Sunday, June 28, 2015

Commitment Is Blessed – Malachi 2:10-16

I was walking the dogs the other day over by the school and I found this diamond.  It caught my eye and so I picked it up wondering what the odds were that it was real.  It felt pretty heavy to me.  It didn’t feel like a cheap piece of plastic so I took it home and googled how to tell if a diamond was real or fake.  This one is beautiful and it’s pretty big.  I knew if it were real it might be worth several thousand dollars.
So the websites told me that you can hold it up to your mouth and if it fogs up quickly it’s probably a fake.  This one didn’t fog at all.  You can drop it in water and see if it floats.  If it does, it’s a fake.  This one sunk like a rock.  There are some other ways.  You can try to scratch it.  You can check its refractivity or how much it sparkles.  You can put a dot on a piece of paper and see if it shows through.  My diamond passed all those tests.
I got pretty excited.  Until I heated it up with a lighter.  It immediately started to change.  It even started to melt a little and get all hazy.  Definitely not a diamond.  It’s a good fake – or it was til I ruined it.  It still shines and sparkles and is pretty to look at but it might as well be a picture of a diamond for all it’s worth.  In fact, the only reason I didn’t throw it in the trash is that I knew I could use it as a sermon illustration someday.
It used to be perfect and beautiful and right.  Now it’s an illustration of what not to be.  Have you ever felt that your life is like this diamond?  Has your life ever been an illustration of what not to be?  Maybe it is even today.  Maybe you still look pretty and right on the outside but inside you know your life is a fake; a hollow shell and ready for the trash.
There are any number of reasons why you might feel that way about your life.  It could very well be from the result of our own actions.  God has created a world governed by natural laws.  If you step in front of a speeding bus, you’re going to get crunched.  Or it may be that Satan is attacking you.  1 Peter 5:8 says Satan is like a lion waiting to attack you.
It could also be that God is rebuking you.  Ooh, we don’t like to think about that, do we?  Does God punish people?  I thought God was love.  I thought He so loved the world that He gave His only Son.  Yes, that is true but God is also just.  He may not be fair all the time but He is a just God but that is a sermon for another time.  So, because He is just, sometimes He punishes, rebukes, chastises, disciplines, judges or whatever you want to call it.
God sees us as we really are.  Jeremiah 17:10 says, “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve."  Oh my, that can be exciting or that could be very scary, huh?  You may look pretty on the outside.  You may look like you have it all under control.  You’re a big church member.  You give money.  You serve on committees (if we had any committees around here).  You sacrifice your time, talent and treasure for the sake of the church and yet no matter what you do you feel like God is displeased with your efforts and your life just doesn’t sparkle like you know it should.
There are any number of reasons why a person may feel that way.  You may feel like God is judging you just simply because you ate too much pizza last night and now your stomach hurts so bad it feels like a demon is inside you.  You may feel that way because you forgot to take your meds this morning.  Or maybe you have a toothache or…I don’t know, a sunburn.  My point is that sometimes there are other reasons for not feeling like you should.  In fact, it’s not about a feeling at all.
You may feel fine but in your heart of hearts you know something is wrong.  Your relationship with the Lord is not what it should be.  You come to church, you go through the motions and you pray but there is no power in your prayer life.  There is no healing, no over-coming, no fruit on your vine, if you will.  You read the Bible and check that box every day but not much more.  Something is just not right.
I can tell you that there is something not right in our country.  There is something not right with people all over the world and it affects everybody.  You wonder what is wrong with the world?  You wonder how our country could get to the place where 9 men and women in black robes have the audacity to take what is plainly called evil in the Bible and make it the law of the land?  How did we get to this point?
Malachi has one of the reasons.  God, through Malachi, tells us how something like this happens.  Some of you may never have even heard of the prophet Malachi much less heard a sermon from his book.  Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament.  If you can’t find it, go to the New Testament book of Matthew and go back west a few pages to Malachi chapter 2.  In most of the Bibles in the pew it is on page 676.
I want to read just Malachi 2:10-16.  Malachi lived in a country and a time very similar to ours in a lot of ways.  It was blessed.  God had shown it favor.  It had a lot going for it at least in previous days but now it was suffering and the people couldn’t understand why. 
This is the last of the sermons in the series about what the Bible says about marriage.  We have seen in Genesis that marriage is God’s idea and that He has a pattern for it should look like.  It is one man and one woman brought together by God for life, no matter what anybody else says, including the highest court in the country.
We then saw in the story of Isaac and Rebekah what a man needs in a wife and in the story of Ruth and Boaz what a woman needs in a husband.  We have seen what it is supposed to look like from every angle and how God blesses a marriage that fits His pattern.  Now, let’s see what happens to an individual, a couple, a church or a country that deviates from this standard.
Malachi 2:10-16 says, “Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another? 11 Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by marrying women who worship a foreign god. 12 As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord remove him from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings an offering to the Lord Almighty. 13 Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. 14 You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. 15 Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. 16 I hate divorce,24" says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himselfd with violence25 as well as with his garment," says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit,26 and do not break faith.”
 
This can be a difficult passage to understand.  It doesn’t help those of us who only speak English that so many of the different versions interpret this in very different ways.  I don’t know about you but Hebrew is all Greek to me and I sure don’t speak Greek and so I have to rely on the commentators who do and lots of different study materials.  But even if you don’t understand every last word of this you still get the picture that the inspired author is trying to get across.
 
You wonder why you have problems in this life.  You wonder why this country is no longer recognizable from the country we all grew up in.  As I said, there are any number of reasons why we have suffering in this world, but this one is too often over-looked.  Too often, we have suffering and pain and we feel God’s rebuke simply because we have sin in our lives and Malachi is brave enough and obedient enough to call out these particular sins as to why people are suffering unnecessarily.
 
