Life in the Fast Lane
Marriage: When Was Your Last Tune Up?
Hebrews 13:4
Woodlawn Baptist Church
October 24, 2004
Introduction
Do you perform regular maintenance on your vehicles? The truck I am driving now belonged to my father-in-law. He bought it new in 1989, and took great care of it. Today it is 15 years old, and has almost 235,000 miles on it. What is more amazing than that to me is the fact that the engine has never been opened up to have work done on it. Sure there have been the routine repairs like batteries and alternators and water pumps, but for all those miles, the truck has never needed major repair. The reason can be summed up with one simple word: maintenance. Kathy’s dad told me one time that when he bought that truck he determined that no matter what, he was going to take care of it and perform routine maintenance on it. The oil has been changed every 3,000 miles, tires rotated and so forth for all those miles, and today it is still a good looking, great running truck.
When I bought our van a couple of years ago, I determined to do the same thing. When we picked it out, Kathy asked me why I hadn’t looked under the hood. I always look under the hood, but this time I didn’t. I told her that I knew there was an engine under there and that it wouldn’t matter if I looked at it or not, I wasn’t going to ever work on it anyway, and I haven’t. We’ve had it almost 2 years now, and I’ve seen the engine once or twice in all that time. That doesn’t mean we don’t take care of it. It just means that I don’t do the work myself because I would only mess it up. That thing has been in the shop more than any vehicle I’ve ever owned, and it happens to be the best looking and best running vehicle I’ve ever owned. I attribute those things to maintenance.
Most of you remember that over a year ago our church bus broke down. The catalytic converter had stopped up, so we towed it to a local shop where we took what I think was some bad advice. We cut the converter off, and immediately began to experience problems. It performed poorly on the road, got terrible fuel mileage, started burning up sensors, had an awful smell inside and poured black soot out of the exhaust. That wasn’t all. The brakes went out, tires were bad, we had steering problems, the air conditioner doesn’t work right, and I know I have forgotten some other things. Unlike my truck with all its miles, our bus only has about 40,000 miles on it or less. Was the problem with our bus poor maintenance? Not really – it has been in the shop a lot too. But just as bad as not performing maintenance is when we settle for a patch instead of having the job done right because we didn’t want to pay the price of having it done right, and we pay the price anyway.
What’s the point of all this? Its simply to say that if you want your vehicles to run their very best, you have got to be committed to a plan of routine maintenance, and you’ve got to be committed to having every job done according to the manufacturer’s specifications. Anything short of these commitments is only going to cause problems in the long run.
Marriage is no different. Someone has said that even though marriages may be made in heaven, man still has to perform the maintenance. I think he’s right. No marriage becomes a great marriage without giving special attention and care to it, and no marriage is worth giving special attention to until you first accept God’s view of marriage. We’re going to take a look at some of this today, but before we do, let me assure you of this: maintaining your marriage according to the Manufacturer’s specifications is going to cost you. No marriage that is worth anything comes cheap or easy.
Some of you treat your marriages like you do your cars. When you hear a noise, you turn up the radio. I knew a girl one time that was driving along when she heard a loud pop under the hood of her car. Some fizzing followed the pop, and the more she listened to it, the more worried she got. Her solution? She turned up the radio! If she couldn’t hear it then she wouldn’t worry.
Marriages and cars have a lot in common. Sometimes they run rough. Sometimes they get out of alignment and veer off the road. At times the acceleration is not what it ought to be, or the shocks get worn down so that you get a rough ride. The answer to these things is not to ignore them or put off repairs. Each of them is an indication that your car is in need of attention and repair. In the same manner, any time you begin to experience poor performance in your marriage relationship, you can be sure it is time for a tune up. For the next few minutes, we’re going to imagine that you have pulled your marriage into the Lord’s garage. We’re going to check it out very quickly, so let’s take a walk around and see how it measures up. You have a checklist in your bulletin, so without looking at what your spouse is doing, you check the appropriate spaces.
A Look Under The Hood
As we walk around your marriage, I want us to examine six key components.
Time Spent Together
According to American Demographics, working couples on average spend only about 36 minutes a day together in cooking, cleaning, shopping, paying bills, and demonstrating affection. How much time do you and your spouse spend together? There’s a great marriage myth floating around that you may have accepted. It says that the amount of time you spend with your spouse is less important than the quality. You may have seen the new program on the Discovery channel called “Mythbusters.” Well just in case you’ve accepted this myth as true, let me bust it for you. Quality time cannot replace quantity time. There is absolutely no substitute for the amount of time a husband and wife spend together. In one survey that was done, more than 90% of the couples who considered their marriages strong and close also said they spend a great deal of time together. One the other hand, divorced couples usually had spent little time together before the split.
Unconditional Love
You think about your relationship for just a moment. Do you really love your husband or wife regardless of what they do? You say that you can’t love him that way. “Brother Kevin, you don’t know what he does. You don’t know how he treats me.” “My wife isn’t the woman I married! She used to treat me like a king, but now I’m a pauper in my own home!” You’re right, I don’t know those things, but I do know how we treat God, and He loves us anyway – and that is unconditional love. That’s the kind of love that is demanded in the Scriptures. The next time you’re tempted to refuse to love your spouse because of who or what he or she is, you just imagine what your life would be like if God withheld His love from you. What would happen if God’s love became conditional?
