killer marriage // marriage killer : small cracks, big ...… ·...

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Transcript January 10/11, 2015

Killer Marriage // Marriage Killer: Small Cracks, Big Problems Aaron Brockett | Ephesians 4:32-5:5

Alright, well it is good to see you today. How is everybody? If you have a Bible could you please go ahead and grab it and get to Ephesians 5. That is where we are going to be together today and for the next couple of weeks. Before we jump into that I just want to give a bit of a year-‐end update. I didn’t get a chance to do that last weekend because we had some special guests who were with us. But I wanted to give you an update on the Christmas Eve offering. If you are new around here, every year at Christmas Eve we collect an offering to give away 100 percent of it to one of our strategic partners. This year it was IJN and our Christmas Eve offering came in at $181,000, so just want to thank you for that. Thank you for your generosity. From what I understand they are going to be able to take that and use that to open up a field office to help a lot of people. I want to thank you. A number of you have come up to me and asked, “How many people did we have show up at Christmas Eve services?” This year we did four services, two on the 23rd and two on the 24th. We had over 8,700 people here in those four services. Just to give you a little context, this is how big this thing has gotten. In 2009 we had 2,000 people at Christmas Eve. How many of you were at the five o’clock on the 24th? How many of you are still bitter about it? I’ve never seen that many people in this building. This room seats about 2,600 people. We had 3,600 people in the building for the five o’clock hour. We were breaking all kinds of fire codes. It was awesome. Anywhere we had a TV monitor around the building we were huddling up chairs and people were watching. If that was you, if you didn’t get a seat in this room, I apologize for that. But I also heard a ton of stories about how many of you showed up and you saw how many people were here. You didn’t come to volunteer that hour but you went into volunteer mode. You began to serve others and a number of you gave up your seats. You said, “We’ll come back at 6:30.” If that was you I just want to thank you for that. Next year we’ll add a couple of services. But that was a great time. I also want you to know that in 2014 we ended our year well over our operating budget. You guys are the most generous church that I know of. I just want to thank you for that. And we are wrapping up our Generous Giants capital campaign this spring. If you are new around here you might not be familiar with that. But three years ago our church jumped into an 11 million dollar capital campaign. I know that because it was the very month that my daughter was born. It wasn’t very good timing – stressful. So we jumped into that and we were going to build a school in Nairobi, Kenya through that and we desperately needed children’s space here. We have about 1300-‐1500 kids that show up here every weekend. The space just wasn’t adequate for that. That whole wing over there to the south of the building and the indoor park, all of that is about a year old. That came out of a campaign that we did together as a church where we said, “We are going to raise 11 million for this.” You guys have given about 8.5 million to that so far and we’ve got a little over 2 million left to go in that. We are going to try to close that campaign down this spring. I just want to encourage you to finish that

Killer Marriage // Marriage Killer: Small Cracks, Big Problems January 10/11, 2015

Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 2

strong. If you are new around here and you didn’t get in on that you can certainly give toward Generous Giants either online or you can designate that on your check. It is important that we finish that strong so we can jump into the next season of ministry and what the Lord would have for us. Well we are in the middle of a series with sort of an ominous title. I get that – Killer Marriage//Marriage Killer. I never thought that a wedding cake and a tombstone could go together in the same image. But when our graphics people showed that to me I said, “That is awesome.” Here is the gist around the whole thing. The things that will give us a killer marriage, when neglected or ignored, will kill our marriage. I don’t know what comes to your mind when you think about the marriage relationship. I know this is tricky ground to venture out on because not everybody is married in this room, not everybody is happily married in this room. Some of you think this is way off in your future, if ever. So I know that everybody’s immediate circumstances are a little bit different. Maybe you grew up in a family where your parents modeled a really healthy marriage so you have a good perspective on it. Maybe some of you come from a broken home and there is a lot of hurt and a lot of resentment around that. Here is what I’ve come to discover. There is no such thing as a perfect marriage. If somebody looks like they’ve got a perfect marriage you just don’t know them very well. We have this continuum where there are healthy imperfect marriages and there are unhealthy imperfect marriages and all of us are kind of in between. We have a tendency as human beings to have an inordinate romanticizing of marriage thinking that if we could just find the right person then it would be smooth sailing. Or we have an inordinate resentment toward marriage and both of those things, romanticizing and resenting, can cloud our vision and understanding as to what marriage really is and the purpose behind it. So just like with a bunch of things, I was an expert on marriage until I got married. I remember as a young man thinking this is going to be awesome and if I just find the right girl then everything will be great. I can remember when I was in college I was a little bit of a hopeless romantic. So like every girl who showed an interest in me I was like, “Maybe she could be the one.” I would just kind of kill the relationship because I would just hover all the time and she would be like, “I just like you as a friend.” I’ve gotten over it. But that happened like several times and then I finally met this beautiful young lady who would become my bride. One of the things I discovered about that was that she just didn’t play any games. She was just straight up. It was just easy. I didn’t find myself straining or stretching. I found, even in some of my worst moments, that she would actually receive me and love me in that. I thought, “Well maybe she could be the one.” So we dated for a year-‐and-‐a-‐half to two years or so and we started to begin to talk about marriage. I was pretty confident. I was about 80 percent sure if I asked her the question she would say yes. So I called up her dad and I said, “Can I come over and talk to you. There is something I need to ask you.” He totally knew what it was. So he was like, “Well, I’ve got some free time in about six weeks or so.” I finally get over there and I get over to their house and I walk into the living room and it was about 8:45 or 9:00 at night. Everybody in the house went to bed and it was just the two of us in the living room. I didn’t waste any time at all. I just got right to the point. I didn’t do any small talk. I just came right out of