Malachi says the overall reason is that we have broken faith but specifically in verse 11 we have broken faith by marrying the daughter of a foreign god and then in verse 14 he says we have broken faith by divorcing the wife of our youth.  Yes, this was written over 400 years before Jesus was born and it was written to people who lived thousands of miles away and in a very different culture but it might as well be addressed to the United States of 2015.
 
The people were being unfaithful.  They weren’t openly saying that they rejected God but they were living as though He didn’t exist.  Men were marrying pagan women who worshipped idols and divorce was common, occurring for no other reason than a desire for change.  (Life Application Bible notes)
Man, aren’t you glad we don’t live in those days?!  Aren’t you glad we are so much more civilized than those barbarians?  People think the Bible was written as a big book of “Don’ts” and “Thou shalt nots” designed to crush all who read it into boring and bored monks who never smile or know any enjoyment or real life when, in reality, it was written as a living and breathing owner’s manual so that you may have life and live it to the full as John 10:10 says.
In it, God says, “Here is the standard.  It was my idea to create you like this so let me lovingly show you how to do it.  No, no, no, sweet child.  That’s not it.  Let me show you again in this passage.  No, now you are just doing it wrong on purpose so let me warn you what is going to happen.  Here, do it like this and look at all the fun you will have.”
God says through Malachi in verse 11 that the people had done a detestable thing.  They desecrated the temple or sanctuary that God loves.  For us today, we are that temple.  Our bodies are temples to God.  1 Corinthians 6 says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.”  He is speaking to the religious people of the day.  These are people who went to the temple.  They prayed and they gave money to the temple like the law commanded but they were acting as if they could do anything without being punished.  Then they wondered why God didn’t bless them.
For us today, “marrying the daughter of a foreign god” would include marrying a non-Christian.  2 Corinthians 6:14 says, “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 better way of saying to God, “I don’t care what you say, do or think.  I am going to live my life like I want to” than to take in a supposedly holy ceremony before God and family and then to the marriage bed one who does not know God as Father and Savior?
How can God bless that?  He calls that a detestable thing.  You can dress it up in white dresses and conduct it in the church building and pray all day long for God to bless it but Malachi says in verse 12 that man will be cut off from the tents of Jacob, which is Malachi’s way of saying cut off from all help from God.  Proverbs 6 talks of some other things that are detestable to God.  It says, “There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: 17Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil, 19A false witness who utters lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers.”
For a believer to be married – yoked together – with an unbeliever is as disgusting and unacceptable to God as murder or lying.  It is sin and God cannot and will not bless it.
Malachi isn’t done yet so neither am I.  I don’t compare myself to the prophet in any way except that I have to think that Malachi must have been getting this word from God and he must have wanted to make sure that it was God who was ordaining his pen or pencil or rock or whatever he was using to write this down.  He must have been in conversation with God about it as he was writing, asking God for clarity and wisdom as he wrote because these were strong words.
I say I think he must have thought this because I certainly was thinking it as I prepared this message based on what God gave Malachi.  More than once I thought, “God this is strong, almost harsh.  Should I ease up a little?  But I thought about what would happen if I saw somebody driving 90 mph down a dead end road with a cliff at the end.  Would I stand on the side and quietly and gently say, “Umm, excuse me.  I don’t want to be harsh and I certainly hate to bother you.  Please don’t think I’m judging you but I’m afraid that you might want to slow down just a hair.”
No!  I would stand in the middle of the road with a huge light and I would scream at the top of my lungs, “STOP!”  Stop if you want to save your life, stop!  I see our country turning so far away from what God said is right and true.  I see the world calling what is evil good and what is good evil and I have to scream “Stop!”  We don’t have time to ease up.  Yes, I have to speak the truth in love and I will with God’s help but I will not stand silently by and watch quietly and politely as my country and this world fly in the face of what God has so plainly prescribed as right in His Word.
Malachi goes on to speak for God in verse 16.  I hate divorce,24" says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himselfd with violence25 as well as with his garment."  Now, part of that is pretty clear.  When God says He hates divorce, I think we can all get the picture.  He doesn’t say He doesn’t particularly care for it Himself or that He hates it except in the case of marital unfaithfulness or for any other reason.  It’s pretty plain.  God hates divorce.
The next part of that sentence is confusing, though.  According to the commentators it is almost impossible to translate that from the Hebrew into anything recognizable in English.  It’s sort of like trying to get from Runaway Bay to Lake Bridgeport when the 380 bridge is flooded.  You can’t get there from here.  But we can know what Malachi would say if he was writing in English and here is the gist of it.
When somebody commits bloody violence; something really heinous and horrible, rarely do they escape from getting blood on their clothes.  It gets on them.  It is obvious.  You can’t hide it.  It gets on their garments and won’t come out without a lot of scrubbing and cleaning.
God says He hates divorce because it gets all over a person.  It messes everything up.  It stains them and sometimes ruins them forever if not cleaned up.  I heard the story about a man who met Pete Rose Jr a while back.  He said at the time that Petey was a better-than-average big league prospect himself, and athletes at that stage in their careers are usually single-minded and driven. Yet Petey said something like this: "I would trade whatever future I have in big league baseball to see my parents get back together." It was as if he hadn't read the papers, didn't know the truth about his parents' marriage. Pete, Sr. had such an incredible reputation for chasing women, and such nasty, impossible-to-take-back things had been said by each about the other, that no one would give two cents for the possibility of any civility, let alone a reconciliation. And with Pete, Sr., remarried, there's no chance and yet that is the one thing his son wanted. (Jerry Jenkins, Hedges, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1989, p. 128.)
God hates divorce not because He is a big ol’ meanie-head trying to keep us from having fun but because He loves us and He knows what divorce does to a person, a child, a community and a nation.  God knows what happens when we deviate from the pattern of one man and one woman brought together by God forever.
 He loves us too much to allow us to keep on driving in the wrong direction so He gave us passages like this in the little book of Malachi and while this is a somber passage with a harsh tone there is Good News.  There is Good News even for those who have done just what Malachi is warning against.  The good news of the Good News – the Gospel – is that it is life-changing.  In fact, if your life didn’t change then you didn’t receive the Gospel.
The Good News of Jesus Christ can not only change your life, it can wash your garments clean.  Isaiah 1:18 says, “"Come now, let us settle the matter," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”  God can be harsh when He has to but He is love and He loves to show grace and mercy and His greatest joy is forgiving a repentant sinner and restoring what Satan has taken away.
The book of Revelation is also a book that shows that God can be harsh but also shows the reward for believers.  In chapter 19 verse 8 it says, "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready." 8It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. 9Then he said to me, "Write, 'Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.'"
Is your name written in the guest book?  Is your name in the Lamb’s book of life?  Those are pretty ways of asking if there has ever been a time in your life when you have asked Jesus to be Lord of your life and to come in and forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.  The reward in this life is a full life, filled with joy and peace but also the assurance of life eternally in Heaven with Jesus as His beloved bride.
Lay down all your sins, all your cares and all your failures at His feet today and He will change your life and make you sparkle like the diamond He created you to be.

