The Ideal Marriage
(Senior Adult Sunday)
Matthew 19.8 June 10, 2001
He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
The preacher said I could have 16 wives;
four better,
four worse,
four richer,
four poorer.
The sayings and stories surrounding the subject of love and marriage are legion. For instance: What is the difference between a woman and a man in love? When a woman is in love she acts like a fool; when it’s a man, he’s not acting!
Divorce was a common practice in Jesus’ day, as in ours. But divorce was a side issue in our text. The Pharisees were just using the issue as a smoke screen (Mt. 19.3,7) to trap Jesus into one of those have you stopped beating your wife questions. Their real agenda was to discredit Jesus’ teaching. In answering them, however, Jesus not only silenced his enemies, but his answers show the long term IMPACT our choices make on our own lives, and the lives of our families and neighbors. Consider Jesus’ teaching on…
The Holiness of Marriage
Few of us would argue that God has a blueprint for marriage. A man and woman are to leave their respective families, and cleave to each other, forever! My favorite way of expressing that is to be joined at the heart. If you do not believe that can happen, you have no business getting married.
The holiness of marriage is foreign to our culture today. Most people view it as a civil arrangement, or contract, that is up for scrutiny whenever one of the partners feels uncomfortable with the terms. The commandment of God makes it a holy commitment (see Exodus 20.14).
What does an ”Ideal” Marriage Look Like?
May I say, It doesn’t matter what it looks like? Listening to a National Public Radio broadcast the other day , I heard the storyteller talk about the German occupation of France during the Second World War. The Nazis sent out officials to many of the vineyards to confiscate the best bottles of wines. Many of the managers hid their best, oldest stock. They took dust and coated the bottles some of the newer (and cheaper) wines.
Although history records how France’s wine industry was preserved with this trick, the dust on the bottle could not change the quality of the wine inside. It is that way in marriage. No matter what your neighbors, church family, or even you might imagine about what a marriage looks like, it cannot change the value of what is happening on the inside, where it counts!
In honor (and with all truthfulness), on this Senior Adult Day in our church, where we are affirming our Seniors, and especially those with forty-plus years of marriage, I want to announce that we have not the first perfect couple among us!
We do, however, have the Scripture, which points out the ideal – and our responsibility to move in that direction. Let’s investigate that direction.
Weatherly, in his work The Ten Words, says,
Marriage is the union of one man with one woman for the purposes of sex fulfillment, the procreation and nurture of children, and the completion of the basic development and expression of personality through intimate communication and interaction with another human being enough like him/herself to be congenial, and sufficiently different to be enduringly attractive and stimulating to the point of exciting him/her toward the fullest and richest possible realization and employment of his/her potentialities as a person.
Whew! Don’t you love clear thinking?. In short (if you can shorten that at all) Weatherly agrees with me – marriage is when people are joined at the heart!
Spend Time Choosing
In order to be joined at the heart, those contemplating marriage should spend large amounts of time selecting a mate. There is great depth of truth in the experience of a young seminary grad, who was to conduct his first marriage ceremony. He asked a retired pastor what advice he’d give. The senior pastor said, If, in the middle of the ceremony you forget the words, just quote the first passage of scripture in your mind. The young pastor did forget; the first words that came to mind came stumbling out; Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Andy Capp’s wife, Flo was listening to a young lass. She couldn’t make up her mind about the right fella. She asked how it was with Flo and Andy. Love at first sight, dear, said Flo, My own fault for not taking another look.
It pays to spend a long time courting. It’s a little like deep-sea fishing; you never know what you’ve got until you get it in the boat.
The worst thing a Christian can do is marry outside the faith. Paul was very specific, Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. (2Cor 6.14). I have performed many marriages. I wish I could say I was wise enough to convince a few who were believers to put off the date until the unbelieving fiancé’ came to Christ. None of those unions was a blessing.
Marriage is a holy thing. God is not at all pleased when we treat it lightly.
Besides the Holiness of Marriage, we also need to consider…
The Hardness of Divorce
The Pharisees used their trump card (Mt 19.7). God said it’s ok! Jesus countered (Mt 9.8), If your hearts hadn’t been so hard you would’ve been able to do things God’s way. Jesus was telling them they had hardness of the hearteries!
