©2002 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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2/10/02 |
To Love and Honor |
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2/10/02 To Love and Honor
We have been studying the New Testament book of Romans.
But we are going to take a one or two week break from that study
to do something that is
sort of in honor of Valentines Day.
At least, Valentines Day has provided me
with the excuse I needed to do it.
I would like to use our time this morning
to talk about marriage.
Most of us here this morning
either are,
or have been,
or will be married at some time in the future.
And, for most of us,
the marriage relationship
is the one relationship
that will impact our lives
more profoundly, more deeply
than all the other relationships in our lives put together.
It was the very first institution given to man by God following the creation of Adam.
Loosely translated,
the Book of Genesis tells us
that God took one look at Adam following his creation
and said, “This guy needs help!”
And to help him God created Eve,
and through her the marriage relationship.
The marriage relationship is the foundation upon which
God chose to structure the entire human race.
And, when we get to the New Testament writings,
we find that
when God selected the one relationship
in all of human experience
that best illustrated the kind of relationship that exists
between Jesus Christ and the Christian
He chose marriage.
There are a number of powerful reasons why that parallel between Christ and His people
and the husband and the wife works so well,
but I believe that one of the most important reasons is because,
when the marriage relationship is working as God designed,
it becomes the one place in life
where we dare to let another human being know us both deeply and honestly,
with the hope that we can find ourselves accepted and loved by our marriage partner in the face of that knowledge.
And that, of course,
is exactly what God offers us through Christ -
a relationship with Him
in which we are known absolutely,
and then loved and accepted eternally in that knowledge.
Does that description of marriage sound like “preacher talk”?
Nice words preachers say
that really have no roots in reality?
For some of you
marriage has been exactly the opposite.
It has been the place where you have had to cope with the deepest rejection you’ve ever known.
For some of the rest of you
the thought of risking being known deeply by your marriage partner
has never entered your mind.
You’re not shooting for deep knowledge.
You’re just trying to hold the thing together.
Let me say right up front
that I am in no way blindly idealistic
about marriages in our society.
Healthy marriages never just happen,
and even when two people hold the building of a strong marriage
as a high priority in their lives,
it is sometimes difficult to know how to go about doing that.
I also have no illusions
about my being able to “teach” us into great marriages in 35 or 40 minutes on Sunday morning.
But at the same time
I also know that,
though building a good marriage is not always easy,
it is also not nearly as complicated as we sometimes allow ourselves to believe.
There are just a few foundational principles
that, if applied,
can set the direction
for everything else that happens in the marriage relationship.
This morning I would like to share with you
what I believe to be
the most important of those principles.
When Sandee and I had been married
just a year or two
I was asked to speak at a Valentines Banquet.
At that banquet I talked about the profound impact
Sandee’s entrance into my life had made,
and I shared a few of the principles
the two of us were discovering
that were helping us grow
in our relationship with one another.
Following that Banquet
I recall a person saying to me,
“Ya, well, we’ll see what you’re saying after you’ve been married for 20 years.”
I got the feeling that person
didn’t have a particularly happy marriage.
Sandee and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last October 16th,
and I very much wish the person who made that comment
could be with us this morning
because the past 25 years
have only validated
what I hoped and believed to be true so long ago.
Now, in order to get us where I want us to go this morning,
we will need to start
by taking a giant step backward
and getting a run at it.
You see, I believe the first big step
in building a strong marriage
is to understand the basic question
everyone who marries
is trying to answer through the marriage relationship.
If I were to ask each of you who are married
why you got married
most of you would say something like,
“Well, because I fell in love.”
Or “Because I felt like I just couldn’t go on without having this person beside me.”
If you would have asked me that question 25 years ago
I think I would have said something like,
“I got married because when I met Sandee I felt like I met the other half of me. I felt like I met my female self.”
But, after thinking about this for the past 25 years,
I believe now that there is a far more significant reason why we marry,
a reason we never put into words,
but a reason that is a far more powerful force
than any of the emotions or love feelings involved in most marriages.
I believe we marry
in an attempt to find the answer
to the second most significant question in life,
and most of us marry the person
that we think has the best possibility of giving us the answer we long for.
The most significant question in life
is, “Who is God and what is He really like?”
