October 6, 1999
LIFE & WORK SERIES:
God has endowed marriage
with holy possibilities
___Genesis 2:18-24; Matthew 19:3-9
___By Brett Younger
___Lake Shore Baptist Church, Waco
___Marriage experts (if you can imagine such people) have identified five stages in a healthy, deepening marriage. In the first stage, you believe your beloved is absolutely perfect. Your intended is everything you've always dreamed. This is not, as you might guess, the lengthiest of stages.
___In the second stage, you discover the love of your life is not perfect. There are a fewtiny things about your sweetie you would like to change, and so a benevolent power struggle ensues as you set about correcting those flaws.
___In the third stage, you give up on remaking your partner. Your dearest can be a pain, but you promised "for better or worse."
___The fourth stage moves beyond acceptance to approval. The difference between the third and fourth stages is the difference between stability and commitment, between tolerance and grace.
___Only the most fortunate and dedicated couples ever get to the fifth stage. This is the stage of co-creativity. Couples help each other become more of what they should be, sharing with others from the overflow. They become a gift to the world--doing more good together than they ever could do apart. Most couples never come close to being all God wants them to be. God always has the highest view of marriage.
___The Pharisees came to quiz Jesus on family values. The debate was over how easy it should be for a man to divorce his wife. One school of thought was that a husband could get rid of his wife if she burned his breakfast. The Pharisees expect Jesus to comment on the legal details: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?" (Matthew 19:3).
___ As Jesus often did, he responded not with "yes" or "no" but with a bigger vision. Jesus goes back to the beginning and recounts God's original purpose for marriage: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). (So shouldn't the minister at a wedding ceremony ask, "Who gives this man to be married to this woman?")
___It was "because your hearts were hard" (v. 8) that God's hopes were missed. Jesus describes a union in which both parties become together more of what God intended. In a world of broken relationships, Jesus knows people need to hear again the better idea God has in mind.
___Somewhere between God's hopes for marriage and the present institution of marriage, the dreams became less lofty. It's easy to be cynical. Francis Rodman defined marriage as "the process by which a grocer acquired an account the florist had." Some define a "successful" marriage as nothing more than people staying married.
___Marriage is sacred because God has sacred hopes for married couples. No matter how good you have dreamed your marriage, God has dreamed it better. God has planted within our marriages holy possibilities.
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