Monday, June 22, 2015

“What a Woman Needs In a Husband”- Ruth


How many of you had a Rubik’s Cube when you were younger?  How many don’t know what that is?  How many of you were able to solve it…without cheating?  I remember working on mine and starting to feel like I was getting the hang of it.  I finally got one complete side done and felt so good about myself…until I started working on the next side.  You know how it was.  Every time you moved one piece it messed up the part you had done and you couldn’t remember how you got it there.  It was so frustrating!

So, at this point you had two choices.  You could either keep working on it, getting more and more frustrated and never seeming to make any real progress or you could pitch the thing in the trash or at least a drawer and never try it again.  All the while some nerd on YouTube is doing it one-handed and blind-folded in 26 seconds.  It’s one of those things that you know is possible but you just can’t seem to figure it out.

Now, how many of you married men out there sometimes feel like you must have married a Rubik’s Cube?  You start to get the hang of her after a while and feel pretty good about yourself and then everything changes.  It feels like every time you do something you mess something else up and then you can’t remember how you did it right.  It’s so frustrating and now you have the same two choices to make.  Do you keep blindly working at it getting more and more frustrated or do you just quit?

Well, just like you can go to certain websites and they will walk you through solving a Rubik’s Cube by showing you how to do it, you can also go to the Owner’s Manual, God’s Word, to see what a woman needs in a husband.  But just like those websites won’t do it for you and you have to do the work and put some effort into it, the Bible won’t do it for you either.

I’ve said for the last two weeks that if you didn’t know that marriage was God’s idea you would think it crazy that a man and a woman are supposed to marry and live together.  We are so different and yet we know that it can be done.  We see it all the time.  We just have to figure it out.  Thankfully, God has given us numerous examples of how to do it in the Bible.  Today, I want us to look at one of the most beautiful love stories ever written.

Just like last week when we looked at what a man needs in a wife from the story of Isaac and Rebekah, there are some considerably different cultural issues to deal with in the story of Ruth and her kinsman-redeemer Boaz.  The book of Ruth is a short one – only 4 chapters – but we unfortunately don’t have time to read the whole thing so I’ll fill you in on some of the main points while you go ahead and turn to chapter 2.

The story of Ruth and Boaz begins when Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, return to Bethlehem from Moab where they had been living. Naomi’s husband and both sons, one the husband of Ruth, had died, leaving the women penniless and without a male protector.  Upon arriving in Bethlehem, Ruth goes to gather some grain in a field so they would have something to eat.

There was no Social Security or Welfare or anything like that.  In those days, if you didn’t work or have somebody to provide for you, you would starve.  So, the first thing Ruth does is go grocery shopping.  Let’s read how she did that and what happened in Ruth chapter 2:1-16. 

Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.” Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!” “The Lord bless you!” they answered. Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?” The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.” So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.” 10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?” 11 Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” 13 “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.” 14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.” When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. 15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. 16 Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”

I said earlier that there was no Welfare or anything like that but there was a law of the land that said a field owner could not harvest every square inch of his field.  He had to leave the corners and anything that might fall so that those in need might be able to go behind and pick up some scraps.  That is exactly what Ruth was doing and yet we see here that Boaz was doing more than just following the law when it came to her.

I’ll be honest and tell you that when I first started preparing this message, I was going to go the same basic route as I did last week with the story of Isaac and Rebekah.  I was going to go verse by verse and pull out illustrations of where Boaz was generous (verse 8), comforting (like in verse 13), protective and trustworthy and on and on and on to show what a woman needed in a husband.

But I was reminded of the verse that sums all of this up; a verse that is wonderfully illustrated by Boaz and by Isaac and by Abraham and by my dad and by so many of you married men here today.  Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”  Repeat.  Guys, do you know what a woman needs in a husband? 

Oh, she may want a lot of things.  She may want clothes and jewelry and a nice car and those are not bad for her to have.  She may even say that all she needs is the basics, just food, clothes and shelter.  But there may come a time when even those basic things are going to be too much for you to provide.  The Bible, by the way, never says that those things are necessary.  The Bible never says that what a woman needs in a husband is one who gives her stuff.

What a woman needs in a husband is one who loves her like Jesus loves the church.  She needs a man who will model Jesus to her and to the family at all times; a man who will MAKE THE CHOICE to love her even when the world says it’s ok to divorce her; a man who will sacrifice himself and his career and his dreams and desires for the good of his wife, not necessarily giving in to her wishes but sacrificing his wishes for her good.

