What Marriage Is And Isn't – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, buyer's remorse.

We all wonder if that appliance we bought was really the best choice. When it comes to marriage, there's no place for buyer's remorse. We have to let go of what might have been and honor the commitment we've made, as the vow says, for better or for worse. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win, with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, in a day when marriage can be between any genders, our culture is slipping into some dangerous waters. Dave, you're absolutely right, and you know, as we look at our culture and we think of what you have referenced, we're reminded that contamination, moral contamination, is all around us. And there are times when we just need to get aside, remember who we are in Christ, and of course, as Christmas comes, to remind ourselves that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.

And if we want to find out what truth is, we go to Him. We here at Running to Win would be very excited to help you during this Christmas season to have a 31-day Advent devotional. I'm holding in my hands one written by Nancy DeMoss Walgamuth entitled The First Songs of Christmas. For a gift of any amount, it can be yours. Get your copy soon.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. You remember years ago I told you a story about a man who was walking through a psych ward, and he got to the first room, and there was a man banging his head against a padded cell. And he said to the manager, what's his problem? And he said, well, he was madly in love with Matilda. And Matilda jilted him, and he can't handle it, so all day long he just bangs his head against the wall. Matilda, how could you do it? Matilda, how could you do it? When they got to the end of the aisle, they noticed that there was another man in a padded cell banging his head against the wall saying, Matilda, how could you do it? Matilda, how could you do it? The guy said, what's his problem?

He said, well, he's the one who married Matilda. The minute your fantasies begin to think about what could have been, you're on very, very dangerous ground. So now there's this couple who says, well, we don't need that piece of paper. Mixed messages are being sent. On the one hand, I love you so much, I want to be with you. On the other hand, another message is being sent, namely, but I want to keep an escape hatch.

I want to make sure that I can get out of this with a lot of trouble just in case you and I can't work it out. Now let's go on to the next thing that the Bible mentions, and the implications of that reasoning will be even more clear. He says, leave father and mother, be joined together, and they shall become one flesh.

Now we come to a very, very mysterious teaching in the Bible. And I don't have time to go into it except to say that the one flesh relationship is to mirror God. In fact, Paul says in the book of Ephesians that men are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. The marriage is to mirror God, mirror Jesus Christ's relationship to the church.

And it's not as if the Apostle Paul thought, I need an illustration for loving Christ and Christ's relationship to the church. Let me use marriage. The intention of marriage is to mirror God. And the oneness that comes through intimacy, through sexual intimacy, is not just a physical biological experience. It is really a metaphysical experience. In fact, the Apostle Paul says that even if you have a relationship with a prostitute where there is no commitment, no love, nothing, it's raw lust. He says, you're already one body.

Wow. The implications of that, which I preached on in previous times, are huge. It's the most important verse in all the Bible.

It teaches you more about sexuality than all the books on the shelves of our bookstores right there. God says you become one flesh, body, soul, and spirit. But if you do it without a covenant, if you do it without commitment, you are really involved in a one flesh relationship, but you aren't married. And furthermore, it is an unholy relationship. The only holy relationship is the relationship that you have by the protection of the covenant, a relationship that is totally and completely dependent upon this covenant.

And by the way, I was going to give the illustration of Robertson McQuilkin regarding the covenant. His wife, Muriel, had Alzheimer's and he decided to resign the presidency of Columbia College of Bible just to take care of her full time. The board said, no, we need you there. You can always hire someone else to take care.

In fact, she won't know who's taking care of her anyway. But he said it was no decision at all. He said it was very clear. I had made the promise till death do us part. And he said that he would take care of her and he did until she died years later.

Could I give you just one line of what he said? As I watched her descend into oblivion, Muriel is the joy of my life. Daily I discern new manifestations of the kind of person she is, the wife I always loved.

I also see fresh manifestations of God's love and grace, the God I long to love more fully. That's what it means till death do us part. That's the covenant that you make when you get married.

Now here's this couple who says we don't need that kind of a covenant so that we can escape and get out of this. And it is an unholy relationship. Two men together cannot be one flesh. Two women together in a sexual relationship cannot be one flesh. It is the man and it is the woman brought together by God, as indicated here in this passage of scripture, that become one flesh. And that means that their relationship is not just physical but metaphysical.

In fact, you know that the word one that is used there is the word when God speaks about being one for the oneness of the Trinity. And how do those relationships end, those unholy relationships? You see, people get it backwards. They think, well, you know, we can have the one flesh relationship here and we can be intimate and then let's work backwards and then we can decide whether or not we want a covenant and whether or not we are going to leave and cleave. Occasionally those kinds of marriages work out, but with huge difficulty. Why? Because those kinds of relationships are sown in the soil of deep disappointment, hurt, and mistrust.

And almost always they end by blaming, by shaming. It's your fault. You talked me into it. No, it isn't.

But look at what you did. Yada, yada, yada. And on and on it goes.