the gates at about 9:03 and I said, “Sir, I love your daughter and could I have your blessing to ask her for her hand in marriage?” So, skillfully, he just deflected. I mean he changed the subject. We talked about weather, and sports, and politics. When we were done exhaustively talking about every topic under the sun, we just circled back around and hit it again. I kept coming back to the question and he kept deflecting. It was beautiful. I took notes because I’ve got three daughters. I am going to do the same thing. I am not exaggerating this. Finally I got an answer out of him at 4 a.m. Now here is the thing. That is pretty impressive, isn’t it? I am going to try to beat that record. But when I finally got an answer out of him, he was, “Well I guess we’ll give you our blessing.” Now my wife has two younger sisters and they got married after us. Since then I’ve talked to their husbands, my brothers-‐in-‐law, and I said, “Hey guys, how did that conversation go with our father-‐in-‐law?” In fact both of them even came to me for advice before they went to sit down with him. I said, “Take a nap. You are going to be up all night.” Here is the thing that is so unfair. Lindsay’s middle sister, her husband, he only kept him up until 2 a.m. Then the last sister, like he had an answer by 10 o’clock. What is the deal with that? I don’t know what is going on. I thought I knew everything about marriage until I got married. I can tell you this. I am no expert on marriage. I’ve been married for about 15-‐and-‐a-‐half years and it is much more work than I ever thought it would be and it is much more rewarding than I ever thought it could be as well. Those two things go together. There is significant investment, significant work, because you have two flawed, imperfect people that are merging their lives into one. It is just inevitable we are going to hurt one another, we are going to misunderstand one another, we are going to get on each other’s nerves, but there is something much more beautiful emerging out of this relationship. I just want you to know I am hypersensitive to those of you who aren’t married, those of you who are single or widowed or maybe just going through some tough stuff. I want to just say this to you. Hang with me for the next three weeks. Because when the Bible teaches us about the marriage relationship, it does so within the context of Jesus’ relationship with us. If you hang around here for any extended period of time at all, you’ll hear me say this over and over again that marriage is a picture of Jesus and the church. Marriage is a picture of what He has done to sacrifice and to reconcile us back to Him. Over the years I have read hundreds and hundreds of books on theology but it wasn’t until I got married and became a husband, it wasn’t until I became a daddy to four little kids, that so much of that theology came to life. Here is the thing. Whenever we go to the Bible and we say, “You know what? Here is this passage of Scripture and I don’t really know if I am interested in really reading that,” or, “There is a Bible study over here and I am not really sure if I want to go to that Bible study,” or, “There is a sermon series at church on marriage. I am not really sure I want to sit through that for several weeks,” the reason why is because of our immediate circumstances. If it is too painful, if we feel like it is going to confront us, if we don’t feel like it is going to be relevant to us we dismiss it. But God’s Word has wisdom that goes so far beyond our immediate circumstances. And God wants to teach something about the marriage relationship whether you are in a good one or not, whether you are in one or not. So we are going to be in Ephesians 5 for the next three weeks together. Let me give you some context. The book of Ephesians is a short letter written to an imperfect group of people who were having some problems. The Ephesian church, at one time, was a really great, strong