In Matthew 26:39 Jesus is praying to the Father and says, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”  At this point Jesus didn’t want to sacrifice Himself for the good of the church.  He didn’t feel like it.  Nobody was forcing Him and nobody could blame Him for not wanting to give His own perfect life for the sake of people who may or may not accept Him.  But He made the choice to be obedient.  He made the choice to love His bride, the church, and all people by sacrificing Himself for our sake.

That’s what a woman needs and I would argue that is the only thing she really needs because in that kind of love is everything that Boaz was and so much more.  A woman doesn’t need a man who tries to be comforting and protective and generous.  She needs a man who acts like Jesus acts because all that is included in it.  She may want a man who is tall, dark and handsome but what she needs is a man who looks like Jesus.

She needs a man who leads her to have a closer walk with Jesus; a man who leads her to church; leads her to tithe, do missions and act morally even when nobody else sees.  She needs a man who says, “Turn off that TV.  We don’t need to be watching that station or that show.”  She doesn’t need a man who looks like Magic Mike or acts like Fifty Shades of Filth in the bedroom.  She needs a man who will lead her passionately in every aspect of life in a way that is honoring to her and ultimately to God.

Look at verses 11-12 again of Ruth 2.  Boaz tells Ruth, “12 May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”  Boaz sees her value, and not only comments on it but Boaz is actually the answer to his own prayer.  He protects her and takes care of her like Jesus takes care of His beloved.

In Luke 13:34, Jesus says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”  Psalm 91:4 says, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.”  Men, that is what a woman needs in a husband.  A godly husband will make the choice to protect his wife from anything that might harm her physically, emotionally or spiritually.

He will always make the choice to be faithful to her even if she is not faithful to him just like Christ is faithful even when His church is not.  I have heard it said that marriage will teach you loyalty and patience and selflessness and lots of other things you wouldn’t need if you weren’t married.  That may or may not be true but a woman needs a husband with those qualities and those are all qualities modeled by Jesus.

Now, ladies, you can have the perfect, most biblical and godly husband in the world but your marriage will not work if you don’t do the other part that Paul talks about in Ephesians 5.  He says in verses 22-23, “22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

If you have never read that or heard that before then please wait to throw things at me until you have thought this through prayerfully.  A woman is not second-best or inferior or less-than in any way.  She wasn’t in the case of Adam and Eve or Isaac and Rebekah or in your marriage.  A man is not to rule over her or take advantage of her or take her for granted.  That’s the whole point of this message.  A man is to love his wife like Jesus loves us.

I’ve been saying that a man will make the choice to love his wife.  The kind of love that Jesus shows is agape love.  Agape love is the kind of love that makes the choice to love.  Jesus had a choice.  He made the right choice at His own expense…and it hurt.  But it was worth it.

Dr. M. Scott Peck said, “True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision.”  James Packer said, “The Greek word agape (love) seems to have been virtually a Christian invention -- a new word for a new thing.  Agape draws its meaning directly from the revelation of God in Christ. It is not a form of natural affection, however intense, but a supernatural fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). It is a matter of will rather than feeling. It is the basic element in Christ-likeness.” Your Father Loves You, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986.

This leads me right into a good way to close this message.  I will close with this question.  How do we do this?  How can we love with the kind of love that Jesus showed?  How can we possibly continue to make the choice, day after day and year after year to love someone who may or may not deserve it or even love us in the same way?

That last quote gives us the answer.  It is a supernatural fruit of the Spirit.  Galatians 5:22 says that the first fruit of the Spirit is love.  That kind of love can only manifest itself when the Spirit is living and working in that person’s life.

Remember the Rubik’s Cube?  It is possible to not know what you are doing and to keep trying real hard and it is possible that you might solve that problem.  It’s the same with marriage.  Without the Spirit it is possible to survive a marriage until death do you part but the kind of sacrificial love that Jesus shows for His church and the kind of love that a woman needs in a husband can only be found in someone with a personal relationship with Jesus.

Church membership might help a marriage.  Being a good and moral person might help a man be who a woman wants.  But only the agape love of God, given as a gift by His Spirit can make a man really be the husband a woman really needs.  If you don’t have that relationship; if you have never asked Him for forgiveness for your sin and then repented of that sin, and traded your guilt for peace and your shame for joy then do that today.  Today is the day of salvation and today is the day for renewed marriages.

 

Invitation. 

 

I understand if you might have a hard time taking marriage advice from me.  Hopefully it is obvious that everything I have said today, I have taken from the Bible.  But indulge me just a second to tell you this just from me.  Tomorrow, June 22, will be the fifth anniversary of my divorce being final.  It’s ironic how I couldn’t remember anniversaries when I was married but now I can’t forget them.

It was 5 years ago and I regret it every single day.  I have told you before that it was not my idea.  I didn’t want it.  I didn’t file for it.  But every single day I regret that it happened and I know that she does too.  I regret that we didn’t make the right choice.  So, Todd’s advice:  do whatever it takes to continue to make the choice to love your spouse just as Jesus loves us.  You won’t regret it.

Monday, June 15, 2015

“What a Man Needs In a Wife” – Genesis 24


The Perfect Story: There was a perfect man who met a perfect woman.  After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding.  Their life together was, of course, perfect.  One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve this perfect couple was driving along a winding road when they noticed someone at the roadside in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help. There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys.  Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle. Soon they were driving along delivering the toys. Unfortunately, the driving conditions deteriorated and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident.  Only one of them survived the accident. Who was the survivor?

Answer: The perfect woman.  She's the only one that really existed in the first place.  Everyone knows there is no Santa Claus and there is no such thing as a perfect man.

A Male's Response: So, if there is no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the perfect woman must have been driving.  This explains why there was a car accident.

