What Makes a Marriage Last – Part 1

I think it is great to be in a church where we talk about our marriages. It is great to be in a church where you don’t have to hide and pretend that everything is OK in our marriages. The church ought to be a place of healing, openness, and growth in our marriages.

Some of you already have great marriages, and your challenge in this series is to keep working at keeping your marriage great. Some of you are in really mediocre marriages and my hope for you this series is that you will say, “Enough of that. We’re going to have another conversation. I’m going to forgive one more time. We’re going to move towards a vision of marriage that is good.” And for some of you, you are in rocky, painful marriages, and it is my intent in this series that you will find hope for your marriage.

I know that sometimes in the church, singles can get overlooked. I hope that whether you are divorced and you’re single, or you’re single and you are looking forward to the time when you will be married, that there will be some really helpful things in this message, both for your relationships currently and in the future, that will make a difference.

Sometimes we view difficulties in marriage as an indication that something is wrong, but there are difficulties in every marriage. Growing in loving is amazing, but it takes work, it takes some struggle. I don’t know of anything that gets better if you don’t work at it, do you? If your toilet is plugged, does it get better if you don’t work at it? If your brakes on your car go out, do they get better if you don’t work on them? If you’re overweight, does your weight get better if you don’t work at it?

You know that if you’ve restored cars, if you tend a garden, or if you run a business that things, we intentionally put effort into, with God’s help, over time become better.

So let’s look at what God’s vision is for marriage, so that we start off on the right track. In Genesis 2, very early on in the Bible, God begins to talk about marriage. He says in verse 24:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Those of us in marriage will leave everything that we have ever known, and we will give it up for the joy of coming together, and in the mystery of oneness, have an intimacy that is not found in other relationships.

For God the vision of marriage has never simply been divorce avoidance, has never simply been “keep the peace and just get through the fifty years together”. God intent for marriage is an incredible move towards oneness and intimacy – this move toward knowing and being known, towards loving and being loved, not superficially, but deeply, intimately, where that deep down ache for love and meaning gets satisfied, and not just satisfied but fulfilled.

Now, it’s true that two people that get married bring dysfunction and difficulties and imperfections to a marriage. It’s impossible not to. But it is possible and desirable to be in a relationship where over time you become something great for each. To have a great joy in your relationship, a deep companionship. You grow together. You confront each other. You believe in each other. You celebrate with each other.

In the words of the great theologian Jack Nicholson in the movie As Good As It Gets, you can say of the person in your marriage, “You make me want to be a better person.” Where your marriage becomes the crucible in which you become a fuller human being and you begin to understand the love of God for you better because of the person that you are married to.

These words were written by the Apostle Paul. These words are for all Christians, but deeply apply to all marriages as well.

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Now this is true for relationships in general. All followers of Christ are to work at oneness, and that includes husbands and wives. It’s a special challenge for husbands and wives.

There are two different ways in which marriages can be damaged, and this is true for relationships in general. People can take “big exits,” or people can take “little exits.”

“Big exits” would be highly dramatic, very visible, often permanent ways to leave a marriage. Divorce would be the most obvious one. The Bible has a lot to say about divorce. When is it justified? I want to make just one comment on this subject this

morning. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin. In the Bible, God says, “I hate divorce.” Some of you know that. Do you know who else hates divorce? Divorced people – people who have been through that pain.

And if you have been through that pain, I just want this to be real clear for us as a community now and in the future, this church loves you and you are fully accepted here. You will not be looked down upon. We are a place where we are all fallen people

seeking to follow Jesus. But divorce is an example of a “big exit.” Other “big exits” would be murder, the FBI witness protection program.

But then there are “Little exits”. Little exits are much more subtle, quiet, underground, barely noticeable ways in which I move away from oneness. When I take a “little exit,” the result is that I find myself feeling a little more distant, a little more separate, a little disengaged, a little hurt.

And all day long, in dozens of ways, by the words that we speak, by our tone of voice, by our body language, by our activities, we are constantly either building oneness or eroding oneness. We are building each other up or we are tearing one another down. It’s going on all the time.

Here’s what I would like us to do. Turn to the person next to you, could be a marriage relationship, could be other relationships that you are involved in, or just stuff you have seen in people around you – what are some examples of “little exits?” Take about 30 seconds, turn to the person next to you, you can take a pass if you want to, but turn to the person next to you, just brainstorm. What are some examples of “little exits” that you’ve seen bring distance to relationships? What are some of the little exits that you talked about?

There are a lot of ways, maybe an infinite number of ways, in which people can take “little exits” from a relationship. Paul says, “Make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit.” Make every effort to maintain oneness, closeness, and a deep connection.

Oneness is the signature of God. If you have been around the Church, around the Christian faith, awhile you know that we believe in the Trinity. That God reveals himself in three different ways, Father, Son, and Spirit, and yet is still one God.  And part of the significance of that belief is that God is three persons and yet experiences perfect oneness.

Then God created human beings in his own image, and the Bible says:

Male and female, he made them, and the two shall become one flesh.

That’s the signature of God. Oneness. Community. Paul says that we don’t create that. God gives us that gift. But we have two choices. We can maintain unity or we can damage it.

So, over the next couple of weeks, I’d like to name some of the greatest threats to oneness. And you can apply this to any relationship, especially to a marriage. So I would like to ask you right now, pull out a piece of paper and a pencil. We are going to walk through the first threat to oneness. Write them down. Identify which one you are most prone to. And we are going to think about how to seal off the “little exits” that we sometimes take that damage intimacy and oneness in our relationships.

The first issue that can lead to an exit is our differences. Has anybody ever noticed that you are married to someone who is just slightly different than you are?