church but they had come to do some really crazy things. Their behavior was sort of jumping the rails and as is the case, whenever our behavior gets a little screwy, it is because we have come to believe false things. So Ephesians is six chapters long and you can divide it evenly; three and three. In the first three chapters Paul is writing some things to us to try to help us come to right belief. Paul says, “You guys are misbehaving and the reason why is because you are believing some false things. So let me try to clarify for you what the truth is.” So in the first three chapters of Ephesians he just lays out the gospel as beautifully, and as clear, and as straightforward as you can. In fact, in the first three chapters of Ephesians, Paul says, “You don’t just have a little sin problem. You haven’t just made a few mistakes. You are dead in your sins and trespasses.” In fact dead people can’t do anything about their situation. He says, “You are dead in your sin. It is graver than you thought. But God, being rich in mercy made us alive in Jesus Christ. This isn’t anything you did for yourself so you can’t take credit for it. This is unmerited favor.” And Paul uses this word to describe what the gospel is. He says, “The gospel is a mystery,” and that word mystery means puzzling. That word “mystery” means it is sort of unknown, it is strange, and we don’t know how this works. That is because we live in a society where you get what you work for. You get what you pay for. But the gospel of grace says something dramatically different. It says you get something you don’t deserve because of what Christ did for you on a cross. He said, “That is the mysterious nature of the gospel.” So after Paul goes to great lengths to explain all that in the first three chapters of Ephesians, next he gets to practical application, especially in chapter 5. In chapter 5, Paul says, “This is how your relationships should work in light of how the gospel message has worked in your lives.” So we could say it this way. Our position in Christ should inform our practice in marriage. One thing I’ve got to be clear about today and in the next two weeks is, when I talk about marriage, when I teach on marriage and what Paul says in Ephesians 5, we are talking about a Christian marriage. I am not talking about Christian in name only. I am not talking about two people who vaguely believe that maybe there is a God. I am not talking about two religious people who get together. I am not talking about you getting married in a church building. I am talking about two people who are committed to the Lordship of Christ in their lives, two people who say, “God first, then you, then everyone else.” Two people who say, “I am striving to take on more and more of the characteristics of Jesus within me.” That is what a Christian marriage is. That is what I am talking about. Our practices in marriage, the way we speak to one another, the routines that we get into, the way we serve one another, should be informed by our position in Christ. Our position in Christ, Paul says, is unmerited favor. Our position in Christ is you didn’t deserve this but God gave it to you. That is the emphasis of chapter 5. In fact next week we are going to get into some really dicey material, material that if you aren’t operating out of a position in Christ, it will downright offend you. We look at this and we say how do we operate in this? Paul says, “I just want you to know at the end of the day that marriage, just like the gospel, is a mystery.” He says that in chapter 5. He says, “Marriage, these two people, man and woman, becoming one, merging their lives together, is a mystery.” Anybody who has been married longer than say a day knows that to be true. There is just a mystery. Men and women are different. The way they process information is different. The way they look at things is



different. The way they look at one another is different. That is part of the beauty of it, that we complement one another, but it is puzzling. It is a mystery. I thought I had Lindsay figured out. I remember the very first argument that we got into as a married couple was on our honeymoon. The honeymoon was over before the honeymoon was over. We go away and we are in this beautiful exotic location and I don’t even remember what it was we got into an argument about. In fact, my wife is singing this weekend, and last night after Saturday night service the two of us decided to grab dinner before we went home. We had the babysitter. We were like, “Let’s have a date night afterwards.” So we went out to dinner. I told this story last night and she was like, “Did that really happen? Did you make that up?” I didn’t make that up! We had an argument right there. Here is the thing. She didn’t remember having this argument. I was like, “Score. I am glad you don’t remember,” but I remember. I don’t remember what it was we argued about. I don’t remember what it was that I said, but we were sitting on the side of the pool with our feet in the water and I said the wrong thing, whatever I said. And she stood up and, I’ll never forget this, she walked around to the other side of the pool, clear over directly across from me, and then sat down. Some of you guys are like, “I feel for you bro, been there.” I remember muttering this to myself. It was the first time I ever uttered these words and I have uttered these words thousands and thousands of times in our 15-‐and-‐a-‐half years of marriage. “What did I do?” And you have to say it with inflection and that [questioning] tone of voice. I have no idea what I just said but I have done something wrong. You see if a marriage is going to work, if a marriage is going to flourish, you’ve got to understand you are going to offend one another. You’ve got to understand you are going to hurt one another, even unintentionally. If it is going to thrive, if it is going to go the distance, you’ve got to be willing ahead of the offense, to say, “I will grant you unmerited favor. As God has granted me unmerited favor in Christ, I will grant you unmerited favor out of my response to Christ.” That is the only way this thing is going to work. I am just telling you. You won’t want to. You’ll think of every reason why your spouse doesn’t deserve it, and you will probably have a point. But that is the only way this covenant survives. The purpose and function of marriage has to go beyond your own personal fulfillment and happiness. I know that so many of us get married because that is part of our desire. We want to get married because we think this will fulfill us, we think this other person will do for us what we are looking for to boost our self-‐esteem. It is not that there is anything wrong with that. It is just that is not something you can sustain a marriage with. The primary purpose and function of marriage is God shaping us to look more like His Son. And that is painful. Any instance in which you and I grew in life, chances are it came through the valley, not the mountaintop. And in marriage you are going to face more valleys than mountaintops. In marriage you are going to have to grant one another unmerited favor. You know what that requires? It requires an ever-‐increasing Godly character within you and your spouse. So I want to read Ephesians 4:32 – 5:5 together, just six verses we are going to cover this morning, as sort of a foundation to this series. This is a straightforward passage of Scripture. It is not complicated to understand. I want you to know that Paul is addressing this to the church first and then he is saying, “This applies to your relationships but, most importantly, it applies to your marriage relationship.