Why? Because unholy relationships, though they have a sense of oneness, are not blessed by God. You see, it's within the confines of the sacred space that we call marriage. It is within those confines that you have the blessing of God. And that's why it says in the book of Hebrews, the marriage bed is undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers, God will judge. God takes it very, very seriously. You say, well, Pastor Lutzer, you're going to give us some hope. I think it's time for us to talk turkey in terms of where do we go from here.

Thank you so much for asking. I can already see it in your minds. Folks, it's not possible to have a better marriage until you have a better heart. That's the key. You know, I could stand up here and I could tell you about five new ways to communicate, and that would last for about two days. Maybe when you get home, maybe tomorrow. Maybe it would carry over till tomorrow. But then, you know, you'd forget about it, and a day or two later you'd be back where you were because we always go back to the default position.

So oftentimes those kinds of changes are surface changes. What kind of a heart if we're going to have a good marriage? Remember, my desire is to help people with good marriages become better bad marriages to become good. Well, what kind of a heart? First of all, you need a new heart. Even in the Old Testament it says this, a new heart I will give you. I'll take from you the heart of stone. Do you have today a heart of stone?

You are angry. You believe that you have been the victim of so much injustice that your heart is hard toward God, toward your mate, maybe even toward your family. And the Bible says, a new heart I will give you. Now that's the gospel. Jesus said, except you be born again, you'll not see the kingdom of God. And it has to do with the fact that Jesus died on the cross, not just to take our sin away, but to make us new creatures. We are new creatures in Christ. There's actually a miracle that takes place within us that is called the new birth. If you've not experienced that, you have never understood the wonder of God's forgiveness. And you may like Christ, you may even worship Christ in your own way, but in your heart of hearts, you've never been changed by God. And that comes with it, a change of desire.

So cry out to God to receive the good gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. You and I need, first of all, we need a new heart. Secondly, we need an honest heart, an honest heart. This is where it gets difficult.

It's possible to have a new heart and you're still not honest. So in your marriage relationships, you have all of these ghosts that are never addressed. There are people who have been married for 25 or 30 years and they have never addressed all of the issues that divide them.

So they methodically go through, they live together in the same house. They may connect in many ways occasionally, but they already know we don't talk about the relatives here. We don't talk about his father. We don't talk about his mother. We don't talk about her parents and the bad influence they have on our kids. We just don't go there. Couples want to tell you, you have to go there.

If you want not only a one soul relationship, but you want that relationship to spill over into a caring, sensitive, fulfilling relationship, you can't pretend that the past doesn't exist. That's why I've given you an assignment this week, couples. I'll tell you what it's going to be. I want you to get into a safe place, just the two of you, and I want you to discuss some of the questions that are there in the bulletin.

Don't look now, but they're there. And ask yourself, to what extent have the relatives influenced us? To what extent have we not left father and mother? And what impact is that having on our family?

Now there's a good question to begin with. And if you can get through that one without a fight, then you can also go on to other questions. What influence do past relationships still have? What influence do certain habits have on our relationship that intrude on this sacred space that has been mapped out by God for the two of us? This is hard work, but it's promising work and God blesses it. And by the way, if you're a single and you're wondering what your assignment is, actually this one applies to the married people too. First Thessalonians chapter 4, it's in there, the bulletin. First Thessalonians 4, the first eight verses. Read it and ask yourself the question, what should those verses mean to me as a single person struggling with sexual issues?

Wow, stick a dynamite. So that's the assignment. For the married, one set of questions. For the single, the other. But First Thess 4 applies to all of us, married and single. And that's where some of you need some help. You may need to go for counseling because you may not be able to deal with all these issues without some objectivity and help. Next, you need a forgiving heart.

You need a forgiving heart. If you can't ask for forgiveness and then forgive those who ask you for forgiveness, don't get married. Don't get married.

At this point, just break it off. I remember asking a couple, by the way, I said to this guy, I don't know that I ever said this before, but they were having marriage counseling before they were married. And I said, if your wife were in a tragic accident on your honeymoon and were a quadriplegic for the rest of your life, a rest of her life, could you handle it? He thought about that and decided, you know what?

I'm not sure if I'm ready for marriage. Well, here's another one. Do you remember, I told you years ago about Rebecca and I being at the airport there in Minneapolis and she was getting me a sandwich as she lovingly always does, always looking out for my needs, wish that I looked out for hers as well as she does for mine. And somebody was watching us. There was a woman just across the way there at the terminal and she said, you know, I noticed that the two of you get along very well. And I thought, well, thank God for that. I mean, that's wonderful. And then she said this, she said, I'm going to be married soon.

What advice do you have for me? You know, I'm looking around, you know, I'm thinking, oh wow, I'm a preacher. I should be able to answer this question.

It's the kind of thing that I'm supposed to be able to answer. Rebecca didn't have to roll her eyes. Instantly she said, have the ability to forgive. I thought, well, thank you, Rebecca.