A man goes to see his doctor after having a mild heart attack. The doctor takes the man’s wife aside and tells her that her only hope of preventing another, probably fatal, heart attack is to remove all sources of stress in her husband’s life. Cook him three healthy meals a day, do all the housework, never argue or disagree, and be available for romance every night, the doctor tells her.
On the way home, the husband asks the wife what the doctor said to her. After a long pause, she looks him in the eye and laments, He says you’re gonna die.
There are generally two areas of human conduct that precipitate the hardness of heart, which, in marriage, precede the hardness of divorce:
IMMORALITY
Immorality comes in a crisis, which is often followed by unforgiveness in the aftermath. Psychologists say there are generally three extremely critical crisis times in a marriage:
The first is in the first year, during which there is a tremendous adjustment going on to married life. (The we’ve-never-done-it this-way-before syndrome is not just in Baptist churches. Marriages bring folks out of their comfort zone!)
The second major crisis point is about 10 years, when husbands and wives look around, and wonder if life is going to get any better.
The third is the empty nest time, when the kids have left. If the couple have built their lives solely on raising children, or succeeding in business, and not building the relationship, there is a tendency to search for the intimacy they have depended on receiving from the children.
At any stage a human being can slip away from what they know as moral and right. When the immorality is discovered, the spouse can forgive or punish. If unforgiveness is the chosen response, divorce will not be in the distant future.
Besides immorality, there is…
IMMATURITY
We have a tendency toward covenant-breaking. It is the nature of all things human. In Malachi 2.14-16, God specifically says that He HATES divorce. (God didn’t say He hated divorced people. He hates the act, causes and repercussions of divorce.
Further, He warns that we not break faith. The reason we have vows is that so much of our society, culture and future hangs on the institution of marriage.
On marriage is built the home;
dependent on the home is the institution of the
organized church;
on the church depend the city and state;
without the state we have no civilization.
Stable marriages are the foundation for everything. It is the way God ordained it!
The Signs of Stumbling
In marriage, there is a sense in which there is no Switzerland. Neutrality doesn’t work. If you’re not growing as a couple, your relationship is dying. How can you recognize the signs that your marriage is stumbling down the road to the courthouse? Here are some warning signs:
EMOTIONAL ADULTERY
Many marriages are in trouble today because of outside interference; it doesn’t have to be a sordid fling. It can be the needed emotional support you’re not giving your spouse that he or she gets from that understanding person at the office. Don’t think it will end there!
The Bible declares that the emotional support is to come from within the marriage.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. Genesis 2:24
May I suggest to you who are married and having trouble getting support from your spouse – Do NOT seek it elsewhere! You may need to sign up for counsel, communication courses, or find some time to work on it with your spouse…but do not go to Mother or Dad, a co-worker, or even your Pastor to complain about the non-communicative ways of your spouse. Speak up …NOW!
WANING AFFECTION
Another warning sign is when the physical intimacy of your relationship declines, or disappears altogether.
Joy Feinberg is a divorce lawyer. She says that 80% of the couples who come to her for a divorce say that they have not had sex in more than year. Sex allows you to renew intimacy, and most couples who break up have built a physical wall against it. Physical problems aside, the marriage bed is not to be ignored.
5So do not deprive each other of sexual relations. The only exception to this rule would be the agreement of both husband and wife to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time, so they can give themselves more completely to prayer. Afterward they should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt them because of their lack of self-control.
1 Corinthians 7:5 (NLT)
ROOTS OF ANGER
A third warning sign is more likely a combination of many causes, including the first two, emotional needs being met by another, and the inordinate and prolonged decline in sexual relationships…and that is a continuing and bitter conflict.
Very often the bitter root of anger that lies beneath the surface is hidden well in front of the circle you travel in, church friends, and work associates – perhaps even to your spouse. However, the root will show itself from time to time. How? I’m glad you asked.
The root of bitterness is a matter of unforgiveness. It is, in plain talk, holding a grudge. A wife makes a cutting remark about the lack of income, and how her friend’s husband makes so much money. The husband files it away. The husband overspends on his fishing trip – the wife makes a mental note to buy two dresses the next time she’s at Wally World.
Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent.