Beginning in Ephesians 4:32, he says, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanks giving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” So if there was an idea I would place over this section of Scripture, it would simply be an urging that Paul gives to us to grow increasingly in Godly character. It is just kind of straight up. He is like, “Hey guys, be kind, be tenderhearted, be forgiving, be imitators of God, do everything that you can to remain pure.” Now one of the things we have to distinguish is the difference between personality traits and character traits. They are not the same thing. Most often, wherever we look for a potential spouse, a potential mate, we look at the personality traits. So we say, “Okay, does this person have a sense of humor? Does this person like the same style of music I like? Does this person like long walks on the beach at sunset? Is this person an extrovert? Or is this person an introvert? Does this person finish my sentences?” We are kind of looking at all these traits. Now they are important. Personality traits are most definitely important, but we are often blinded by the personality and we don’t see the character. Personality and character, unfortunately, are very, very different things. Sometimes your personality can mask your character. Sometimes we can be so charismatic, and so winsome, and so personable that we hide who we really are. You see Godly character is an essential ingredient to having a killer marriage but corrupt character always kills marriage. So you want to have a killer marriage? Work on your character. If you want to have a killer marriage, begin to submit your character to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We see this in what went wrong in the very first marriage back in Genesis 2. By the way, God was the One who invented marriage. It was His idea. This was not a man-‐made idea. There wasn’t a bunch of cavemen who sat around a fire one day and said, “Hey, here is a good idea. Let’s get married.” Marriage wasn’t invented in Vegas at the Little Chapel of Love. Marriage was God’s idea. What that means is He mandates it and He regulates it. So when you enter into a marriage covenant you enter into and onto His turf, whether you realize it or not. We see in Genesis 2 that God creates Adam and He creates the rest of the created order and God looks back and He says, “Man this is all so good but there is one thing about this that is not good at all. That is that Adam is alone.” So God creates all the animal kingdom and Adam, I am sure he is impressed by all of the animals, is like, “God this is great but there is not a single being here out of this animal kingdom that is satisfying this deep soulful longing I have.” So God saved His best creation for last. That was a moment when you guys should have said, “Amen.” I teed that up for you. Are you kidding me? Bunch of rookies. Gee. Help me help you. Anyway, God saved His best creation for last. [Applause] Alright, there we go. So he caused Adam to go into a deep sleep and He pulls a rib out of Adam’s side and He forms a woman. That word woman comes from the Hebrew word which means out of me or mine. And God presents the woman, God presents Eve to Adam.



She stands there, in her birthday suit, and Adam looks at her and I love the two words that come out of Adam’s mouth. “At last,” I love that. “God you did some impressive things over here with the animals. The horse is a beautiful, majestic thing and the giraffe is kind of crazy but it is beautiful. But God, way to go! At last! This woman, she is so must like me, but whoa, she is so different than me. She compliments me, and she makes me better, and she is so nice to look at, and she completes me Jerry McGuire style.” Eve is like, “Shut up. Shut up. You had me at hello, Adam.” Then God comes out with it in Genesis 2:24-‐15, here it is. Here is the marriage relationship. This is God giving us this definition, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife.” I love that. That whole idea of hold fast is, “I am not letting go.” Not in a controlling way, not in an abusive way, but in a way that says, “I’ve got such resolve I am not leaving. I will support you, and I’ll love you, and I’ll provide for you, and I’ll protect you.” “And they shall become one flesh.” Now clearly that is a description of physical intimacy. When you come together physically with your spouse, you are merging your physical bodies into one. But it is an illustration of what happens spiritually and emotionally. There is a bond that takes place there. I know we live in a culture that likes to roll their eyes at that and say, “That is old fashioned, and that is traditional, and that is silly,” but it is true. When you merge your body with somebody else you are fusing your soul with them. That is why sex outside of a marital covenant that says, “I’ll hold fast to you. I’ll be there for you,” is so, so damaging. That is why adultery is even more damaging. You basically ripped apart that covenant and merged with someone else. God says, “The man will leave his father and mother. He will come together with his wife. They become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” Now naked obviously means physical but it is more than that. It is naked spiritually. It is naked emotionally. What we see in this picture of Adam and Eve is that they are standing in front of each other with nothing to hide. The thing that will kill a marriage faster than anything is when you hide things from one another. They stood in front of each other and they were not ashamed of anything. The thing that will kill marriages is when you are ashamed of something and you just don’t come clean with it. They stood in front of each other and they said, “You know what? I fully know you and you fully know me. We are full of joy at this good gift that God has given us of each other. So we are going to be together and we are going to be fulfilled in one another for the Glory of God.” You know that image there in Genesis 2 is the only time, until Jesus returns again and makes things right, that marriage was perfect. Marriage was perfect in that moment. What it was is that two people stood in front of each other unashamed for the Glory of God. So what happened? Well Genesis 3 happened. We didn’t even get two chapters into the Bible before sin wreaked havoc on the created order, messing up not only our relationship with God, but our relationship with other human beings, beginning with the most intense, important relationship of all. That was the marriage relationship. Satan hates marriage and he hates it not because he wants you to stay alone. He hates it because it is God’s idea. He hates it because of what it represents. He hates it for what it does to shape us more into