I appreciate you so much considering who you live with. Yeah, the ability to forgive. If you are not quick to ask forgiveness for your wrongs and to humble yourself and then to receive other people's forgiveness and grant them their forgiveness when they ask for it, I don't see how this marriage can make progress. God wants us to change the way in which we live. Every marriage becoming better, bad marriages becoming good, but oh, what he has to sometimes take us through before we get the message. The lowest depths. Last week I received a letter from a couple here at the Moody church and I received their permission.

Obviously I wouldn't do it without their permission to read parts of it to you. It was a letter of thanks to the church, but you've got to hear this. My wife and I descended into what seemed like a bottomless pit. Worse than our marriage being in tatters was the condition we were in physically, mentally and spiritually. One long year led to two long years and two to three and at that point it was too much to bear. I would say that we were like a man who was struggling to stay afloat without drowning, but we did go under and drown on many occasions.

For a guy like me who likes to control and have a certain pride in playing my cards right, I can only describe the totality of our situation as an utter and complete train wreck. There was carnage everywhere and I was praying that God would take one or both of us from this planet to end the pain. By the grace of God, our loving Heavenly Father was there working all along. At first, perhaps not perceptibly, but over time as we persevered and persevered a little more and a little more, God showed up. He showed up because we ceded to him the proper authority he deserves. He showed up because we began to ask him to deal with our own hearts rather than that of the other person. You realize what you're hearing here today?

Wow. He showed up at 2 a.m. as we were singing hymns in our bedroom during a bout of demonic activity in our house. And by the way, the devil wants your marriage to break up. God showed up through the hands and feet of you and many others at Moody Church who diligently stayed close to us in prayer.

I don't know if there are other couples at Moody Church who had their own days of prayer and fasting, but we did because we needed it. We needed a big God for our big problems, and he showed up in a big way. The other day, I asked my wife if we have it as good as ever, and she corrected me and said, we have never had it this good.

What we have now is much better. Now, they go on to point out they aren't perfect, obviously. He says when we do have fights, they don't escalate but end in genuine seeking of reconciliation. Now, catch this line. Not only do we love each other, but we actually like each other as well.

For a while, we neither loved nor respected each other, and now we do both. In fact, God has even granted us a ministry. And then he goes on to say that thank all the people at Moody Church.

He mentioned some specific names that I won't name who stood with them. And then he ended it, Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin has left a crimson stain.

He, and then in parens he adds, he really washed it white as snow. Did you all hear what God can do when he shows up in a marriage? I don't know what God talked to you about today. Some of you have to receive Christ as Savior so that you might get a new heart.

Some of you have to go home. You have to begin to listen like you've never listened before without judging, just listen. You need to talk. You need to deal with these issues, painful.

Oh my, are they painful. But in the end, when there is reconciliation and forgiveness, it is all worthwhile. And then some of you have some huge forgiveness issues, but all of us need God to show up and he is there if we're willing to pay the price of honesty and commitment.

That's what marriage is. Begin there. Would you join me as we pray together? And even as we pray together, I'm reminded of the last line of this letter. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin has left a crimson stain.

He makes it white as snow. Can you accept the fact that your first responsibility is to deal with God? Then after you've dealt with God, to deal with the issues. And we can't do that here. You need to go home. You need to draw a circle around the two of you. You need some long talks. Father, however imperfectly we have spoken today, my heart cries out for marriages that are so painful, so hurtful. Oh God, we pray that you might rescue them, show up, maybe at night, maybe during the day. But we ask Father that you will come on a rescue. We thank you that no matter how dark it gets, you also throw us a rope. Oh Father, do that in our lives even as we sing together about your love.

In Jesus' name, Amen. You know, even as I think about the image of light coming in darkness, of course we think about Christmas, the coming of Jesus Christ into moral and spiritual darkness. And as we prepare our hearts for Christmas, I'm holding in my hands a resource that I believe is going to be a great blessing to you. It's entitled The First Songs of Christmas, a 31-day Advent devotional written by Nancy DeMoss Walgamuth.

Now what she does is she takes the songs of Christmas, I'm talking about the song of Elizabeth and Mary and Simeon and the angels, and with a fresh heavenly perspective, directs our hearts in praise to God for this special gift. I want you to have a copy of this book. For a gift of any amount, it can be yours. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com. Of course, rtwoffer is all one word.

Or call us at 1-888-218-9337. I don't know about you, but my favorite time of year is Christmas, always has been and continues to be. And I want my heart to be encouraged and to be warmed. And I know that the first songs of Christmas, a 31-day Advent devotional, will be a great blessing.

Go to rtwoffer.com. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Society says getting in debt is normal. Sad to say, debt destroys all too many marriages and families. People feel they have to live beyond their means. On our next program, don't miss Till Debt Do Us Part. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.