Headed for Happily Ever After
Headed for Happily Ever After
2/21/2004 and 2/22/2004
Review:
Last week we talked about the family covenant. The things we said that all of us should do are;
· Value your family
· Have a growing relationship with Jesus
· Have a growing relationship with people in the Body of Christ-the church
I used the example of bonding in marriage and I received a call this week to say that science has discovered the same thing. There is a bonding that takes place and can be eroded. (Pam M. testimony if she is there.)
This week I want to specifically focus on marriage.
1. Redefine Happily Ever After
-It would be a really good exercise for you to determine how and where you received your perspective of marriage.
-This is the media generation and a lot of us have been brainwashed into thinking that everything gets fixed in half an hour or 1 ½ hours if it’s a movie.
-We may have read a book or even seen someone else’s marriage and all of our hopes are based on those dreams.
-The intense emotion you see in Tom Cruise and some girl comes to mind when you are grocery shopping or mowing the yard or changing the diaper.
-The question to people is: Why aren’t you like Tom Cruise? The answer is: Tom Cruise isn’t like Tom Cruise. He just plays him at the movies. In real life he left his wife and children for another woman.
-We have to shock ourselves and evaluate our information.
-Happily ever after is better than TV but you take a different road to get there.
Genesis 29
After Jacob had stayed with him for a whole month, 15 Laban said to him, “Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.”
16 Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 Leah had weak a eyes ,(one translation says beautiful eyes) but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful. 18 Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.”
19 Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.” 20 So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.
21 Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her.”
22 So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. 23 But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her. 24 And Laban gave his servant girl Zilpah to his daughter as her maidservant.
25 When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?”
26 Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. 27 Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.” 28 And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. 29 Laban gave his servant girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maidservant. 30 Jacob lay with Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.
/[1]/
-In my Bible I am supposed to summarize what the chapter is about and write it at the beginning. My title for this chapter is:
Whoops! Wrong girl.
-The truth is that a lot of people wake up after marriage to the same feeling even though it is the same person.
-In courtship the best foot is presented and after the wedding there is a time when you wonder where that person went.
-If you know the story of Ruth, she is married to a man of great character-Boaz. I have a sermon for singles called, “Don’t settle for Bozo while you are waiting for your Boaz.”
-I have a book called; Dated Jekyll, Married Hyde with the subtitle; Whatever happened to Prince Charming?
-You can see the girl calling home during the first year saying, “Mom I kissed the frog but he didn’t turn into a prince, I thought my love for him could change him but he’s still hopping and croaking.”
-The problem is one of unreal expectations.
Hebrews 13
4 Marriage should be honored by all,…”
-In order to value and honor marriage we have to re-evaluate where we are going and what God intended this thing to look like.
-Marriage is a great tool to sharpen your character and provide a safe place to raise children.
-Ravi Zacharias said, “Marriage is the harmony of God synchronizing two wills with the will of the father.”
-You don’t marry a dream, you marry a person.
-There are pleasant and unpleasant surprises.
-It is better than you think.
-It isn’t just ending up at a certain place it is going there together as you share your lives and you are changed and transformed by the presence and love of someone who is committed to you no matter what.
-I can look out at some of the couples in this church and see great examples. You have been married for years and you are still glad. You’ve had problems but don’t wish you had married someone else.
2. Enjoy all the Seasons of Your Marriage
-There are definite steps and seasons that all marriages go through.
-We need to flip the pyramid so to speak.
-We see the best time as the early years when emotions are high and then the later years as just hanging on cause who wants us now we’re old or whatever.
-The truth is; the later years should be the better years.
-If you love someone you have known for less than three years that is great but if you have known someone for 50 years and still love them, you’ve got something to say. I am really impressed with you.
-Choose someone who will love you when you aren’t cool anymore.
-I love the story of Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis 24.
-Abraham is distressed by the girls he sees around him so he sends his servant back to his homeland to get a wife for his son, Isaac. Of course you have to take into account the customs of the day. The servant went back to the place and he prayed for God to help him. He said that the girl who would water his camels as well as him would be the one God had sent. Of course this is a character test. The girl was a worker, she cared about strangers. He was looking for character. You know the story, she goes to Isaac sight unseen (of course he is rich). They meet each other. Both have a sense of God joining them together I believe but they didn’t choose, God and others did.
Genesis 24
61 Then Rebekah and her maids got ready and mounted their 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, h 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. [2]/
Genesis 26
8 /When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.[3] /
-If you follow the story of Isaac and Rebekah, you see a very real love develop between them. Their love grew (even though Isaac was sometimes a coward and liar like his father).
Minirth-Meier has a series of books on the passages of marriage
This is what they say they are with my accompanying definitions:
· NEW LOVE (1-3 YEARS)
This relationship is built on the initial attraction and romance. That is a great place to start. Eve certainly got Adam’s attention when she showed up in the gargen.
Romance-Webster’s- something (as an extravagant story or account) that lacks basis in fact
3 : an emotional attraction or aura belonging to an especially heroic era, adventure, or activity[4]
-My definition is “the intense emotional feelings that accompany love, not love itself, it is a god-given tool to energize a relationship as it works towards a mature love”.
-Romance is the worm; love is the fish.