the character of Christ. And so I think there is nothing that Satan goes after harder and faster than marriage, both generally and specifically. That is part of the reason it is so hard. You’ve got an enemy constantly working against you. You’ve got a current constantly working against you. I want you to know every married couple in this room, I don’t care if you are newly married or you are engaged right now and you look over at your spouse and you are like, “Not us baby. Things are going to be awesome between us.” The guy is like, “I don’t know what he is talking about over there but I get you baby. I get you. Like that whole pool thing. I am praying for our pastor and his wife. That will never happen to us.” Every marriage will walk through deep water and you can’t wait to prepare for that until you are in it. You’ve got to prepare for it now. Here is one of the things I try to do as often as I can. I have four kids. I have a boy and three girls. I am already praying. I joke about my girls and them not being married until they are 35. But actually that is going to happen. In all seriousness, I am already praying for their spouses. I am praying for the parents for their spouses that God would give them wisdom in how they parent their kids. I am praying for the three young men, if my daughters get married, the three young men who may become their husbands, I am praying that they don’t get wounded. I am praying that God would shield them from the traps of pornography. I am already praying for them. I am praying for the young lady that my son will marry one day, that God would protect her little heart, and mold her, and shape her. We are in a war and marriage will war against your selfishness. Marriage will war against your sinfulness. So if you are in a marriage right now and you are going, “Man this is really hard,” you are right. I am always amazed when I sit down with married couples in my office and we are going through counseling and every now and then they will say this. “It just shouldn’t be this hard.” What they mean is, “If we were truly in love, if she was truly the one, if he was truly Mr. Right, then it wouldn’t be this hard. It would be easy.” I am always like, “Really? Let’s play out the logic of that. When is that true in any other arena of life? I guarantee you this afternoon when Coach Pagano gets all the Colts players in the locker room he is going to say, “Guys we really want to win the super bowl but you know what? It really shouldn’t be this hard. The other team should just lie down.” I guarantee you he is not doing that. What he is doing, if you’ve ever seen the cameras when they go into the locker rooms, it is like they are in a war. It is like he is lifting his voice and he is raising it up. He is like, “Come on guys. We’ll go out there and let’s work hard.” The same thing is true of marriage. There are going to be moments when you are almost going to have to have that mentality. Satan, you can’t have this. Because he hates what it represents. There are going to be moments where the only thing that will keep you in it is your character. So let me give you this definition of marriage. Marriage is a permanent, exclusive legal commitment to completely share your life with someone else. That is a tall order but what that requires is Godly character. The most important ingredient to the marriage relationship is your individual character. What I mean by that is, “Who am I as a person? Do I tell the truth always? How do I submit to authority in my life now? When I get stressed and tired, how do I react? How do I respond?” Here is a question. Who am I when no one else is looking? Your character is the thing that will be the bedrock through the storms of life in marriage. Nothing exposes your character faster than marriage.



Nothing. You can hide who you are, you can put your best foot forward, and you can kind of put on a mask in every other human relationship. You can do this with your boss. You can do this at job interviews. You can do this with friends and neighbors. You can’t do it in marriage. You can try to hide. You can try to conceal. We call that dating. Then you end up getting married and who you really are will stand exposed before the other person. Here is the thing, especially for those of you in this room who are maybe 25 years and younger, those of you who are single and think, “Maybe one day I’d like to be married.” Now is the time to work on your character. Don’t wait until you find Mr. Wonderful. Don’t wait ‘til you find Miss Right. Don’t wait ‘til you walk down the aisle. Start working on it now. You would never say, “Hey I’d really like to run a marathon. I’ll start training the week of.” That is what you are saying when you are like, “I’ll pay attention to that stuff when I find Mr. Perfect or Miss Wonderful.” So many married couples go into the marriage relationship with all this baggage, and all these wounds, and all this hurt, and they just can’t get over the guilt of it. They impose it upon their spouse. There isn’t anything you’ve done, there isn’t anything that has been done to you that the power of the cross of Jesus Christ can’t overcome and bring healing into your life. I remember when, as a young man, I was exposed to this reality for the first time. I was a junior in high school. I was on the soccer team and we were playing in a tournament out of town. It was an overnight trip so after we played one game we went to the hotel and the school was trying to save money so they just packed as many of us into a hotel room as they possibly could. There was like two or three guys in each bed. There were several guys all over the floor. I remember late into the night we turned on the TV and we turned to one of the movie channels. It was either HBO or Cinemax or something. There was like an action movie on and so we were watching that. We turned all the lights off and we weren’t asleep yet but we were starting to kind of get quiet and drift off. The movie ended and the very next movie that came on was a skin flick. It was one of those deals where I remember immediately kind of feeling like, “We shouldn’t be watching this but I don’t have the remote.” I kind of looked over at the guy next to me and I said, “Do you have the remote?” He is like, “I don’t have the remote.” What are we going to do? So we were kind of like laying there and some of the guys were like pretending they were asleep. They had one eye closed but the other eye open. There was one of these awkward stretches where we all kind of knew we shouldn’t be watching this but nobody was doing anything about it. Finally one friend of mine, I really appreciate him even to this day, he finally spoke up. He broke the awkward silence and he said, “Guys we really shouldn’t be watching this,” and he said, “Who has the remote?” And nobody would come clean. It was kind of one of those weird things like, “What are we going to do? How are we going to turn the channel? We don’t have the remote.” It was like we could have gotten up and gone boop [mimics turning off a TV], but it was like we were a bunch of dummies. So we were all kind of sitting there and finally, nobody would fess up to it and the movie is still going, finally my friend stood up, stood right in front of the TV and he is like, “Fine guys. You want to watch this? It is your marriage. I’ll be in the bathroom with my pillow.” And I remember it was like a dagger went right into my heart. And I was like, “I should have been the one to have that conviction. I should



