing a “certificate of divorce” for something “indecent” about his wife (Deuteronomy 24:1). The word “indecent” literally means “nakedness” or “shame,” and some Pharisees (in the School of Hillel) argued that a man could divorce his wife for any little infraction he might be ashamed about. Maybe she burned his supper or won last night’s argument. That would be grounds for divorce for some Pharisees. Other Pharisees (in the School of Shammai) argued that the “indecency” was the shame of adultery and that divorce was permitted only in cases of adultery. Whatever it was, they were looking for loopholes in the law to allow for divorce.
However, Jesus makes it very clear – There are no loopholes! Divorce is tantamount to adultery He says in verse 32: If you divorce your wife, you force her into adultery, unless of course she is already unfaithful. And if you marry a divorced woman, you commit adultery with her.
You see, there was no social security net in Bible days. A woman was totally dependent on her husband. So if he kicked her out, she was forced to find another man to support her.
Verse 32 does NOT provide an exception for divorce. It only says that the husband is not liable to the charge of causing his wife to commit adultery if she is already promiscuous (Craig Evans, ed. The Bible Knowledge Background Commentary, Matt-Luke, p.116). Even then, a Kingdom man pursues reconciliation, not divorce.
There are no loopholes, no exceptions, for divorce. So don’t go looking for them if you want your marriage to survive and thrive over the long-haul. Remove “divorce” from your vocabulary; because if it is ever an option, you’ll pursue it over the hard work of repairing your relationship.
Richard Halverson says, “Every struggle we have that could be used as an excuse to separate or divorce is the very material God wants us to use to create intimacy in our marriage” (Dr. Richard C. Halverson, Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 4; www.PreachingToday.com)
Pastor and author, John Piper, suggests picturing your marriage as a grassy field. “You enter it at the beginning full of hope and joy. You look out into the future, and you see beautiful flowers and trees and rolling hills. And that beauty is what you see in each other. Your relationship is the field and the flowers and the rolling hills. But before long, you begin to step in cow pies. Some seasons of your marriage they may seem to be everywhere. Late at night they are especially prevalent. These are the sins and flaws and idiosyncrasies and weaknesses and annoying habits in you and in your spouse. You try to forgive them and endure them with grace.
“But they have a way of dominating the relationship. It may not even be true. But sometimes it feels like that's all there is – cow pies.” Piper says, “Noel and I have come to believe that the combination of forbearance and forgiveness leads to the creation of a compost pile. That's where you shovel the cow pies.
“You both look at each other and simply admit that there are a lot of cow pies. But you say to each other: You know, there is more to this relationship than cow pies. And we are losing sight of that because we keep focusing on these cow pies. Let's throw them all in the compost pile. When we have to, we will go there and smell it and feel bad and deal with it the best we can. And then we are going to walk away from that pile and set our eyes on the rest of our field. We will pick some favorite paths and hills that we know are not strewn with cow pies. And we will be thankful for the part of the field that is sweet.
“Our hands may be dirty. And our backs may ache from all the shoveling. But one thing we know: We will not pitch our tent by the compost pile. We will only go there when we must. This is a gift of grace that we will give each other again and again and again—because we are chosen and holy and loved. (John Piper, This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence, Crossway Books, 2009, p. 59; www.PreachingToday.com)
I like that attitude. If you want to divorce-proof your marriage, don’t focus on the cow pies in the relationship; don’t go looking for reasons to split up. Instead, look for reasons to stay together. If you want to make your marriage work, don’t look at other women (or men); and don’t look for loopholes. Instead...
LOOK TO THE LORD.
Depend on Christ. Rely heavily on Jesus.
What Jesus describes here is the ideal. It’s life as it should be in God’s Kingdom. But life is far from ideal: relationships suffer; couples fight; and marriages fail. So what do you do when your marriage struggles? Insist that you are right and your spouse is wrong? Insist that you are okay and your spouse is the problem? No!
You go back to Jesus’ first words in this Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. You acknowledge your poverty of spirit, your own sin, and your inability to do what God’s law requires. Then you beg Jesus to help you. Throw yourself on His mercy and grace, and lean heavily on Him to change YOUR heart.
Even if your marriage has failed and you are divorced, please know that you have NOT committed the unpardonable sin. Instead, find forgiveness and a fresh start in Christ. If you’re bothered by some of the mistakes of your past, bring them to Jesus and let Him wash you clean. Then remain committed to your current spouse, and rely on Christ help you make your current marriage work.
Perhaps, you’ve heard that 50% of all marriages end up in divorce, and that the divorce rate is the same in the church. Well, that’s not actually true.
Five years ago (2014), researcher Shaunti Feldhahn took a closer look at the studies and discovered that half of all marriages are NOT ending in divorce. As a matter of fact, according to the Census Bureau, 72 percent of those who have ever been married are still married to their first spouse! Feldhan writes, “No-one knows what the average first-marriage divorce rate actually is, but based on the rate of widowhood and other factors, we can estimate it is probably closer to 20-25 percent. For all marriages (including second marriages, and so on), it is in the 31-35 percent range, depending on the study.”
Feldhan's research also led her to debunk another myth: “the rate of divorce is the same in the church.” Here's what she found: “If the person was in church last week, their divorce rate dropped by 27 percent… Overall, regular church attendance lowers the divorce rate anywhere from 25-50 percent, depending on the study you look at.” (Shaunti Feldhahn, “Everything We Think We Know About Marriage and Divorce is Wrong,” Catalyst, May 6, 2014; www.PreachingToday.com)
Here’s the good news! If you’re struggling in your marriage, realize that most couples get through the struggle and you can too! And if you’re a committed follower of Christ, you can be even more certain that He will heal your marriage.
If you want to make your marriage work, don’t look at other women (or men); don’t look for loopholes; instead, look to the Lord! Depend on Him to do what you can’t do on your own.
Roger Zerbe suffered from early onset Alzheimer's disease. His wife, Becky, remembers a journal entry he left for her after a particularly troubling bout of forgetfulness. She writes:
“I picked up the journal on my pillow and read: Honey, Today fear is taking over. The day is coming when all my memories of this life we share will be gone. In fact, you and the boys will be gone from me. I will lose you even as I am surrounded by you and your love. I don't want to leave you. I want to grow old in the warmth of memories. Forgive me for leaving so slowly and painfully.
Blinking back tears, Becky says, “I picked up my pen and wrote: My sweet husband, what will happen when we get to the point where you no longer know me? I will continue to go on loving you and caring for you—not because you know me or remember our life, but because I remember you. I will remember the man who proposed to me and told me he loved me, the look on his face when his children were born, the father he was, the way he loved our extended family. I'll recall his love for riding, hiking, and reading; his tears at sentimental movies; the unexpected witty remarks; and how he held my hand while he prayed. I cherish the pleasure, obligation, commitment, and opportunity to care for you because I REMEMBER YOU!” (Becky Zerbe, “Penning a Marriage,” Marriage Partnership, Spring 2006, p. 22; www.PreachingToday.com)
Because of her commitment to Christ, Becky chose to remember what brought her and her husband together. And that kept them together even when he couldn’t remember her.
If you want to your marriage to survive and thrive even in the hard times, don’t look for reasons to separate. Instead, look to the Lord and be committed to staying together as you lean hard on Him.