During this season hopefully you:
1. mold into one family
2. stop jockeying for control
3. build a sexual union
4. adjust your relationships (in-laws or out-laws)(Thanksgiving and Christmas)
· REALISTIC LOVE (3-10 YEARS)
This is when hopefully you are learning and adjusting to who the person you married really is. That is better and more lasting than our fantasy. This is where you wake up saying; “whoops wrong girl” like Jacob.
The truth is she is the right girl you just had wrong expectations. This can be compared to finding out that those people on the magazines are computer enhanced. Nobody really looks like that. I saw an article once where they showed all the cellulite of stars. They are just people. Even I could look good with a hair person, a make-up artist, and a wardrobe person!
This is usually where kids are pre-school age. You need a moment of silence. Your routine begins to crowd out your romance. You can get disillusioned and bored or you can enjoy it.
It can be a great time.
This is when hidden agendas and secret contracts come out. He really isn’t going to ever do dishes. She is going to always be like that. If you are humble you can adjust and grow as a person and couple. If not you can go to resentment.
· STEADFAST LOVE (11-25 YEARS)
This is where you get to cruise control. The greatest danger here is to forget the value of that person sitting next to you on the trip.
Playwright Thornton Wilder said it well: “I didn’t marry you because you were perfect. I didn’t even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them-it was that promise.”
I would redefine that word promise to the word “covenant.”
· RENEWING LOVE (26-35 YEARS)
This is readjusting to the empty nest time when it is just the two of you. This is when you admit that you are both going to get old and change no matter how many surgeries you have or how you try to fight it. The outward man is perishing. There are no non-perishable spouses. That person you married could some day look like your grandparents!
This is where you may have to fight to get to know that person again.
· TRANSCENDANT LOVE (35 YEARS OR MORE)
This is the place where you see the value of the person as a God given gift that helped you to become the person God wanted you to become. Their commitment to you empowered you and encouraged you to press on in spite of circumstances. You know about each other and still love and like each other. They are truly “one flesh”. The merger of their lives brought glory to God and helped them to be transformed more and more into His image.
An article (Reader’s Digest) said the following;
“Marriage means handing over your whole self-your body, your soul, your happiness, your future-to the keeping of one you love, but who is, and remains, greatly a stranger. This tremendous act of faith is something that can unlock in each lover powers of compassion, endurance, generosity, joy, passion, fidelity and hope that no one guessed was there. That is why the confidence of young lovers is not arrogant or foolish but an expression of a basic fact about human nature: the fact that the greatest of human gifts are set to work only when people are prepared to risk everything.”
-I recently heard someone else give the sequence for marriages gone bad.
· Romantic love
· Reality
· Resentment
· Rebellion
· Rebuilding (or throwing in the towel)
-The good news is; you can get back on track even if you are so angry that you can’t stand that person right now.
-God is still able to get you to the finish line.
-Every one of these areas is a sermon but I want to look at the overall direction of the marriage.
-We are talking about heading for happily ever after.
3. Tools for the Trip
-I will be teaching the men on marriage and how to love your wife this coming Saturday morning at 7 am.
-Let me end with some practical things you can do to improve your marriage.
-If someone wants to get in shape they will work hard at the gym.
-If they want to buy something they will work extra hours to get some cash.
-Is your marriage worth the work?
-I encourage you to set apart some time to do the following homework. If you find something better go for it.
· Read “His Needs, Her Needs” and spend time talking about it to each other. Confirm or disprove the books conclusions. This book lists the typical top 10 needs of men and women.
· Spend the time and money to get a personality test. See Dave Embrey or Donna Thornhill. You can get some great tools to help you.
· Study the Love Languages (I have a video curriculum on this you can do as a small group.)
a. Words of affirmation
b. Quality time
c. Receiving gifts
d. Acts of service
e. Physical touch
-These are ways of expressing love.
-Usually you speak a different language than your spouse.
-You may be telling them you love them and they are saying so what; take out the trash and I will believe you.
-You may be giving them gifts and they still don’t think you love them unless you say it.
-There are half a dozen books back there on this.
-The subtitle is; how to express heartfelt commitment to your mate.
-There is some good material on how to show your kids as well.
· Develop Conflict resolution skill
-You are going to have conflicts and crises.
-The question is; do you have the skills to address the conflicts.
-You may have grown up in a home or you may use the ESKIMO METHOD.
-This is the big freeze. Nobody talks. Everyone in the family knows this is there but nobody talks.
-You just detach yourself. Everyone hopes time will fix it.
-You may use the COWBOY STYLE. This is where you face off and shoot verbal bullets at each other. The problem is that some of these hit the kids or whoever else is there.
-With this method you usually have someone run off for three days or so. When they come back you are just glad they are home and you forget the problem or at least bury it.
-Some of you may be in a situation where the person physically abuses you. If that is the case please get help.
-Learn to solve conflicts without wounding each other.
· MOST OF ALL- YOUR COMMITMENT TO JESUS STRENGTHENS YOUR COMMITMENT TO EACH OTHER.
1 Corinthians 13 The Message
/Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. Love never dies.[5]/
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a Or delicate
[1]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Ge 29:28). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
h The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
[2]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Ge 24:61). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[3]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Ge 26:8). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[4]Merriam-Webster, I. (1996, c1993). Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary. Includes index. (10th ed.). Springfield, Mass., U.S.A.: Merriam-Webster.
[5]Peterson, E. H. (1995). The message : New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs (1 Co 13:1). Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress.