Fireproof #3
Love for a Lifetime
TEXT - Matthew 19:3-6
In this series, called FireProof- we are talking about how to strengthen our relationships. Today I am focused on fireproofing your most important relationship: your marriage. If you’re not married, take careful notes in this message, because what you’re going to learn will make a huge difference in any future marriage, should you decide to enter into one.
This message is called “Love for a Lifetime” and that’s exactly what I pray God will inspire in you!
In the movie, Fireproof, Caleb and Catherine are starting down the road to divorce. Caleb explains to his friend, Michael that the marriage is probably through. To which Michael responds, “I’ve seen you run into a burning building to save people you don’t even know, but you’re going to let your own marriage burn to the ground.”
Watch this clip with me. (Play the Fireproof 4 clip )
In most weddings that I perform, just before I hand the rings to the bride and groom, I mention a couple of things about them.
(1) They’re round, which means they have no end. That’s the nature of marriage.
It is ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, ‘til death!’
(2) They’re made of precious metal and are costly; a symbol of the value of marriage,
worthy of great sacrifice and investment!
One time Jesus was asked about marriage. Here’s what he said.
Read Matthew 19:3-6
“Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
That’s the charge just about every pastor speaks at the conclusion of just about every wedding.
By this point, the couple is beaming. They’re about to turn and face their families and friends, as husband and wife for the very first time. In just a minute, the music will swell, the people will clap, they’ll descend the stairs and live… happily ever after. But, will they really?
At that moment I’d like to speak up and say,
“Wait, wait! Let me tell you what’s most likely to happen from here! Because reality is, while you just pledged to work through the better and worse, the richer and poorer, to stick with it in sickness and in health, it’s going to be much more difficult than either of you can begin to imagine!”
No marriage is great, all the time! That’s just not how life works. All marriages go through seasons. Like the rotation of the earth, they move through stages that are predictable. There are four of them, one following the next.
Here’s the script, followed with minor variations:
Two young people meet and fall in love. They are convinced that unlike the rest of the world, they have a picture-perfect relationship. They just know that they have something unique and special between them. Theirs is a rare love, not like the common stuff their parents’ experienced. There’s a surrealistic aura between them.
It’s magic every time they’re together, and misery every moment they’re apart. There’s such a strong chemistry
that passes between them that you’d almost be tempted to call it a chemical addiction.
The truth is that wonderful
chemicals are released in the brains of these two love-birds is addictive!
This early stage of marriage is called
∙ ROMANCE
Ever heard of it? During romance, all is right with the world. Women lose weight and men lose money. She’d rather spend time thinking about him than eating; he’d rather spend money on her than pay the rent. Romance is the season that love songs are written about. M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist who has written much about human relationships, says that this phase of love is “a prank played on us by our otherwise rational minds to trick us into doing things that we would normally never consider.”
For most of us, this romantic stage lasts between 6 months and two years. Then, one or both parties quietly sighs, “I guess the honeymoon is over.” For those of you interested in facts, psychologists tell us that romantic feelings of infatuation wear off completely, on average, about 2 ½ years into any relationship.
And then you know what you’re left with?
∙ REALITY.
In the reality stage, he sees her without make-up on. She hears his bodily noises. Conflicts are frequent as these two people work at becoming one! She realizes that the object of her pursuit, the person of her dreams, … is parked on the couch and is someone she is stuck with! That’s what the first round of reality looks like.
Author Wayne Oates writes about this stage:
All couples have friction during the first two years of marriage over several adjustments. They have to work out a mutually satisfying routine of work, sleep, social activities, and frequency and form of sexual relations.
They need to agree about how to be involved in the rituals of each other’s parental families at major holidays and family rituals. They must learn the subtleties of each other’s non-verbal behaviors and way s of communicating feelings.
They have to come to terms with their desires to change each other. And they must make explicit the unspoken and previous unconscious assumptions about marriage that they brought to their union.
– Wayne Oates: Husbands and Wives, Victor Books, 1988, p. 328.
Reality clarifies what romance conceals, and all the while that each member of the couple is seeing more clearly the other person in the relationship, there’s a realization about their own feelings slowly dawning in their minds.