have been the one to say that.” And, actually, on the way to the bathroom he reached down and he unplugged the TV. The next morning the remote was sitting on top of the TV. You see now is the time to begin working on this. I know that for some of you younger people – the last time I preached on marriage between services I was walking through the lobby and there was a bunch of 14-‐15 year old guys. They were all huddled up together, and I heard them talking. As I was walking behind them one of them said, “I didn’t know this was a marriage series. This doesn’t apply to us. You guys want to go catch a movie?” I so badly wanted to go over and embarrass them. No, I did want to embarrass them. I did. I so badly wanted to go over and just put my arms around the guys and say, “Hey guys, I totally get why you would think that, but now is the time for you to hear this. Don’t wait ‘til you blow your marriage up and then try to get help. Don’t wait to try to meet the perfect girl and then try to get your character cleaned up. Begin working on this right now. Even if God doesn’t call you to be married, Godly character is still a good thing and it is still an illustration of God’s picture to you.” I want to give us, just in the brief time we have together, just a couple of application points for how we do that, how we build character. I want to read this quote from Henry Cloud. He says, “Marriage, while it is an utterly unique relationship, was never intended to be the place where somebody gets all their needs met. An unresolved dependency on the other person for my completeness and happiness is death to my marriage. I need to stop looking for the spouse that I want and start loving the spouse that I have to give my marriage a chance to be great.” That is character right there. Everybody is going to have imperfections and all that. The answer is not to say, “Well I guess I married the wrong one. I’ve got to go find another one,” and then to just end up repeating some of the same behavioral patterns. You see the key to a successful marriage is not to find the one. You do realize there is not just one perfect soul mate for you. You do realize that. I know that every movie fantasizes about that and says, “There is one perfect person for everyone. If you can find that one perfect person it will be great.” The math just doesn’t add up. I think there are more women in the world than men, I think. So somebody is losing out. All it takes is for one of you-‐all to pick the wrong person and you jack it up for everybody else. So it can’t be just one person. The reality is that you could probably be with multiple kinds of personalities and people. Every now and then people are like, “How did you know Lindsay was the one?” Lindsay was the one because I married her. That is why she is the one. I picked her. I made a covenant to her. And let me tell you she got the raw end of the deal. Her sanctification is much greater than mine because she’s got to put up with more. So let me just give you a couple of things. Here is number one. In building Godly character and looking for someone with Godly character put physical attraction in its place. Put physical attraction in its place. Now it is not wrong to be physically attracted to somebody. I would never tell you that you should marry somebody that you are not physically attracted to. Just put it in proper perspective. Did you know that the Bible affirms physical attraction? It says it is a good thing. Adam was immediately attracted to Eve. It probably had something to do with the fact she was naked. In Genesis 29 Jacob, he immediately was attracted to Rachel. Just read Song of Solomon sometime, there are parts of that that will make you blush. It is x-‐rated. But what it is, it is two people who have given their hearts to God and