Even if we never think about that question consciously,
we all come up with an answer to it.
And the answer we come up with
will determine the ultimate course of our lives.
But the second most significant question each of us faces
is, “Who am I and why do I have value and significance?”
Now, you may think that sounds very philosophical,
and very much out of touch
with where most of us live in the real world.
When you think about the people you work with,
or go to school with,
or live with,
you honestly can’t even imagine any of them
asking themselves, “Now who am I, really? And why do I have significance?”
But the truth is,
even though we may never put it into words,
everyone of us is asking that question
every day of our lives.
A little known fact about my ancient history
is that during the first few months of our married life
I worked as an apprentice electrician out on the North Road.
It was all oil related industrial stuff, of course,
and in my brief history as an industrial electrician
I worked on several different crews
with a number of different men.
And every time a new crew was formed
for the first few days of that crew’s existence
everyone on it was busy figuring out where they fit on that crew.
Who had to always be “right”?
Who was really running things?
Who could be relied upon?
Who would always get out of work if possible?
Who had integrity?
Who always seemed to get your tools mixed up with their’s?
I remember one fellow I worked with
would hit certain points in our projects
where he would say, “I don’t do that!”
There were certain things
that he considered to be beneath him,
and unacceptable for someone with his experience.
And every time that process went on with each new crew,
do you know what question everyone of us was asking?
“Who am I and what kind of significance do I have?”
And we all answered that question
by watching closely how the other men responded to us
and how we responded to them.
Some of you here this morning
are still in school.
You know exactly what I’m talking about.
Every kid in school
knows exactly were they fit
and where they don’t
and they have answered those questions
by looking around at their fellow students,
asking them (without words), “Who do you think I am?
Where do you think I fit?”
Now, we come into this world
having to find our own answers
to both of these questions,
“Who is God and what is He like?”,
and “Who am I and why do I have significance?”,
because we all come into this world
separated from the One who could have told us the answers - God Himself.
Because of our heart rebellion against Him,
we each enter this world
separated from God
and unable to hear His voice personally.
He created us,
He alone can tell us who we are,
why we have value,
and who we were designed by Him to be.
But, because we cannot hear His voice,
from the first day of our creation
we enter into a desperate search
to answer those questions
so that we can then find some peace with ourselves
and some direction and solid ground for our life.
And of course we turn to our fellow human beings
in order to find the answers we seek.
Depending on where we find ourselves in human society,
we use all sorts of techniques
to attempt to affirm our own significance.
We may seek to accumulate wealth and possessions,
we may try to conquer and control those around us,
we may join a street gang
or seek admittance to the young millionaires’ club.
Because we have been created in the image of God,
and because we are eternal beings,
we know deep inside that we have tremendous individual significance,
but, because we cannot hear the voice of our Creator on a personal level,
we don’t know why.
And so we turn to those around us
for the validation our spirit longs for.
And for most of us
by far our most significant attempt
to find that validation we long for
is through entering into a lifetime commitment to one other human being through marriage.
I know we commonly allow ourselves to believe
that we marry the person we love.
But the truth is
we marry the person whom we believe will love us,
and through that love will then affirm for us
our own value and significance as a human being.
When we marry
what we are really saying to our partner is this,
“I am going to live with you
everyday for the rest of my life.
I’m going to let you see me
more closely,
more deeply than any other human being in this world.
And then, on the basis of that knowledge of me,
I need to have you tell me who I am.
And please, please tell me I’m someone who matters.”
Now, I certainly don’t mean to suggest
that this need for acceptance,
and affirmation,
and love from our marriage partner
is all the result of our separation from God.
God created the marriage relationship
and placed it at the center of the human race
long before Adam ever sinned.
It wasn’t his sinfulness
that created within him his need for his mate.
We are designed in the image of our God,
and as such designed to give and receive love.
But even though our rebellion against God
didn’t create our need for marriage,
it did complicate it in two huge ways.
The first I’ve already mentioned -
our separation from God created within us
a desperation to find some other human being
who will know us deeply
and on the basis of that knowledge
then affirm our value and significance.
And second,
because we are all sinful human beings,
each with our own deposits of personal corruption within us,
our rebellion against God
turned marriage into a terrifying game of hide and seek.