A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time. Hebrews 12:15 (TMNT)
Keeping a grudge is a certain way to become bitter at your very life’s root. It is sin.
26And “don’t sin by letting anger gain control over you.”Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry,27for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil.
Ephesians 4:27 (NLT)
The stumbling signs,
Emotional Adultery
Waning Affection
Roots of Anger
What do we do if we discover these in our marriage? How can we make our marriages last like the ones we honored this morning? Well, the Stumbling Signs have their counterparts, the…
The Stepping Stones
A few positive suggestions:
#1. Repentance
Repenting is a matter of turning from one direction to go in another direction. In this case, it means realizing that the direction of emotional adultery, waning sexual affection and bitter conflict is divorce. It happens long before any papers are served. It happens in the heart – a growing apart.
To repent is to believe once again in the one-ness of what God has joined together…the two becoming one flesh. There is much too much two-ness going on in our culture, even in the church! There are
pre-nuptial agreements,
separate vacations,
separate bank accounts
separate pursuits.
My friend, if you cannot enter into a marriage enough to join forces with something as temporal as finances, how in the world can you possibly be joined at the heart in any other way?
Repent – be joined at the heart! And a second suggestion…
#2. Renewal
To renew means to mend whatever is broken. You can’t change hurts you’ve caused, but you can light some new old flames that says, The coldness stops here!
What do you do to begin there? Start with these few:
A. BE VERY FORGIVING
God’s grace was not meant to just be applied to your sins. Your spouse needs it from you just about every day!
During a children’s sermon one Sunday morning, a pastor held up an ugly-looking summer shirt that he wore occasionally around the house. He explained to the children that someone said the shirt was ugly and should be thrown away.
This really hurt me, he explained. I’m having trouble forgiving the person who said those mean things. Do you think I should forgive that person? he asked the children.
Immediately, his six-year-old daughter raised her hand. Yes, you should, she said without hesitation.
But why? The person hurt my feelings.
The little one wisely answered,
Because you’re married to her
B. BE VERY FLEXIBLE
The only things that will not change are dead! Don’t be one of ’em! If you were held to obeying only three of the Ten Commandments you couldn’t do it for ten minutes. Don’t be so rigid with the one you love!
C. BE CONSTANTLY RENEWING
Your spouse needs at least one tender-hearted person in his or her life. You have the privilege of choosing hardness or tenderness – but it cannot be both. In order to be tender-hearted with your spouse, you will have to do what the apostle Paul said was necessary for living the Christian walk:
…I die daily. 1 Corinthians 15.31b
One author wrote about dying in marriage: In marriage, death and life interpenetrate, as crucifixion and resurrection are eternally joined. Married persons are literally buried into each other, physically, emotionally and spiritually, losing themselves but finding themselves in the other.
When (in our text – Matthew 19.8) Jesus talked to the religious leaders (Pharisees), he said they had a problem with being hard hearted.
The word Jesus used (skleôrokardia ) is the word from which we get our English word, sclerosis – a condition of the human heart; a spiritual hardening of the heart.
It also happens to the physical heart. The pericardium, is a paper-thin membrane surrounding the heart. When, through sickness that membrane stiffens and thickens, it contracts around the heart’s outer surface, not permitting the heart to function normally. Blood doesn’t flow as it should. The heart muscle is restricted and weak. The patient dies.
In surgery the doctor will open the patient’s chest – expose the patient’s heart encased in this grizzled-tough lining. The heart is languid, gray and feeble, barely existing. The surgeon takes scalpel in hand, and with the deftness of years’ and knowledge married, he will slice the pericardium casing. Instantly, the heart expands to its pre-sickness size; the color rushes back to the flesh – life begins pouring through the veins and arteries. The patient will breathe, flourish, live !!!
It can be that way in your marriage. The Great Physician heals more than bodies – He is adept at putting back together what He joined in the first place. It takes a death.
Ladies, are you willing to submit to that husband? Men, are you willing to cherish and die for that wife of your youth as Christ died for the church? As with the new birth that Christ gives, it only comes with crucifixion. The pride and self-exaltation must be put aside, nailed to a cross.
And, as with the cross, there is freedom and abundant life on the other side. Cross, then crown – it works that way. And it’s good!