they enjoy each other physically. There is nothing dirty about that. There is nothing disgusting about it. God made our bodies, every single part. What has been damaging is when we use our bodies in a destructive sinful way. That is what makes sex dirty. So God says to us, “Physical attraction is a gift I am giving you. It is great. But put it in its place.” The Bible warns of physical attraction. The reason why is because somebody’s outward beauty can trick you, can cloud your thinking, and keep you from seeing her true character. So Proverbs 6:25 says, “Do not desire her beauty in your heart and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.” Proverbs 31:30 says, “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Ladies I know maybe you have heard those passages before and you are like, “Is that saying that we shouldn’t put on makeup? Is that saying that we shouldn’t try to look beautiful?” No, that isn’t what that is saying. This could apply equally to men. The reason why it picks you ladies out is because you look better than us. You are more physically attractive than us. (That was another time for an amen guys). Men have a tendency to be a little more visual. All this is protecting your brothers in Christ. So this isn’t that you shouldn’t think about beauty. Just understand that beauty, physical appearance, whether he is tall, dark, and handsome or she is a knockout -‐ what happens is that you have to understand that outward beauty is fragile and it is ever changing. How many of you have ever gone back to a high school reunion and you are like, “Whoa, what happened, I mean how are you?” The simple fact is that bodies gain weight, skin gets wrinkled, we lose hair where we want it, and we gain hair where we don’t want it. So when physical beauty fades what integrity will remain? That is the question. So in 1 Peter 3:3-‐4 it says, “Do not let your adorning be external -‐ the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing that you wear -‐ but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” So how do you assess somebody’s character? How do you look beneath the surface? It is so practical but it is simply this. Don’t underestimate the importance of friendship. Marriage should be the most intense friendship. In fact if you can’t be best friends with the person you are thinking about marrying, then you shouldn’t marry them. Sometimes the only thing that will keep you in it is the bedrock of your friendship. Sometimes the thing you need to have to turn your marriage around is just to work on the friendship again. All the magazines talk about the latest sexual technique or the moment where you can kind of setup the romance. But maybe the sexiest thing is just building a friendship and continuing to care for one another. So many people neglect their friendship in the courting phase, so then when the romance fades, when bodies change, when we offend each other, there is nothing to fall back on. But it is more than that. In friendship, whenever you are dating somebody, before you date them romantically, you should become a good friend. Here is the reason why. In friendship you get a chance to objectively assess their character without romance clouding your vision. Romance blinds us. I don’t know how many young ladies I have sat down with who are going through turbulence in their marriage and they’ve said to me through tears, “I knew this about him. I knew this about him but I overlooked it because I thought he loved me and I thought I could change him.”



Now guys say, “I knew this about her. I knew this was in her past but, you know what, I was just so smitten I just couldn’t wait to be with her. I overlooked that because I thought she would change.” In friendship you get the chance to say, “Okay, do you tell the truth always? Are you adverse to commitments? Do you keep your commitments in the little things? Because if you don’t you won’t keep your commitments in the big things. How do you react whenever you are under stress?” Here is the thing. If you are friends with somebody and you are kind of attracted to them and you notice that they can’t keep their commitments, they tell lies over little things, whenever they get stressed they blow up, they can’t submit themselves to the authority figures over their lives, and you are still attracted to them? Ask yourself why. Because I don’t care how hot they are. You’ll be miserable. You see in friendship you are testing the waters of integrity. You are looking beyond mere physical attraction to determine if the character of the other person can perpetuate and sustain the kind of selfless love the Bible calls us to embrace. Marriage is already difficult enough as it is. Don’t make it more difficult. Oftentimes I’ll get this question. Is it okay if a non-‐Christian marries a Christian? There are a couple of ways I would answer that. It depends on what you mean by Christian. If you just mean, “Well I believe in God vaguely or I come to church when it is convenient, or I am just religious, or we are going to get married in a church,” if that is all you mean, then really, honestly it is no big deal. Marry whoever you want. But if what you mean by Christian is, “I am submitted to the Lordship of Christ. I want Christ at the center of my life. I desire to look more and more like Him,” why would you even ask that question? See if you merge your body, if you merge your life with somebody who is not submitted to the Lordship of Christ, chances are you will have to move Jesus out to the suburbs of your heart because it will be too painful for your marriage. So marry somebody who will move you toward Jesus, not away. Missionary dating and missionary marriages generally are not a good idea. Now I know every time I say this that there are exceptions to that. They are exceptions, not the rule. Here is the thing. Marry somebody who will urge you toward Jesus. Marry somebody who is a few steps ahead of you spiritually. That is part of what attracted me to my wife. Not only was she beautiful but I was like, “She is a couple of steps ahead of me and I’ve got to run to keep up,” and it has continued to stay that way. Seven years ago when the elders sat down and interviewed me. They were like, “Look, you are okay. We really like her.” I was like, “Alright, here we go.” So if there is even a question in your mind, “I feel like if we get married he will change,” or, “I feel like we can get married and I can help her, help her grow in that,” usually that is a bad idea because of the Biblical definition of marriage. Here is the thing. You know you are going to go through a storm. Who do you want to go through the storm with? You know you are going to be shot at. Who do you want to be in the foxhole with? You know life is going to be difficult. Who do you want to be partnered up with? Somebody who’s got a character that is kind of faulty? Somebody who is like, “I don’t really know if I buy into the whole Jesus thing?” Or, do you want to partner with somebody who is committed to the Lordship of Christ?