After wrestling with the reality of being married, the couple reaches a crossroads. “Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away.” Being in love is what romance is all about. Reality leaves two who were once in love to discover how to choose to love for a lifetime.
Many marriages today, perish at this point, because we are so indoctrinated by our movies and media to think that romance does not fade, that sex is always great, that nobody gets so tired or sick that they aren’t pretty or nice!
Believe it or not, the next stage in almost every marriage is
∙ RESENTMENT.
She says, “Something happened to me when I wasn’t looking. Who switched husbands on me? I went to bed with George Clooney and woke up with Mike Myers.”
He says, “I thought I was marrying Julia Roberts, now I wish she really was the runaway bride.”
The object of our affection is often seen as the reason for our frustration. Our unmet expectations make us sad, even miserable, and looking for someone to blame! That person who isn’t who we thought they would be when we were blinded by romance is an easy target for our anger.
It is so easy in this season to blame the spouse for all the evils in the world, even if they are only remotely connected to the problem. (And your mother will generally agree that you could have married better!)
∙ If there are financial stresses, it’s her fault because she spends too much. Or his fault, because he makes too little.
∙ If there is friction, he started it, or she was too sensitive.
∙ We too readily say, “If there’s blame here, go look in the mirror pal, because it’s certainly not my fault.
As Caleb said in the movie clip,
“I am not a perfect person, but I’m better than most. And if my marriage is failing, it is not all my fault.”
During this resentment phase character is tested and the possibility of developing a real love emerges, really for the first time. You see, real love is not primarily a feeling, it is a choice.
It is that truth that is behind this command of the Scripture:
"As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." (Colossians 3:12-14, NIV)
If that kind of love gets practiced - God’s kind of love - one that focuses on the “we, not me” that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, if we remember that we are mutually submitted to Christ, then the relationship can enter the fourth season of marriage.
If not, a cold war may break out in your home which always has a sad conclusion:
a divorce, or equally sad,
two strangers sharing a house and calling it a marriage.
But, where Christ is at the center and the boy and girl who mistook romantic infatuation for love are ready to grow up and become a man and a woman- emotionally and spiritually- there is a great season called:
∙ REBUILDING.
He learns to accept the real woman he married, not the fairy tale princess he imagined her to be. She learns to accept him as a man who imperfect not the combination of knight and buddy she dreamed would hold her gently every night!
Don’t hear this as just settling! Rebuilding is much more than that. It is putting together a love relationship that is built on reality and on the solid foundation of God’s graciousness, His self-sacrificial kind of love.
____________________________
There are three great skills that every spouse need to be a life-long lover:
Those three great skills are:
∙ Adapting!
∙ Asking and Receiving Forgiveness!
∙ Deciding to Love!
1. Adapting to that person who is truly different from you!
I can guarantee that as you encounter situations, people, and problems in life you will respond differently than your spouse. If you’re not willing to work to understand him or her, and adapt- love will start to perish, killed by disillusionment and/or disappointment.
∙ How could he be so irresponsible?
∙ Why is she so emotional?
∙ Why doesn’t she do what I want to do?
∙ When will he start to really take care of me?
Remember you and your spouse are different, right down to the way you’re wired to respond!
She wants to be cherished. He needs to be respected!
Beyond that there are other differences that become more noticeable when the heat is on!
There are some common areas of difference that trip up many marriages. While these aren’t all always true of men or women, they’re generally true and good to be aware of:
First, we communicate differently.
Men talk in generalities; women talk in specifics.
Men tend to be in touch with their thoughts first and then their feelings;
women tend to be in touch with their feelings first and then their thoughts.
Ask a man how he feels about something and he’ll tell you what he thinks about it. Ask a woman what she thinks about someone, and she’ll tell you how she feels about them.
Second, we play differently.
Men and women have very different ideas what constitutes leisure time!
Men think they’ve earned the right to come home to their castle, draw up the drawbridge, and let the alligators swim in the moat. The last thing most men want to do at the end of the day is rehearse their day at work.
Women, both stay-at-home Moms and those with careers, like to take time to share, and share, and share.... their day’s work because it makes them feel emotionally connected to their husbands. But men hear their wives’ plea for conversation as an added demand, and often they withdraw further into silence, leaving their wives feeling isolated and unappreciated.
Third, we see our sexual relationship very differently!
