A college man walked into a photography studio with a framed picture of his girlfriend. He wanted the picture duplicated. This involved removing it from the frame. In doing this, the studio owner noticed the inscription on the back of the photograph:
“My dearest Tom, I love you with all my heart. I love you more and more each day. I will love you forever and ever. I am yours for all eternity.”
It was signed "Helen,” and it contained a P.S.: “If we ever break up, I want this picture back.”
APPLY: How many of you think she was NOT totally committed to that relationship?
Real commitment is a highly prized commodity and those who have experienced it know how gratifying it can be to receive such loyalty.
God also loves commitment. That’s why He included Ruth’s statement in your Bible. In these two short verses Ruth tells her mother-in-law:
· I’ll never leave you
· I won’t turn away from you
· I’ll go where you go, I’ll stay where you stay
· AND where you die – that’s where I’ll die
That’s the kind of commitment God admires - unqualified commitment.
I. Unqualified commitment… that’s what God had in mind when He created marriage.
I’ve heard of people using these verses from Ruth in their weddings vows. Those in love have had it engraved on their jewelry to communicate their undying devotion to another. People recognize the value of commitment in marriage. And so does God.
Jesus said: “… what God has joined together, let man not separate.” Mk 10:9
In Malachi 2:16 God showed how much total commitment in marriage meant to Him by declaring “I hate divorce.”
WHY? Why is such loyalty important to God between husbands and wives?
First, because God regards marriage as His creation (not man’s).
When Pharisees challenged Jesus if divorce was permissible He replied:
"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…" Matthew 19:4-6
He goes on to say: “…Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (Mt. 19:6)
Marriage was God’s idea
Secondly, God prizes undying devotion in marriage because He desires couples to have Godly children. In Malachi 2 God says this:
"Has not [the LORD] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking GODLY OFFSPRING." Malachi 2:15
When Paul was talking to Christians who were married to non-Christians he wrote:
“… If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise YOUR CHILDREN WOULD BE UNCLEAN, but as it is, they are holy.” (I Cor. 7:12-14)
I can’t explain it, I don’t fully understand it, but this is one of the main reasons God hates divorce and prizes total commitment in marriage.
In addition, God used marriage as a model of His relationship with His people. Describing His love for Israel, God used a description of the marriages of the day:
"’… when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you... I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you,’ declares the Sovereign LORD, ’and you became mine.’" Ezekiel 16:8
Then in the New Testament, Jesus used the imagery of Himself as the groom & His church as the bride: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.” Matt. 22:2
THUS, because Jesus is our husband we have this powerful promise: "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Hebrews 13:5
That promise is almost an echo of the words Ruth used with Naomi.
II. What kind of commitment is necessary for a strong marriage?
1st – commitment to God. Ruth said: “Your God shall be my God”
There is an interesting piece of romantic thinking that believes… if I find the right one, the one I really am attracted to, the one who pushes my buttons and pulls all my levers it doesn’t matter...
1. what they believe or
2. whether they are a Christian or
3. whether they go to church or
4. if they even love God
ALL THAT MATTERS is the chemistry that exists between us. We’ll work the "church thing" out later. After all, why should this “religious issue” get in the way of true love?
To those "in love" this seems so right, so natural.
BUT, if that approach is so right, then why does God say:
“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? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." (II Cor. 6:14-16)
“Don’t be yoked together with unbelievers?” Why should God care? After all, my fiancé isn’t really a “wicked” person. In fact they’re pretty nice once you get to know them.
AND BESIDES, wouldn’t it be the ideal “missionary” effort to marry an unbeliever and then convert them to Christ? I mean – surely God wouldn’t object to that?
III. Well, God does object, and He objects for a couple of reasons.
The first one is theological:
God’s theological problem is this: “We are the temple of the Living God” (II Cor. 6:16)
In other words, when you became a Christian, God put part of Himself in you. His Holy Spirit.
Wherever God dwells, that is His Temple, and He has allowed YOUR BODY to be His dwelling place.
NOW, for a Christian to make an unbeliever part of that Temple that’s been set apart for God… hmmm, what would that be like?
ILLUS: Let’s say, next week, when you come to church, instead of singing hymns and choruses, we sing Show Tunes:
"Climb Every Mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow till you find your dream"
Or "Just a Spoon full of Sugar makes the medicine go down…"
Or we could sing old Beatles songs:
"All You Need Is Love, do do do do do"
"Eight Days a Week, I looooove you"
AND in place of the sermon we play a reruns. Reruns of “Everybody Loves Raymond” or "Home Improvement."
Then, just to make sure our gathering has a religious touch we would close with prayer.
How would you feel about that? Would you feel like you’d been in worship? And what if we did that every week?
After a while, even the most jaded amongst us would object: "that’s not what we built this building for! We spent a lot of money to build this place of worship. How dare you bring in pagan things into a holy assembly!!!
But wait. God has just said that your body is His Temple. And He paid dearly to set aside your body for His dwelling place - the price of the blood of Jesus Christ. And we would dare to bring that which does not love God (the unchristian spouse) into union with that which He died to save? Of course God would object. That’s the theological reason God objects to "mixed marriages."