Nurture For The Long Haul
In Ephesians 5, listen to the Lord’s instructions to the husband.
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.”
The two words nourish and cherish are important to every married person in this room. They speak of the way husbands and wife nurture the marriage relationship. What does it mean to nourish something? It means to provide basic needs for the well being of the other. Do you know what your husband’s needs are? Nagging is not one of them. Men, do you know what your wife’s most basic needs are? I’m not going to give them to you this morning, but I’ll tell you this, if you really want to begin to nourish your relationship, you’ll take the time to find out.
The word cherish brings to mind something different. To cherish your wife means that you communicate to her through words and actions that she is the most important thing in your life, but it means more than that. If you look the word up, it means to be tender. Are you tender with your wife? You may be like the man I read about.
His wife was experiencing depression. She began to mope around and be sad, lifeless – no light in her eyes – no spring in her step – joyless. It became so bad that this husband did what any good husband would do. He made an appointment with the psychiatrist. On the appointed day, they went to the psychiatrist’s office, sat down with him and began to talk. It wasn’t long before the wise doctor realized what the problem was. So, without saying a word, he simply stood, walked over in front of the woman’s chair, signaled her to stand, took her by the hands, looked at her in the eyes for a long time, then gathered her into his arms and gave her a big, warm hug. You could see the change come over the woman. Her face softened, her eyes lit up, she immediately relaxed. Her whole face glowed. Stepping back, the doctor said to the husband, “See, that’s all she needs.” With that, the man said, “Okay, I’ll bring her in Tuesdays and Thursdays each week, but I have to play golf on the other afternoons.”
Guys, do you still hold hands with your wife? Does she get hugs and kisses just because? Are you gentle with her when you hold her? Do you treat her like a woman or like your wrestling partner? The Lord’s instructions are for you to treat her tenderly. (CLIP FROM SHREK)
Effective Communication
I told you a while ago that working couples spend an average of 36 minutes together each day. Only 12 of those 36 minutes are spent engaged in communication. To say the least, good communication is essential to a lasting and healthy marriage. Words possess incredible power. Solomon said,
“The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
With your words you have the power to wound or heal, to destroy or build up. In marriage we must discipline ourselves to use words that build up, strengthen, encourage and heal. But even beyond that – we must work on simply communicating, talking to one another, listening to one another, expressing care and concern with our mouth and with our ears.
Unfair Expectations
Do you place unfair expectations on your spouse? Are you demanding and insensitive to his or her needs? There’s an endless list of unfair expectations you might have. Do you expect your spouse to make you happy? Do you expect him to fulfill you? Do you expect her to meet your every need? Do you expect to always have things your way? On and on the list goes – and the more you demand that your spouse meet these expectations, the more disappointed you will be.
Listen, when you place these demands on your marriage partner, you are only setting yourself up for disappointment because no one, no matter how hard they try or how much they do can live up to that level of expectations all the time. Your husband is going to fail. Your wife is going to let you down, so throw out the expectations and learn to be content in your marriage.
You remember how it was when you dated? You overlooked so many things because you were captivated by that person. Somebody said one time, “Before you marry, keep your two eyes open; after you marry, shut one of them.”
Priorities That Are Shared
Do you and your spouse share the same priorities or are you pulling in different directions, hoping to wear your partner down until they give up on what they want? Newlywed couples face the challenges of getting started with homes and careers, starting families, dealing with in-laws and just getting used to having to think about someone else. Lately when my parents come down to church, we drive around house-shopping on Sunday afternoons. I am amazed at the high cost of homes in our community, and I often wonder how young couples can afford some of the homes I see them living in. Last week we talked about some of the pressures of raising children. Financial pressures, time pressures, social and moral pressures – all of these things certainly affect how well we raise our children, but they also put tremendous strains on marriages. I know that some of you have health issues that you face. Others have parents that are requiring much of your time and money and energy as they grow older and need your help. In a healthy marriage, both partners must agree on certain priorities without exception, such as worship. One wants to worship and the other doesn’t. One wants to tithe and the other doesn’t. One wants to serve in the church and the other doesn’t. Raising children, spending money, who will lead the home, and many more are priorities that must be shared by both parties, but there is one in particular that you absolutely must share if you are to build a loving and lasting marriage.
In the Scriptures, we are told that a husband and a wife must cleave to one another and become one. What God joins together should not be separated. But did you know that of all the Western nations, America has the highest rate of divorce? Not only are we the highest, but our divorce rates are almost double those of the next highest nation listed under us. Some studies are pleased that while the divorce rates in our country are high, during the 1990’s they actually began to decline. But don’t let the dropping divorce rates fool you into thinking that marriages are getting better. The reason there are fewer divorces is because there are more couples simply living together. According to one source, in 1960 there were a total of 439,000 couples living together. By 1998, that number had risen to 4,236,000, many of whom are undoubtedly Christians.