Now, how many of those perfect women do we have here today?  Guys, this would be a perfect opportunity to point at your wife and say she is perfect.  I mean, we all know you’re lying but it will make her feel good.  So, again, how many perfect women here?  Good, good!  Now, next week we are going to see what a woman needs in a husband but today I want us to see what a man needs in a wife and thankfully it is not perfection.

Also, what a man needs in a wife can be and usually is different than what he might say he wants.  If you want to know what a man wants in a wife then you can just google that but I don’t really recommend it.  I’m sure not everything that pops up will be appropriate.  But if you want to know what a man needs in a wife, there is no better place to turn than to the Bible.

We saw last week that marriage is God’s idea.  He likes it and He blesses it when it fits the pattern He created for it.  He also knows what men and women need better than anybody else since He is the Creator of all things and He has written the owner’s manual.  The good news is that Psalm 37:4 says that if you delight in the Lord He will give you the desires of your heart.  He will actually give you the desires that He wants you to have.  Matthew 6:33 says to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.

Knowing what God wants you to have and then pursuing that makes God happy and you can expect to have a healthy relationship when it is based on what God wants for you not just what you want.  The Bible is filled with information about how men and women should be and act but I have a favorite story that gives a great illustration of what a man needs in a wife and the Bible makes it plain that it is God that is bringing the two together.

Turn once again to Genesis to find a fascinating story but also a great example of what God can and will do when a man and a woman are obedient to His Word.  We mentioned last week the story of Isaac and Rebekah when we talked about marriage being God’s idea.  Let’s read part of that story in Genesis chapter 24.  I say we will read only part because it is a long chapter and it actually repeats itself when the main character, Eliezer, retells the story.  So, we don’t have to read the whole chapter to get the whole story.

If you want to follow along, and I hope you do, it is on page 16 of most of the Bibles in the pew.  I want to read 4 different sections – verses 10-19, 50-51, 55-58 and 61-67.  I will sum up the story up until now real quickly so that you will better understand what is going on.  You might remember that God told Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation which would become Israel but God made Abe wait to have a child until he was 100 years old and his wife Sarah was 90.

When we talk next week about what a woman wants and needs I think the first thing she doesn’t want is to have a baby when she is 90!  But that, too, was God’s idea and she gave birth to Isaac.  Skip forward about 40 years and Isaac has not married and so the promise to Abraham seems, once again, to be in jeopardy.  But God, in His perfect timing, sets the stage for a wonderful, romantic story to fulfill His promise to old Abe.

I, personally, prefer the Old Testament stories where the good guy gets to kill a thousand bad guys and heads go flying and swords are bloody but if you like a chick flick, you will probably like this story.  The main character and unlikely hero of the story is Abraham’s servant, Eliezer, who Abe sends off to find a wife for Isaac.  That’s where we pick up with Eliezer leaving Abraham, his master, to go on a long trip to find just the right woman for his boss’s son.

Genesis 24:10-19  10 Then the servant left, taking with him ten of his master’s camels loaded with all kinds of good things from his master. He set out for Aram Naharaim and made his way to the town of Nahor. 11 He had the camels kneel down near the well outside the town; it was toward evening, the time the women go out to draw water.  Then he prayed, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13 See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. 14 May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.” 15 Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. 16 The woman was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever slept with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again. 17 The servant hurried to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water from your jar.” 18 “Drink, my lord,” she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink. 19 After she had given him a drink, she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels too, until they have had enough to drink.”

Verses 50-51 50 Laban and Bethuel answered, “This is from the Lord; we can say nothing to you one way or the other. 51 Here is Rebekah; take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has directed.”

Verses 55-58  55 But her brother and her mother replied, “Let the young woman remain with us ten days or so; then you may go.” 56 But he said to them, “Do not detain me, now that the Lord has granted success to my journey. Send me on my way so I may go to my master.” 57 Then they said, “Let’s call the young woman and ask her about it.” 58 So they called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?” “I will go,” she said.

And 61-67 61 Then Rebekah and her attendants got ready and mounted the camels and went back with the man. So the servant took Rebekah and left. 62 Now Isaac had come from Beer Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev. 63 He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. 64 Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel 65 and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?” “He is my master,” the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself. 66 Then the servant told Isaac all he had done. 67 Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

Now, once you get past some wildly different cultural issues like parents picking the spouse and camels as part of the wedding party, you still have a story that is pretty incredible on several levels.  Unfortunately, we don’t have time to dwell on some of the major issues like the sovereignty of God or the provision of God.  But we can easily see some important illustrations of what a man needs in a wife from this passage.

It is important to see, though, that God has brought these two together.  Is there any doubt about that?  Could it be just coincidence or good luck or good karma that the perfect helpmate for Isaac would be immediately found so easily?  Of course not.  I say it was immediate and easy.  If you look at an Old Testament map you can see that Eliezer had to go about 400 miles to find her.  It would have taken a caravan like this probably close to a month to reach Nahor so you can see why Eliezer prayed he would find just the right one.

It’s not like running down to Allsups to pick up a loaf of bread and if you get the wrong one you can just return it.  Eliezer realized this and so he asked God to provide just the right one and to make it obvious and it is obvious that God did just that.  It is God’s idea that people should marry but He wants to be the one Who brings them together.  When God brings two people together, He has an ideal that we should emulate even today and even today we can see what God wants for man and what man needs in a wife illustrated by Rebekah.

The first virtue we see in Rebekah you may think to be old fashioned and you are right.  There’s nothing wrong with being old fashioned.  I also know that many of you have been married for years and maybe even married several times and this might not affect your marriage directly but it might affect your family and friends.  But the first thing we see about Rebekah is in verse 16.  It says she was a virgin.  Yes, it says she was beautiful but that is not so much of a virtue and while it might be what a man wants, it is not what a man needs.