Shannon and I are very different people. I am a morning person, Shannon is just now waking up. I like to sleep with few covers, Shannon sleeps with all of them. Shannon likes to work with other people, I work well by myself. Shannon likes to do things one at a time, I like to do three at a time.

Our differences can be little things from the way you squeeze the tube of toothpaste to how you put the toilet paper roll on (which, by the way, the right way is the paper going over the top) to the really big things that drive a wedge between you – when your parenting styles are different or your temperaments are so different that you can’t agree on where to go on vacation.

What is cute when you are dating becomes annoying when you get married, and over time, if you allow them to, these differences can take center stage in your marriage and become such a source of friction that they drive a wedge in your relationship and become an exit in your marriage.

The danger with differences is when I begin to think my way is right and my wife’s way is wrong, or when in order to keep the peace and not bother with it, I shut down part of my personality and just let her have her way so I don’t rock the boat. Or there is a great danger when I start comparing my spouse with someone else and thinking, “If only I were married to somebody else.” That is very destructive! The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

One way of looking at relationships is by stages. There are three stages that relationships and marriages go through. The first stage is called fusion. It’s that stage when people are first dating and they’re engaged, and you can’t see any space between them. She’s hanging all over him or he’s hanging all over her and you want to tell them to go get a hotel room, but then you realize that they’re not married, so you don’t want to say that.

This stage doesn’t usually last very long before the relationship moves into what’s called differentiation. And that’s the phase where we are talking about differences. Where you separate from each other in what is, hopefully, a very healthy way where you become two separate individuals knowing yourself well enough to know who you are and what you want and what you need, but not just knowing yourself, but also knowing the other person.

And then hopefully you go through the next phase which is called mutuality, which is God’s vision for marriage – this oneness, this intimacy, that has two healthy individuals coming together in oneness. In mutuality, two distinct people who have different tastes, different views, different ways of doing things – two very different people, but yet in mutuality the two become one.

The problem becomes when you get stuck in the differentiation phase – you get stuck in the differences, you don’t navigate it well, and your differences become a source of huge conflict. One of the most remarkable things that you will see in scripture, in many different places, is God showing us that it is in our differences where we really find how to love each other. Not in our similarities. It’s easy to love someone whose like you. But it’s in our differences that we find that we find how to love one another in oneness.

Here’s the deal. Love can be sort of shallow if you love someone whose like you. I don’t have to know someone very well if they are like me. There doesn’t have to be any depth. But when someone is very different from me, then my love and knowledge of that other person has to go really deep in order to become one with them.

Jesus, when he had the job of calling the Disciples, spent time in prayer, and then he came out from that isolation and chose twelve very different people to follow him, and with those twelve people he built a community. Jesus’ final prayer before he was crucified,

Father make them one, as you and I are one (John 17:21 paraphrased)

Jesus is praying for people to be unified, for people to be one, for husbands and wives to be one. The good thing about our differences is, first of all, they are absolutely inevitable, and it seems the longer that you’re married the more aware of their differences you become. They can become a point of connection if you will let them.

A great exercise this week would be for all of us that are married to have dinner or a cup of coffee with our spouses write down those things in our marriage that we have different view points. Then, don’t try to change your spouses view, but rather, try to understand their view. Here’s what you may find out. You may find out that as you try to explain your view point on an issue – say disciplining children – that you can’t explain why you feel so strongly about not disciplining children. If you don’t understand why you feel so strongly about not disciplining children, how do you think your spouse is going to ever understand?

Differences can be a way to understand the other person and get a new perspective on life, and a way to really appreciate and love somebody when they are different from you. Most of us see our differences from our standpoint, but the point of love is to be able to see how someone else sees something – that we would somehow see things through their eyes, while standing in their shoes. Love is taking the time and the interest to see, know, and understand our differences, to see the brokenness of the other person – because we all have those places, and love is the only way that we become whole.

There is a huge part of us that want to change the part of another person that is different than us, but God does not call us to change the other person, but to love them.

I cannot change my wife, but I can provide the climate in which she can be changed. God changes people when they are in a safe environment. If there is regularly conflict over your differences, then there will not be any change. If you provide an environment of love, the other person will want to change. I cannot change my spouse, but I can heal her. I can take an active part in helping her become something more. I can take an active role in helping her become all that God created her to be.

Jesus was willing to give up his life in order for us to grow. Jesus said,

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

Are you willing to lay down your life in order to help your spouse become all that he or she can be?

Sometimes people misunderstand this verse to mean that if you are in a physically abusive marriage that you should stay in that marriage and be willing to die in that marriage if that’s what it takes. This verse is not saying that. If you are in a physically abusive marriage, get out. Get to a safe place. If you don’t have a safe place, call the church office and we’ll find you a place.

What this verse means, and this theme runs throughout scripture is that you will give up anything, out of love, in order to see someone else get better, get bigger, become the person that God created them to be.

I’m going to tell you very clearly. This may require counseling. I call it coaching. A football team doesn’t get better without coaching. How many team sports do you see without a coach? There isn’t one. Why not? Because whenever there is more than one person involved things are not cut and dry. Things get dicey. Things get complicated. It’s not just about you and them. It’s about all the people that have formed and shaped you and all of their brokenness that you’ve acquired. It’s about how you communicate – about what words mean to you and how those same words have different meaning to them. It’s about body language. It’s about things that you don’t even know that you do or know that you say that somehow flip a switch in the other person

Shannon, “you’re going with me to get some new clothes on Friday.”

Love is the only thing that overcomes our differences. Love is the only way that we can truly know – deeply know our spouse, and celebrate our differences, and heal our brokenness. Love and oneness can only happen through God and with God. Love and oneness is God’s signature. They are the trademarks of heaven, and they are God’s will for his children on earth.