Do you know that fascinating statement in Genesis 2:25, talking about Adam and Eve before they sinned?
It says, And the man and his wife were both naked and
were not ashamed.
Have you ever wondered about that?
There is a lot more happening in that statement
than just the fact that they didn’t wear any clothes in the Garden of Eden.
God is telling us that they were not just naked physically,
they were naked mentally,
and emotionally,
and psychologically as well.
Because there was no sin within them
they had nothing to hid from one another.
But for us it isn’t that way.
The thought of another human being looking inside us
is a terrifying thought.
On the one hand
we desperately want our marriage partner to know us deeply and honestly
and to affirm us on that basis.
Being accepted by them
only on the basis of the carefully crafted external facade we have created
has no power to heal and to affirm.
That kind of acceptance has no power to answer the question.
We urgently want our mate to go past the facade,
past the image,
and to know us as we really are.
But on the other hand,
we live in fear of what will happen
when or if they discover within us
some of those rotten areas,
some of the corruption,
some of the still unresolved junk that’s there.
And so we hide,
and peak out,
and hide,
and peak out some more,
getting angry or frustrated at our mate
when they can’t read our mind,
and yet afraid at times
to tell them what’s really going on inside.
And if all of this sounds way too complicated and confusing,
let me just say that all I really wanted to say here so far
is that I believe the essential first step
in building a strong,
deep,
fulfilling marriage
is realizing that, under all of the other stuff that’s going one in our relationship with our marriage partner,
every day we live
we are asking one another
one simple yet crucial question -
“Do I have significance? Do I have importance? Do I have value?”
This is getting just a little off track,
but I believe it is our desperate need for a secure answer to that question
that causes sexual unfaithfulness
to be so devastating in a marriage.
Look at this remarkable thing that God has done in His design for marriage.
He knows how deeply dependant we are
on the message we receive from our mate
in determining whether or not we really have value as human beings.
And to help in our communication of that message
He designs this special experience
exclusively for the marriage relationship.
And the very fact that we promise each other in marriage
that we will never share this experience
with any other human being
provides us with a powerful positive validation of our significance.
Here is this other human being
who is giving me a position of importance and value in their life
above every other human being in the world.
But if our partner
then turns around and shares that level of intimacy with someone else,
it utterly destroys their ability
to communicate the message we so desperately long to here.
It isn’t just that trust has been destroyed
and vows have been broken,
it’s that whereas once our partner
was saying to us through the physical relationship,
“I view you alone as the most significant and important person in my world,”
now that message has been replaced with our partner communicating the emotional message,
“The truth is, any warm body will do.”
And it comes as a powerful attack
at that very fragile struggle for self-acceptance going on within us.
We’re about out of time for the morning,
and all I’ve really done so far
is to lay the groundwork
for what we’ll do next week.
But let me see if I can pull this together
by stating it just a little differently.
The marriage relationships that really thrive
are the ones in which,
at some level
those involved in that marriage
have learned how to mirror in their relationship with one another
the kind of relationship that God offers us through Christ -
one in which we are known honestly
and accepted completely on the basis of that knowledge.
Now I know this raises the question,
“How, then do we go about doing that successfully in marriage?”,
and next week we’ll take a look
at what God shares with us
to help us understand the answers to that question.
But let me just conclude by saying
that even what we’ve done this morning
can, I think, be of great value
if we are aware
of this question we are continually asking one another in the marriage relationship.
The more skilled we become
at hearing the underlying attitudes we are communicating to our mate with our words and actions,
the more effectively we can fulfill the role God has given us in one another’s lives.
There is a fascinating word
contained in the wedding vows
that I have used for nearly every wedding I have ever performed.
To both the Groom and the Bride I ask,
“Do you covenant to love and HONOR your mate?”
That word “honor” is a word that has never received
the kind of attention it deserves.
It means simply, “Will you choose to speak and act toward your partner
in a way that communicates to them
that they are a person of great dignity and value,
a person formed in the image of God,
a person in whom you see great and eternal value?”
It is a message we communicate most often
not with the words themselves,
but rather with the underlying attitudes behind those words.
Once the attitudes are in place
the words and the actions
will begin to fall in line.