But God wants and man needs for his future wife to be a virgin.  I’m reminded of the old chili commercial when I say, “When was the last time you heard a sermon talking about virginity?  Well partner that’s too long!”  We don’t talk about it much anymore or anywhere.  Safe sex is taught in schools and is allowed by parents who assume that kids are going to be kids and there is nothing they can do about it.

Well, yes, kids are going to be kids and if given the time and place they will have the opportunity.  Since the popular push for contraceptives for teens began, teenage sexual activity and pregnancy have increased almost 400% according to author and researcher Josh McDowell.  How’s that safe sex curriculum working out for ya?  But it’s not just because it obviously is harmful to you physically and emotionally.  There is also a huge spiritual price to pay for sexual immorality.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 says, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

So, while it’s true that kids will be kids, it is not true that there is nothing you can do about it.  You can teach them the value of God’s Word.  You can instill in them the truth and the consequences for going against that truth.  Teach them BOOCOD.  Teach them about the benefits of obedience and the consequences of disobedience.  Teach them for the benefit of their lives and of their future marriage.

This is the girl God has chosen for Isaac.  The future of the nation of Israel depends on this marriage and He chose the best for Isaac.  God wants the best for your marriage and He will most bless a marriage that starts out with two virgins.  That is God’s ideal.  That is His pattern.  It is His idea.

Not only was Rebekah a virgin, she was also very diligent.  She was persevering and hard-working. When she volunteers to water his camels in verse 19 I have to wonder if she saw that he had 10 of them.  Maybe 9 were around the corner and she didn’t see them or something.  But that’s not the way it was.  I researched it– and of course that just means I googled it – and on average, a camel drinks 30 gallons of water at a time.  I don’t know how big of a container she had but I would guess it wasn’t much more than 5 gallons.  To water 10 camels with a 5 gallon bucket would be a huge effort.  Don’t worry about trying to do the math!  It was a huge effort.

Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”  Proverbs 12:24 says, “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.” There is the story of an old mountaineer and his wife who were sitting in front of the fireplace one evening just whiling away the time.  After a long silence, the wife said: "Jed, I think it's raining. Get up and go outside and see."  The old mountaineer continued to gaze into the fire for a second, sighed, then said, "Aw, Ma, why don't we just call in the dog and see if he's wet."   Bits & Pieces, April 29, 1993, p. 3.

I mentioned last week that marriage is not a 50-50 contract.  Marriage is a ministry.  God knew that Isaac was going to need someone to minister to him; to be a helpmate to him and to be his partner.  He also knew it wasn’t going to be easy.  Marriage never is.  Marriage is no place for a woman with a “Princess Complex” who is waiting for her husband to provide her every desire while she sits at home watching Oprah and eating bon-bons. 

Turn in your Bibles to Proverbs 31 for just a second.  If you start reading at verse 10, it starts describing a wife of noble character.  Mark that place and if you haven’t read it lately, go back after church and read through there.  We don’t have time this morning but you will see that she is busy.  She is using the talents God has given her for the sake of her husband, her family, herself and the community.  God chose a wife for Isaac who was a virgin and who was diligent and we also see that she was respectful.  We see Rebekah being respectful to Isaac when she gets down from the camel and covers her face with a veil in verses 64-65.  Both were signs of respect. 

Oh, no, Pastor Todd, now you are really getting old-fashioned!”  Yes, it is old-fashioned, even more so than you might realize.  In fact, it goes all the way back to at least the Apostle Paul who said in Ephesians 5:33, However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”  I don’t do a whole lot of marriage counseling, maybe in part for the reason I don’t do a lot of hair-do counseling.  But when I do, I want to scream this verse to almost every couple.

Almost every couple that comes in could be helped if they took this verse to heart.  Paul nails it because research has shown that a woman’s greatest perceived need is to be loved and a man’s greatest perceived need is to be respected and do you know who he most wants to respect him?  His wife; the one he loves the most.  Going back to Proverbs 31, verses 11-12 say, “The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.  Proverbs 12:7 says, “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.

But Pastor, my husband doesn’t respect me!”  Well, somebody has to start it.  Are you going to be a virtuous wife with a God-blessed marriage or are you going to be a vindictive wife with a crumbling marriage?  BOOCOD!  It’s your choice.   God’s ideal for a wife is a respectful wife.  I wish we had more time but just let me add this one thing about respect.  Respect is given in private and in public.  When your husband is listening and when he is not, be respectful.

Lastly, I want us to see that not only was Rebekah a virgin, a diligent woman and a respectful woman but she was also a woman of faith.  In verses 50-51, her brothers Laban and Bethuel say this is from the Lord.  Take Rebekah and go.  Now Rebekah could have easily said no.  She could have said, “Hey, let’s check this guy out a little bit.  We don’t know him.  He might be an axe murderer.”  But in verses 57-58 she makes it plain that she has confidence in her future going with Eliezer.  She says, “I will go.”

Bible scholars would tell us that in this story Isaac is a type of Christ.  His story and this situation fit perfectly with how Christ is waiting for His bride.  He is waiting patiently for the Father to say the word and He will be united with His bride which is the church.  Paul tells the church at Corinth in 2 Cor. 11:2,I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.”

Ephesians 5 says, “ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

Matthew 25 says, “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ 10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. 11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ 12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ 13 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”

Just as we are to be a church that is pure and undefiled, relying on nothing but God and His Word and we are to be diligent, watching and waiting all the while prepared and we are to show Him the respect our Creator and Sustainer deserves, we also should be a people of faith like Rebekah, not knowing how or where but trusting in Him.  So also a man needs a wife that is known as a woman of faith.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”  It is through faith that we will see the Bridegroom Christ.  Revelation 19:7 says, “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.”