Let me conclude with this quote by Tim Keller. He says, “So what do you need to make a marriage work? Well you need to know the secret, the gospel, and how it gives you both the power and the pattern for your marriage. On the one hand the experience of marriage will unveil the beauty and depth of the gospel to you. It will drive you further into reliance on it. On the other hand, a greater understanding of the gospel will help you experience deeper and deeper union with each other as the years go on. Through marriage the mystery of the gospel is unveiled. Marriage is the major vehicle for the gospel’s remaking of your heart from the inside out and your life from the ground up. The reason that marriage is so painful and yet so wonderful is that it is a reflection of the gospel which is painful and wonderful at once. So the gospel is this. We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dare believe, yet at the same time we are more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope.” Over the years I’ve officiated dozens and dozens of weddings and I’ve attended dozens and dozens more weddings. They are always so great. Everybody is always happy at a wedding. The groom comes up and he is in his tuxedo looking really good, really cleaned up. The bride just looks so radiant. She is in the dress she has been dreaming about since she was a little girl. And the two of them stand up before this minister, so to speak, and they begin to exchange vows and promises to each other. Do you know what they are doing? That is just a dress rehearsal for the real thing. That is a dress rehearsal for one day when we will stand before a different throne. It won’t be a minister, but it will be God. And we’ll stand before Him. I always thought that one day, on Judgment Day, God would look at me, and you may have heard preachers talk about that passage where God will look at us, and He will say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” I always thought I would just be standing there by myself. But if you are married, if you merged your life into one, don’t you think you’ll be standing there with your spouse? And that God would look at us and He would say, “Aaron and Lindsay Brockett, well done good and faithful servants. Life was hard and you had your trials and you had your valleys. But you know what? You had each other’s back.” “You had every reason to walk away, Lindsay. You had every reason to walk away, Aaron. But you stuck with it. You stayed with it because, not because your spouse deserved it, but because Christ gave you a gift you didn’t deserve. It is not about your earthly happiness but it is about your eternal development as a son and a daughter of Jesus Christ. And you saw each other’s flaws, and you saw each other’s weaknesses, and you saw each other’s offenses, and you decided, ‘I am going to help you through that and not walk away.’ Well done good and faithful servants.” You see I don’t just look at my wife and say, “She is so beautiful and she is such a great partner, and she is such a great friend.” I look at my wife and say, “She is a sister in Christ,” and part of my duty as a husband is to help her get to the finish line as a sanctified daughter of the King. That and only that will give you a killer marriage. And it is not easy but it is rewarding. Here is what I want to ask you to do just in these last moments that we have together. Will you just close your eyes? And if you happen to be sitting next to your spouse, I would just ask you to reach over and grab their hand. I know that some of you in this room right now have said, “Aaron this has been a great sermon but I wish I would have heard it a year ago. I wish I would have heard this five years ago, ten years ago. I wish my spouse would have come with me today. I wish they could have heard this. It is great content, I agree with it, but I just kind of feel like it is too late for me because you see I feel like our marriage is too far gone. I am already on my third marriage and where do I turn, what do I get out of this?”



I want you to hear this. The message of redemption, the message of the Cross is that there is no pain, there is no offense, past, present, or future that has more power than the power of the Cross. So when you say, “I don’t think there is any hope for me,” you don’t really fully understand what Jesus did for you on the Cross. What kept Him on that tree was His foresight into the future of your redeemed self. I am going to go to the Cross, not because of who they are, but because of who they are growing to become in Me.” So I don’t care if you are single, divorced, happily married, unhappily married, Jesus looks at you as a precious child of the King and He says, “You don’t need to carry that guilt any longer. You don’t need to carry that baggage any longer. Come empty handed to me.” Some of you have received news this last week that dropped like a bomb on your emotions. Your spouse, who you thought was faithfully committed to you, told you they didn’t love you anymore, said that they were going to run off with somebody else. Your marriage feels like it is crumbling beneath your feet. I just pray in these moments here that that Holy Spirit would minister to your soul. Some of you feel like you are such damaged goods that nobody would want you and that is a lie straight from the pits of hell. Lord God we come to You right now and I know there are precious souls in this room, many of which are hurting, many of which are uncertain, many of which are lonely. God I pray that today Your Spirit would minister to them, that You would bring hope and fulfillment into their lives. That they would not buy into the distorted things that our culture tells us, the distorted things the enemy tells us about our self-‐worth and who we are as human beings. God as a church, I don’t care how many people show up on Christmas Eve or how big the Christmas Eve offering is, or how much of a difference we make for the Great Commission if our marriages are crumbling, that will still don’t get it, because that is the primary vehicle in which You desire to make us more like Christ. So God, begin with our marriages. Begin with our characters. And bring hope and healing and restoration to them. So in these moments may we meet up with You? As we take Communion may we serve our spouse? Maybe there are some things we need to say to one another. Maybe there are some things we need to commit to one another that we failed to commit so that you might be glorified and our marriage might be strengthened. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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