Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. In a perfect world, marriages begin and end in blissful happiness, but all of us bring baggage into our relationships, and those pasts can do great damage when they're uncovered after we're pronounced man and wife. Today, how to face those pasts and move beyond them.
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, have you had to counsel young couples who regret having gotten married? Well, Dave, the answer is yes. As a matter of fact, the couples that come who are in trouble, I think almost all of them wish that they had never married each other.
It's very common. But the question is, where do we go on from there? Do we break up the marriage? Do we divorce? Or do we sincerely attempt to say, now that we're married, let's work through our differences, let God change us, and no matter how difficult it might be, we end up being successful in our marriages.
Now, that's a story that has to be told and retold. To all those who are going through marriage struggles right now, let me say that as you seek help and as you seek guidance, I pray that your marriage will be faithful till the end. But in order to help you with that journey, this sermon series is devoted to the kinds of problems that happen in marriage. That's why it's called The Marriage Puzzle. And for a gift of any amount, we're making these messages available for you in book form.
As a matter of fact, the book also includes questions, also links to the messages. We here at Running to Win are deeply committed to help you in your marriage, no matter where you might be in your struggles or also in your joys. But now let us listen carefully as we learn more about the issues of marriage. I believe that there are many marriages and the divorce that those marriages experience already begins to take place before the wedding. Just like cracks on the tire of a car where you can predict a blowout, in the very same way there are marriages that begin and you already know that the pieces are in place for conflict and probably eventually divorce.
That's why I preached the last message on red flags you might have missed. But one of the red flags that I didn't talk about and we will talk about today is the red flag of the past that the couple has had, that the individuals bring to the relationship. And if you don't know how to deal with your past, whatever that past may encompass, what you will do is bring to the marriage a body of death and it will be as if death accompanies you. For all the days that you are together, it will always be there.
And that is true if you are married and of course it is also true of your relationships if you are single. That's why this message is so important for you as well. I need to tell you up front that some of the things I'm going to share with you today are going to be very difficult for some of you to receive. As a matter of fact, for some of you this message will be something like having surgery without an anesthetic.
It's going to be very painful. Some of you are going to react to what I have to say. You may even disagree. You may justify yourself and say he doesn't understand. But I believe that I do understand, not of course all situations.
I'm simply saying that in context you'll accept these remarks as necessary to have a happy marriage. I believe so deeply in this message it is seldom that God begins to birth all of this burden in my heart early in the week. And yet that's the way this message has been. It has been in my soul Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
I could hardly wait until Sunday. This could be a game changer for many of you. But in order that you might not just hear my word because you can do that as you wish, you can take it or you can leave it, you need to hear the voice of God. Because some of the things that I'm going to be saying you will not see unless God shows them to you.
It's not my message that will do it. And it's not as if this message is the beginning and end of all that you need to know about a happy marriage. It is only one piece along the journey and we all need to hear it.
And so this is what I would like to do knowing that this may be a tough 30 minutes. If you as a husband are here today and you are sitting next to your wife, could I ask you to take her hand? I want you to take her hand because we're going to pray and I want you as a husband to pray quietly in your heart that as a result of this message your good marriage will be better and your bad marriage will be made good. Let's bow together in prayer. Now Father, who is sufficient for these things? Who can hear what we have to say? Who can understand the pain that some people will feel and the discomfort over what will be said? And yet Lord we thank you that you always cut us that you might heal us. You wound us not to destroy us but to heal us so that we can be better used by you. We ask that whatever preconceptions are brought to this that you might indeed help those to be put aside as we hear not my voice which is powerless but the voice of almighty God. We pray in Jesus name.
Amen. What are some of those pasts that people bring to their marriage? Well of course one of the most obvious is the past of expectations. That is to say if you're brought up in a certain home and your father acted in such a way or you didn't have a father and you didn't know how father should act you have a certain image in your mind as to how your husband is going to act how your wife is going to act and you suddenly discover different backgrounds different aspirations different expectations and certainly unrealistic expectations is one of the disappointments of marriage. People come to marriage expecting marriage to do only what God can and so they're disappointed three months or a year into the relationship. But let me hurry on to something that is even more difficult that we bring to our marriages and that is the baggage of the past the wounds that other people have inflicted on us. Today I'm speaking to some of you who are brought up in a home where there was alcoholism and your father beat you and as a result of that kind of experience you have certain expectations certain feelings about men certain feelings about life and you bring to the marriage a very open wound. Some of you have been sexually molested if it's true that one out of every four children one out of every four girls born is going to be molested then the number of women who have experienced sexual abuse of some kind at the hand of someone else is huge.
Obviously hundreds are probably listening to me right now. If you don't know how to take care of that what will happen is you will bring to your marriage an open wound and when you marry you're going to be saying to your spouse in effect I want you to heal me heal my wound but don't you dare touch that wound because if you touch it not only will I holler not only will I criticize you but eventually I will divorce you to find someone who can really understand me who can really heal my wound and so what you are doing is you're putting up a situation and you're asking your mate to do something that no mate can do he can help she can help but in the end it's something that only God can do and your expectations are too high and if you remain wounded and the wound remains open you will set up circumstances in such a way that your mate will never please you. If I might use the illustration a man might think to himself I finally have my wife figured out I finally know what will please her and he does that and he discovers that even if he can't win a touchdown he at least he can kick a field goal but while the ball is in the air the goal posts move and he discovers that that's not the right thing anyway and and again and you're back to square one so we bring to it the wounds that others have afflicted on us. The second thing we bring to marriage actually it's the third it's the unrealistic expectations our wounds inflicted on us and that is the sins that we personally have committed our poor choices as it is called today our sins.
Of course I could speak of many but because sexuality is such a great part of us I'm going to speaking about sexual sin. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6 it gives us more information there regarding the sexual experience than all the books that have ever been written by human philosophers. The Bible says that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her. Now just think about that here is a relationship that is not based on love it is lust for money it is the most debased sexual relationship you could think of and God says I put them together and they become one body.
Metaphysically they are joined. The intention of God of course is that you be joined to the one that you marry and that you be joined after you marry her or him and and therefore you have this unique relationship but according to a book I read yesterday only 20% of those in our churches the evangelical churches in America only 20% come to the altar with both being virgins. So what you have is a a situation in which this young man has been joined to this woman, this woman, this woman, this girl and she perhaps has been joined to all these guys and now they come together and we expect them to live happily ever after and we've not really dealt with their past in a very satisfying way and as a result of that there is a tendency to promiscuity that will develop later on once the marriage becomes an average marriage maybe even a boring marriage but also what is going to happen is young people like that find it very difficult to commit. They can't commit because they can't trust themselves like one man said I've had so many relationships I can't commit I can't imagine he said I'd like to be true to one person but I don't see how I can and so what you bring is all of that baggage enough to fill a Pullman freight car and now suddenly you're supposed to be happy when there's a little bit of you left with this person and a little bit with this person and a little bit with that and here you are by the way parenthesis never get married to someone with whom you're having an active sexual relationship.
If you want to be married live apart for at least six months we have that rule here at the Moody Church as pastors so that you can prove that there is something more to this relationship than trying to take a defiled bed and turn it into an undefiled one but this is brought to our marriages today so what do we do I'm so glad you asked because that's exactly the same page that I'm on. First of all it is so important for us to take responsibility to take responsibility you have to own your stuff as the saying goes and that is critical. Let me give you an example David in the Old Testament this is a classic David commits adultery he steals a man's wife and then he kills her husband to cover it up pretty serious stuff David begins to live month after month hoping that it will pass by he's thinking if I give this enough time it'll work itself out. Typical man by the way there's some of you who think that I'm harder on the men than I am on the women I don't think you're going to say that by the time this message ends but anyway typical man you know just give it enough time okay I messed up but let's get on with life he says in Psalm 32 that day and night God's hand was heavy upon him and so he was feeling conviction but you know it's going to blow over typical Nathan the prophet comes and says David I want to tell you about what's just happened in your kingdom there's a wealthy man with all kinds of sheep and then there was a poor man who had only one small sheep that he took care of and a man came to the wealthy man and said may I stay here and the wealthy man went and stole the poor man's sheep what do you think should be done and the Bible says David's anger was kindled against the man and he said he deserves to die but make sure that he pays back fourfold Nathan said David you're the man David more concerned more concerned get this over somebody stealing somebody's lamb than he was concerned about him stealing a wife who didn't belong to him and then committing murder to cover it up folks where sin is viewed superficially it is dealt with superficially if you are not willing to take out the time to say I have to own my stuff I have to feel the full import of my sin you see David not only minimized his sin in the sight of God you always minimize it this is human nature in the sight of others you remember last time I told you about narcissists the thing about a narcissist is not just that he's into himself he doesn't care how he hurts those around him and that's the way David was until in that same chapter he says finally I've sinned and then when he pours out his heart in Psalm 51 he uses the word I or me about six times in five verses have mercy upon me oh God according to thy loving kindness according on to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity cleanse me from my sin David finally got it but I'm here today to ask you have you gotten it or are you simply dealing with it superficially okay okay I messed up already sin is serious do you know the extent to which you have hurt the heart of