Are you ready for Him to come back and call His bride?  Matthew 24 says no one knows the hour when He will come.  Don’t wait another minute.  Come today and ask forgiveness of your sins, repent of those sins and accept His forgiveness, joy and peace as a bride without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

 

Monday, June 8, 2015

“What the Bible Says About Marriage” Part 1

How many dog-lovers do we have here this morning?  Good.  Good.  Now, how many would admit that they don’t like dogs at all?  Anybody?  Because we can have you escorted off the property if that’s the case.  I’m not putting up with that. J I have two dogs – Bo and Sara – and I love my dogs.  My dogs have been there for me through thick and thin.  They have protected me and loved me and given me attention when I needed it and left me alone when I needed that.
They are very smart.  I saw my little dog trick the big dog into getting off the couch by barking at a non-existent bad guy in the back yard.  They are very protective.  Bo saw a picture of a man on this screen here one time and got between me and him and barked and growled until he went away.  They like to play.  They like to sleep. They like to go for walks.  They like to eat.   They like to go places - all just like me.  They are perfect for me.
Well, except for a couple little things.  Ok, they’re not perfect.  Don’t tell Sara I said that.  I mean, as far as dogs they are perfect, I guess, but did you know that in all the eight years that we have been together, not one time have they ever cooked a meal for me.  I fix them something every day.  That’s just not fair, is it?
Not one time have they ever even offered to mow the lawn.  I even explained how to do it.  I showed them where the gas can is.  I offered to weedeat if they would just mow but they just look at me like I’m crazy.  Now don’t get me started about cleaning the house!  Not only do they not help but they make it worse so quickly.  I saw a sign the other day that said cleaning with dogs in the house is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos.  Isn’t that the truth?
I’ve always said I recommend dogs over kids any day but at least you can get a kid to take the trash out every now and then.  Not Bo or Sara.  But other than that they are perfect for what I need.  Well, almost perfect.  They are great listeners and they never complain but sometimes I have an idea that Sara would like to say something about how I’m dressed but she never does and I wind up looking like this or even worse.
Sometimes I would like to have somebody to tell me that I look like a goober or that not everything goes with brown boots.  But she stays quiet.  So, maybe they aren’t the absolute perfect companions but I still wouldn’t trade them for anything.  How about you?  Do you have a perfect companion?  No?  Some of you are ready to trade for a dog right now, aren’t you?  Some of you are going through some difficult times in your marriage or maybe you have had your share in the past.  How is it possible to have a good marriage?  What’s the secret?
We are starting today a four week series on marriage and I know what you are thinking right now.  “Marriage advice?  From him?  Maybe we can get some dieting tips and some shampoo recommendations as well.”  Right?  Well, don’t worry.  The title of this sermon series is, “What the Bible Says About Marriage”.  It is most definitely not, “What Todd Says About Marriage.”  So, don’t worry.  There are lots of good and bad examples all through the Bible that will help us to know how to make the best of what God has joined together and how not to let them come apart.
As you know, a building is only as good as its foundation so we need to start there.  Not just what makes a good foundation for your marriage but I want to look first at what the foundation is for the institution of marriage itself.  To do this, let’s start at the very beginning.  Turn all the way left in your Bibles to the very first book – the book of Genesis - and turn to chapter two.
If you are a seamstress or if you like to sew and make things at all, you know that it is important to have a good pattern to go by.  If you lose that pattern and go by something else for your new dress, you will probably be alright once or twice but the further you get away from that original pattern the more the end result will suffer.  Know what I mean?  Too many marriages today just get eyeballed when it comes to knowing what makes them really work.  People who don’t know the original foundation or pattern for marriage often wind up making a mess of it.
So, let’s read Genesis 2:18-24 and let’s see what the original pattern was for marriage and I hope you will first see that marriage… was God’s idea.  Genesis 2:18-24.
 18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” 19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Now, I don’t know if it’s true but I heard that Adam was created before Eve to give him a chance to say something.  That may or may not be true but in this passage we see that Adam is naming all the animals.  Why do you think he is naming the animals?  Have you ever thought about it?  Well, obviously, they needed to be named but it doesn’t say that Adam named the trees or the flowers or the mountains; just the animals.
For the Hebrews to whom this was originally written, they would understand that not only did things need to be named but that naming something gives a sense of ownership or dominion over something.  Just like when an astronomer finds a new planet, he gets to name it, so it is with the naming of these animals.  Adam doesn’t own them but he is doing as God told him to do and he is having dominion over them.
But that is not the main reason for this parade of critters that went by in front of Adam.  Notice the context.  God says in verse 18 that it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone so God sent the animals to be named.  Obviously, it was God’s idea that Adam see all the different animals with the expectation that Adam would see that all the animals were different than he was and that they all had mates that were similar to them.
It’s just my imagination but I think at the end of the animal parade and naming, Adam sat there for a little while longer thinking about how Mr. Gorilla has Mrs. Gorilla and Mr. Zebra had Mrs. Zebra but he didn’t have what they had.  He didn’t have a helper or friend or an equal.  So, when that thought had gone through Adam’s mind God put Adam to sleep and in my Bible it says that God took one of Adam’s ribs.  A better rendering of that would be that God took a part of his side but it’s not a big deal to know exactly what was taken.  It is more important to think about why it was taken.
Why do you think God made woman from Adam’s rib?  He made man from dust and spoke the universe into existence but he took the extra step of giving Adam an Ambien to help him sleep (J) and then doing surgery on him to create the woman.  Commentator Adam Clark explains it this way, “God could have formed the woman out of the dust of the earth, as he had formed the man; but had he done so, she must have appeared in his eyes as a distinct being, to whom he had no natural relation. But as God formed her out of a part of the man himself, he saw she was of the same nature, the same identical flesh and blood, and of the same constitution in all respects, and consequently having equal powers, faculties, and rights. This at once ensured his affection, and excited his esteem.”