There’s nothing wrong with trading your car in when it starts to break down too often or cost more than it’s worth, but in marriage that kind of thinking won’t work.
Is It Worth Repairing?
Now, just as in driving, there is no end to the number or kinds of problems you might experience, I have only tried to identify a few of the more common ones. You may be going through something else. You may be in a marriage that is great, and some of you have been married long enough that you have learned and applied biblical principles and your home is a powerful testimony to the love and grace of God. But others of you today may be in a marriage that is on the rocks, or is shaky at best. Regardless of what kind of marriage you may have today, I want you to know that God intends for your marriage to be the greatest, the most important, and the most enjoyable relationship you experience this side of heaven. Your marriage is to bring you more pleasure than any other relationship you have, including your relationships to your friends, your buddies, your parents, and even your kids. Some of you are in second or third marriages, and you may say to me this morning, “Brother Kevin, I had my children before this spouse, and they are the most important thing to me.” If that is you, then in the most loving way I know how I want to tell you that you are out of the will of God and He wants to change that thinking so that your marriage will grow into the marriage He wants it to be. “Brother Kevin, if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have married this person.” But you did, so instead of worrying about what you should have done, let’s talk about why you marriage is worth the cost and effort of repairing. I want to give you three quick reasons you should make every possible sacrifice for your spouse.
Because of the great value God places on marriage
Turn with me to Hebrews 13:4 and let’s read what God has said about the marriage relationship.
“Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”
Say that with me: “Marriage is honorable in all…” What does that mean? It is simply this: God intends for you to see that great honor is to be given to the marriage relation. Marriage is not to be undervalued by any other arrangement or attitude. We are living in a day where there are all sorts of living arrangements. Men and women are living together. Men and men are living together. Women are living with women. Premarital sex is accepted as good and right. Homosexuals are fighting for their right to be wed to one another. Men and women are staying single longer, and many never marry. Jokes abound about marriage as it is run down, seen as outdated, unnecessary, old-fashioned, and as a waste of time, money and energy.
But regardless of how man may dishonor it, God says that “marriage is honorable in all…” According to the Creator of marriage, the union of a man and woman is to be held in high esteem, as especially dear, to be valued at a great price. In other words, of all human relationships, there is not one that has a greater value than that of a husband and a wife. When God created man, He didn’t give him a dog or a fishing buddy or a son or a dad – He gave him a wife. Now, if marriage is valued so highly in the mind of God, then it stands to reason that we as His people should hold the same lofty view.
Because you are commanded to place high value on your marriage
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body.” Ephesians 5:22-23
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” Ephesians 5:25
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” Ephesians 5:31
“…ye husbands…give honor unto the wife…” 1 Peter 3:7
More than any other relationship, more than any other endeavor, your marriage is to hold the highest place of value in your life, before work, before church, before children, before hobbies, before money, and even before yourself.
“If you live for your private pleasure at the expense of your spouse, you are living against yourself and destroying your own highest joy.”
Because the glory of God is at stake
You see, your marriage is a living testimony to the love and grace of God before a cold and hurting world. Marriage was patterned in the mind of God after the relationship between Christ and His church. The Bible presents that relationship as one of intense love, value, and the pursuit of Christ’s joy in the joy of the other. In other words, Christ’s love for His people compels Him to pursue His people, to meet their needs, to sacrifice Himself for their good, to build them up, to cleanse them, to equip them, and to glorify them.
Marriage is to be a reflection of that relationship, and when we as husbands and wives give ourselves over to the lifelong pursuit of our spouses: loving them, valuing them, meeting their needs and so forth, we glorify God by rightly reflecting His love for us.
Conclusion
An old joke says there are three rings in marriage: the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and suffering. Every marriage has its share of those. As we close today, I hope that the Lord has used what has been said to stir some things up in your home that will spark discussion and growth, perhaps even an argument or two. Make no mistake about it: marriage is hard work. Tremendously hard work – you can take it to the bank – any marriage that has achieved intimacy through the years has been worked on.
As we sing a song of invitation this morning, perhaps you need to take your spouse by the hand, or turn to them with a hug, and make a prayerful commitment to one another that no matter how much work it takes, you are going to place the same value on your relationship that God does, and you are going to work together to make your marriage everything God intends for it to be. If you’ve been falling short in some of these areas I’ve mentioned, or in some other, bring your marriage to the Master this morning and let Him go to work. Surrender you marriage and yourselves to Him, and allow Him to work through you to love your spouse.
Today if you have never surrendered you life to Christ, I want you to know that the only relationship that is of greater value in your life than marriage is that of your relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ. Give your life to Him by repenting of your sin and trusting Him to save you.
Works Cited
Dr. Nick Stinnett, Homemade, June, 1986
Maxie Dunnam, Preaching, May-June, 1986
Bennett, William. The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators (Waterbrook Press: Colorado Springs, CO) 1999
Piper, John. Brothers, We Are Not Professionals (Broadman & Holman Publishers: Nashville, TN) 2002