Men and women appreciate sex from different perspectives.
Men tend to be physically oriented, while women tend to be relationally oriented. So after a fight, he thinks that having sex could be a great way to make up, while she wants to make up before they have sex. She needs to set the mood. He just wants an opportunity.
These differences are of heightened importance in the reality and rebuilding stages. So, if you’re going to successfully rebuild your marriage, you’re going to have to remember that you and your spouse are different and adapt accordingly.
_________________________
Another critical skill in rebuilding a marriage or even a long-term friendship is
2. Asking and granting forgiveness.
Note that this action isn’t really a skill. It doesn’t take any skill to say the words, “I’m sorry, or please forgive me.” What it takes is character!
∙ Are you sufficiently mature and secure enough to admit to yourself that you’re not perfect? When you know you’ve done your spouse wrong, are you like a child who tries to pretend everything is fine, or are you an adult who owns his/her own feelings and actions and readily says, “I was wrong, please forgive me!”?
Those words, when spoken from a sincere heart, are some of the most healing words on earth.
The Bible says: Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgive you. – Ephesians 4:32
A third skill, and maybe the most important one for lifetime love, is
3. Deciding to love and keep on loving.
Many of us in this room today think that love is a feeling. That’s not true! Love isn’t a feeling, it’s a way of life, a daily decision, a choice.
The Bible’s most famous passage on love, 1 Corinthians 13, says
"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NLT)
That’s God’s description of love. What part of that is based on emotions? None of it.
To love is a decision.
To hang in, even when “happily ever after” isn’t happening, that’s love.
To work for change together, seeking what is best for each other, that’s love.
You’ve heard me say it before, but it is a major theme in my life!
25 years from today, want to be able to say to that little old lady sitting on the other side of the dining room table: “Remember our first Christmas together? Remember when we brought our children home from the hospital? Remember those vacations…, that tragedy we weathered…, the discoveries we made during that period of our lives…?
To have the joy of long, shared life - requires a daily choice to nurture my marriage, to love, to step over hard things, to forgive and to receive forgiveness.
_______________________
Friends, all marriages go through seasons. For most people, rebuilding is a normal state. After the first round of Romance and Reality and Resentment; your marriage can come back to rebuilding your relationship. If we work the rebuilding stage sincerely, we can come back around to romance.
It might not have the same kind of fireworks or the same addictive feelings the second time around or the third time around or the fourth time around; but just like spring follows winter, like summer follows spring; marriage passes from one season to another to another, over and over again. So, let’s master the skills of communication, forgiveness, and deciding to work through our differences.
At the end of it all, we will say, “We lived mostly happily ever after.” We will bequeath a legacy of faithfulness and love to our children. Others will say, “Those two had a really good marriage.”
But most important of all, God will be pleased with our choice to love.
_______________
Are you ready for today’s challenge?
Couples, sometime this week, renew your vows to each other.
If you don’t have a copy of them, or remember what they are, I’ve supplied a sample you can use in your Message
Notes.
Men, you’re going to be nervous and probably will want to spoil the moment with some wisecrack or joke. Don’t! Make it meaningful as you really think about what you’re saying! Remember, this is covenant before God you’re reaffirming!
Ladies, you’re going to probably over-romanticize this, and be tempted to drift off into some expectation that he can’t possibly fulfil! And when he forgets to put the seat down, or pick up his coffee cup and carry it to the sink, you’re going to be tempted to resent him! Don’t! Accept him for who he is!
Those vows are sweet, tender, and possible in the best sense, only when we are each deeply loved by God, whose love teaches us to love our spouse deeply.
I, _________, take you __________ to be my wife/husband.
To have and to hold from this day forward,
For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
In sickness and in health.
To love and cherish as long as we both shall live.
After renewing your vows together, spend a few minutes praying together about your marriage.
Singles: Pick out a skill to work on:
1. Affirming differences in members of the opposite sex
2. Forgiving (we’ll have a chance to go deeper with this in two weeks.)
3. Deciding to love and keep on loving a close friend.
Will you take this challenge?
Let’s pray. (Pray for marriages in each of the seasons, for courage to rebuild, character to keep loving, courage to forgive, and creativity in honoring the differences between men and women.)
Jerry D. Scott, 2008
resourced from Outreach.com