I bet his esteem was excited!  I love to look at animals.  A beautiful deer or a majestic lion or a colorful peacock are incredible to view but I have an idea that when Adam woke up and saw Eve his eyes sparkled.  I bet he hand-brushed his hair real quick, sucked in his gut a little bit and made a bee-line in her direction.  The scripture says that Adam said she was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.  I have to wonder, though, if that was the very first words out of his mouth.
I have to think it was more like, “Hey there!  Come to this garden often?”  Or something like that and then Eve rolled her eyes. But before we go off spending time on the world’s first pickup lines, I want us to see a couple of things that will help us know more about the foundation of marriage and this is important to know because without the right foundation a marriage will not be pleasing to God or even recognized by God as marriage at all.
The first thing we need to see from this passage regarding the foundation of marriage is that it is God’s idea.  In verse 18 God said it was not good that Adam be alone and so God set the ball rolling as was His plan all along.  It was God’s idea that Adam met Eve.  It was God’s idea to create Adam to want and need to not be alone.  It was God’s idea that Eve would come to be part of Adam in what we call marriage.
That brings up the question then of “What is marriage?”  The dictionary says it is a broad term to describe any of the diverse forms of interpersonal union.  I know less about marriage after reading that than I did before.  The Bible doesn’t define marriage like that.  It illustrates it.  The way the Bible illustrates marriage is God bringing two unique and different but similar people together to be help-mates. 
  “I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.” (George Burns) “I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” (Rita Rudner)  Almost no subject you can think of gets made fun of as much as marriage does and yet almost everybody does it at least once (that “at least once” is a sermon for another day) and way too many of them just don’t work.  Why is that?
Well, the Bible is showing us what is required for a God-blessed marriage.  Do you want to have a God-blessed marriage?  Of course you do.  Does it require a fancy wedding in a church?  Adam and Eve didn’t have a wedding.  In Genesis 24 Isaac and Rebekah were considered married when they went into the tent.  Weddings are cultural and differ even today all over the world.  What God blesses is when he brings two people together who obey the law of the land and are married legally and in the eyes of God Himself.
So – BOOM! – that brings up lots of questions, right?  What about two people of the same sex?  If the Supreme Court rules that same-sex marriage is legal in this country – which, unfortunately, I expect them to do maybe even this summer, then does that make a God-blessed marriage?  Well, what does the Bible teach about homosexuality?  There are many passages but just a quick read of Romans 1, for example, would make it clear that God says that is a sin.
God is not going to bless a “marriage” that is between two people who practice homosexuality or between an adult and a child or between a person and an animal.  Those are not what God used to illustrate marriage in Genesis 2.  Look at it like this.  I told you about my dogs.  I love my dogs and they love me and I believe they are God’s gift to me, without a doubt.  But are they perfect help-mates for me?  Do they conform to the pattern of God’s design for marriage?  No.
I don’t doubt for a second that two men or two women could love each other.  I also believe that God makes people just like they are and that sometimes a person may feel attracted to another person of the same sex.  Does that mean God will bless a union like that? No.  The Bible is clear about that whether you want to accept it or not.  You don’t have to act on your desires.
“But that’s not fair!”  No, it’s not but there are many situations even in a God-blessed marriage that won’t be fair.  You may have heard that marriage is a 50-50 contract.  That’s not true.  For a marriage to work both partners have to give 100%.  That’s not fair but it’s true.  I heard somebody say the other day that marriage is a ministry.  When you say, “I do” you are saying “I am now the minister to you.  I am your help-mate.  I am your partner, not your slave or master or your benefactor.  I am your minister.”
Is that what you signed up for?  If not, then it’s not too late to start your ministry to your spouse.  I talked to a couple just last night who had been married for 40 years.  I asked them the secret to a long marriage.  The wife immediately said, “Endurance!” to which the husband readily agreed.
I thought 40 years of “endurance” doesn’t sound like a life I want for my dogs, much less myself.  Years ago when I was in my early twenties, the girl I was dating asked me to her family reunion.  Everybody was there; uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandma and grandpa.  It was a good time with lots of food and everybody was laughing and in a good mood as we sat around after dinner.  The conversation slowed for just a second after we had all been laughing about something and one of the kids said with a smile, “Grandpa, if you had to do it all over again, would you?”
With no smile at all, Grandpa said, “No.”  The room got kind of quiet and uncomfortable so the girl tried again.  You know, Grandpa, I mean you have all your family and all those memories.  You have all of us.  Wouldn’t you do it all again if you had to?”
Grandpa just sat there with a serious look and said, “No.  It was just too hard.”
If I were God, I would have made people differently.  I would have made them more independent, not needing other people as much as they do but God, in His infinite and sovereign wisdom made people to be very social and for men and women to need each other as help-mates and if you want your marriage to work and to last and to do more than just be a test of endurance; a marriage that is worth it then you have to start off with the right pattern.
Even marriages with two opposite sex, loving Christians are going to be difficult and labor-intensive because it is two people living together and I know that sounds crazy but it is how God planned it to be.  It is His idea and He has a pattern for what it should look like.  Some smart alec said that marriage is God’s way of keeping people from fighting with strangers but that is not the pattern.  That is not the intent.
God wants to bless your marriage but it has to follow His pattern and while I know lots of “un-Christian” marriages make it to the end, if you want to truly be blessed in your marriage and in your life, God has to be the center of it.  It is a rare marriage that won’t make it with two people who have Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
For the sake of your marriage; for the sake of your eternity repent of your sins and ask God to be the center of your life not just your Sunday morning obligation.  His Word says that whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.  Do it right now.