IV. Now, the practical reason for only dating and marrying Christians is reflected in Paul’s question:
What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? (II Cor. 6:15)
What does Paul mean by that? Does he mean Christians & non Christians can’t enjoy the same music? won’t watch the same TV shows? don’t appreciate the same art? wouldn’t go on vacations to the same places? No.
I believe Paul means that when it comes to things of God a Christian & non-Christian don’t pull in the same direction. And because your faith will pull you in a different direction than your non-Christian spouse, that faith may end up being the source of division rather than strength to your marriage.
Jesus even warned about that: "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn "‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law - a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:34-38)
The end result of your being married to an unbeliever may be that one of you will have to change to bring harmony to the house. It might be the non-Christian. Maybe they will convert and be saved. But too often it’s the Christian who - for the sake of peace in the house - gives up their relationship with God for the sake of their relationship with their spouse.
Now, that doesn’t mean that - if you’re now married to a non-Christian - you should get a divorce. In I Corinthians 7, we read that if a Christian is married to a non-Christian they should not divorce them if the partner has no desire to leave.
However, to knowingly enter into a marriage with an unbeliever creates a situation that will leave your union and your faith weak and threatened.
But by contrast, the more we and our spouses pull “together” toward God, the stronger our marriages will be. And statistics bear that out:
According to John Maxwell in his book "Building a Foundation for the Family:"
One out of three marriages end in divorce.
One out of 50 marriages end in divorce if the couple had a church wedding.
One out of 105 marriages end in divorce if the couple attended church regularly.
One out of 1105 marriages end in divorce if the couple attended church regularly and had
family devotions.
SO, if you want a solid marriage, you & your intended should be committed to God.
Lastly – if we want our marriages to be permanent, we need to be committed to our spouse. Our attitude should be the same as that voiced by Ruth:
"Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you
stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." (Ruth 1:16-17)
ILLUS: A man and her fiancée were at Town Hall, applying for their marriage license.
After they filled out all the papers, the clerk said, "This license is good for 30 days."
The groom-to-be was shocked: “No, you don’t understand, we want one that’s ‘till death do us part.’”
"Till death do us part." That used to be understood. In fact, that phrase is still part of most wedding vows. However, over the past several years, our entertainment media has portrayed
* Heroes sleeping with a succession of women (James Bond)
* Comedies that feature "Friends" sleeping with each other
* And tearful romances where the girl and boy are sleeping with others until they “find each other” (You’ve Got Mail )
ILLUS: It’s little wonder then, that in a recent Gallup poll found that 73% of those under 45 regarded the idea of being committed to one person for life as being “useless and unworkable”
Let’s face it, without God – commitment to one person for life is difficult. Even for the most committed husband or wife, there comes times when they see someone else across a crowded room who’s prettier or handsomer or wittier - easier to get along with - than the one they married. And for a brief ugly moment they wonder – what if I had married them?
Without God - commitment is not natural. What’s natural (in a Godless society) is to be self-centered and self seeking.
ILLUS: There’s even been a new science built around that very thought. It’s called “evolutionary biology.” In 1994 Time magazine introduced this new discipline which maintained:
“it is to man’s evolutionary advantage to sow his seeds far and wide. Women, instead seek mates with the best genes and the most resources to invest in offspring. These strategies can put the sexes in conflict and undermine love.”
As an example, these evolutionary biologists point to the ape culture: "Among Apes, the greater the difference in size between Male and Female, the less monogamous the Male." This then forms the basis for understanding infidelity and promiscuity in men and women.
In a Godless society – commitment is seen as unnatural.
BUT FOR GOD’S PEOPLE commitment is part of who we are. Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:24
ILLUS: For the Christian, marriage ought to be like the couple that had been married 39 years. They’d been through some stormy times, but in their tenth year marriage came the bout to end all bouts. The wife got so mad she pulled her suitcase out of the bedroom closet and started packing.
"What are you doing?" her husband demanded.
"I’m leaving."
So without a word he got his suitcase and started filling it with his clothes.
"Now, what are you doing?" his wife asked, bewildered.
"If you’re leaving," he told her firmly, "I’m going with you."
So also, in marriage – if we’re to make our marriages strong & pleasing to God - WE have to commit to “going where they go, staying where they stay, and dying where they die.”
CLOSE: The idea of this type of commitment can be best be symbolized by the ring married people have on their fingers.
The Christian custom of placing a wedding ring on the 3rd finger began with the Greeks.
The early Greeks (not Christians) believed that a certain vein, the "vein of love," ran from the 3rd finger directly to the heart. Why they tho’t that no one knows… but when you put those rings on each other’s ring finger part of you are symbolically saying that you wanted to be tied right into their hearts. You want to be committed to each other.
Now, when the early Christians exchanged rings, they worked their way across the hand beginning with the index finger and ending with the ring finger. The groom first placed the ring on the tip of the bride’s index finger, praying "in the name of the Father," moved it to her middle finger saying, "in the name of the Son," and finally, with the words "and of the Holy Spirit, Amen," he slipped the ring on the to the third finger. In the giving of the ring, the early Christian was saying his marriage would begin with his commitment to God.
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
Choose Wisely - Genesis 24:1-24:67
The Perfect Mate - Ephesians 4:17-5:5
Total Commitment - Ruth 1:16-1:17
The Wedding - 1 Corinthians 13:4-13:8