your wife or the heart of your husband we have to own our own stuff secondly what we need to do is to accept God's forgiveness I'm going to skip over this because in a sense that's the easy part even though it is difficult but we don't have time to go into it all the way but I'm going to jump to number three number three we have to come to three we have to clear our own consciences this is what the bible says in first timothy chapter one verse five don't turn to it but just listen to it you can turn to it later it says this that we should have love flowing from a pure heart and good conscience if you don't have a good conscience you don't have a good marriage and I don't care how hard you try let me give you examples these all true examples of marriages with bad consciences wife confesses to me she said I am cheating on our checkbook my husband's so stingy and I cheated on the checkbook because I took money from the account that he doesn't know about and now I'm thinking payday is coming how can she have a good conscience she can't there are women who have had abortions that their husbands don't know about their husbands who have had affairs that their wives don't know about read about one woman yesterday who said I could handle it if it were an affair with a woman but it happens to be with a man but even for that there is hope then you have all of those issues I think for example of a man who walks with God he is he is pursuing God with all of his heart he's in fellowship with God he's well versed in the scripture but whenever he's asked to do something would you become an elder would you be a Sunday school teacher no no no no he disqualifies himself because nobody knows this he confessed it to a friend of mine that he has a child a boy growing up in Houston because of a pre-marital relationship that he had a fleeting relationship in college and you see every time that his wife doesn't know about it his kids don't know about it every time he wants to walk with God there it is there it is there it is there it is how can you walk with God look at your past you have to clear your conscience and the best way to do that is always with someone especially if it's a huge issue my friend do you understand that this message is so needed I think for example of all the people whom I have met and they have some baggage in their past that has never been opened and they're trying to deal with that baggage by sealing it off and living in two compartments in one compartment the man is a very good husband tries to earn a good living tries to love his wife but in the other compartment there are hidden sins from his past possibly also sins that are happening in his life right now unconquered sin that's why I believe that this series of messages is so critical and we here at running to win want to make it available for you in book form for a gift of any amount you can receive these messages you can go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 now if you missed that I'm going to be giving you that contact info again why I believe very deeply that these messages are going to be of great help to people struggling in their marriage for example if you come to marriage with that baggage and you don't deal with it what you'll discover is it will erupt in your relationships and while I'm on the topic I want to say this that anything that you do not forgive you pass on do you understand now why my heart is so heavy for marriages in America it's because you have so much divorce so much brokenness so much dysfunction children growing up in that kind of a situation bring that baggage into their marriage and only God can help them to put their past behind them well very quickly here's what you can do go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com or call us right now at 1-888-218-9337 ask for the marriage puzzle it's time now for another chance for you to ask pastor lutzer a question about the bible or the christian life carrie got in touch with us to say she's in a bad marriage and desperately needs counsel here is her story my church believes that I should stay with my husband even though he is emotionally and verbally abusive I believe that I have to break free of the cycle for the sake of my three children though one is old enough to be out of the house and on her own based on first peter three the view of my church is that the only grounds for divorce are physical abandonment and unrepentant adultery I believe that any man who abuses his wife and children over a period of time has abandoned his role as a husband and father pastor lutzer what do you think well first of all carrie I want to say that it is very important for you to honor your church and I would be very hesitant to speak against your leadership if they take the point of view that they have I'd like to suggest that there is a way by which you can honor them but also take care of the issue that obviously is so important to you and to your children namely the verbal abuse and the emotional abuse why not consider separation that's not the same as a divorce separation means that the two of you are living separate and I think that you should live separate for the benefit of your children but at the same time you're holding the door open to the possibility of reconciliation let me tell you this about husbands sometimes they need something drastic to happen they need their wife to take a drastic action before they are jerked into reality if I can put it that way I'd like to think that the leadership of your church would work together with you to bring that about in the life of your husband for him to be able to see that he cannot continue the kind of abuse that you've described and simply let bygones be bygones and have his faithful wife live there and take it especially the damage that might be done to the children so consider an alternative always seek counseling always seek help go to your church for continuing advice but there may be another way thank you carrie god bless you and my heart sends up a prayer to the lord even while i'm speaking on your behalf thank you pastor lutzer if you'd like to hear your question answered go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on ask pastor lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337 you can write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614 running to win is all about helping you find god's roadmap for your race of life next time facing those dark secrets we've kept from our mates and coming clean to move forward together don't miss our next program thanks for listening for pastor erwin lutzer this is dave mccallister running to win is sponsored by the moody church
