Father, we acknowledge your presence.
And now we pray that the words of our mouths and the thoughts of our hearts will please you. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.
Okay, guys, we had a great seniors minister. Vern Huber is a great seniors minister, guys. He. Yeah, he is. Thank you.
Of course, he stepped down a couple months ago, and in an act of peculiar cruelty toward our seniors, Ben assigned me as the seniors minister. So good luck for you. If you are 60 or above or retired, you qualify. And it's not just about an occasional meal or excursion. If you're in the third third of your life, kids, work, life, retired, whatever, end of your life.
If you're in the third third, we sometimes don't pay nearly enough attention to what it means to finish well. How do we finish well as Jesus followers? Because sometimes when we quit work, we quit working for God, too, and that is not finishing well. So we're going to be kind of rebranding a little bit. We're going to be calling our seniors ministry legacy, Finishing well.
What does it mean to finish well? And we're going to have a kind of our first little meeting coming up this Thursday. If you want to come to this. We're going to talk about what it's going to look like. I'm going to need some people to sign up for some different chores, but if you want to come to that, you need to register for that.
You can do that online at our website or on Planning Center. And please register so we know how much food to prepare and then show up about noon on Thursday. We'll probably eat for an hour and then probably talk for about 30 minutes or so. And so what does it mean to finish well? That's what we're going to be about.
And it is extraordinarily important, guys, hugely important. You don't want to run the race until just before the finish line and then quit running. How do you get all the way to the end? And that's what we're going to be talking about. Okay, I'm going to be focusing on Christian marriage this morning.
But if you're not married, this stuff applies to you. With a little bit of creativity, you can take any of the big ideas that I'm going to talk about this morning and apply them to just about any relationship that you might be in. Parents, kids, siblings, friends, neighbors, whatever. So you need to lean in. And I have heard that sometimes the preacher's job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
And I think I'm going To do the second one really well this morning. That's going to be my job. Now, Julie and I have been married for 52 years.
That's so cool. Thank you. I didn't mean that. But it's been long enough for me to discover a troubling truth. Julie is not always as committed to my comfort as I think she ought to be.
Apparently, she has this weird idea that occasionally I need to change. Change my mind, change my plans, change the channel, and more disturbingly, rarely. Occasionally, but rarely. I think God might agree with her. Now, Rick Warren wrote a great book about 25 years ago.
He called it the Purpose Driven Life. Some of you old guys probably read the book when it came out. It was pretty popular. And he opens it up with these four words. It's not about you.
If you are a Jesus follower, it's not about you. And you buy that? Let's make it personal. Say these four words with me. Right?
It's not about me. Now, do you live that way? Well, here's the big idea for today. Your marriage is not about you either. It's about God.
First, it's about serving your spouse. Next, you come in third. And I don't care which one in the marriage you are. How does that work for you? This is about as countercultural as it gets, guys.
This is kind of the opposite of the way most people approach marriage today. But let's see if you're willing to read these six words with me. My marriage is not about me. That was terrible. Try it.
Read it with me. My marriage is not about me. Now, that was a lie for a lot of you, wasn't it?
Our default is almost exactly the opposite. If you ask people what they're looking for in a spouse, their response is probably going to be something like, I want someone who makes me happy. I want someone who meets my needs. I want someone who makes me feel loved. I want someone who makes my life better.
Which sounds reasonable. But here's what happens nearly all the time. Your spouse doesn't always make you happy. Your spouse doesn't and can't meet all your needs. Your spouse doesn't always love you the way that you want to be loved.
And here's the deal. When our spouse stops doing those things for us, we figure our marriage must be broken. Our spouse must be defective. Maybe it's time to move on and find someone who will make me happy, meet my needs, and make me feel loved my way. Now, Ben and I are drawing on some ideas for this series from a book called Hardwired for Forever by Paul David Tripp.
Pretty good book. And he says, no human being is capable of holding and protecting anyone else's happiness. No human being can meet your deepest needs. No human being can give you the peace and the purpose that you're looking for. Because every single person in your life is broken.
Broken by sin. And every person in your life needs the same transforming you do. So don't expect a person to do what only God can do. Don't expect a person to give you what only God can give. Here it is.
When we expect another broken man or woman to give us what only God can give, we create this vicious cycle. Expectation, disappointment, criticism, and then punishment. How many of you guys have ever experienced that cycle? How many guys live in it? You expect something from a spouse that disappoints you, so you criticize, complain, rebuke, and then give them the silent treatment or worse.
Ever been there? Felt that.
Well, guys, what if we're getting it all wrong? What if marriage wasn't designed by God to do what we expect from it? We're Jesus followers. It's not about me, right? So here are some transformational ideas, some transformational truths.
I think Gary Thomas, great little book, put it like this. He said, what if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy? What if God's goal for your marriage is not your happiness, but your transformation into the man or the woman that God built you to be?
Paul David Tripp put it like this. He says, what if marriage is not the destination? What if it's part of the preparation? What if God designed marriage to prepare us for forever?
Bottom line, guys, what if your purpose in marriage is more about serving your spouse and helping them grow into what God meant them to be and less about being served and becoming what you want to be?
One more what if, as Jesus said, marriage is not forever? It's in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22. Marriage is not forever. But what if God is? What God is doing in us through a God honoring marriage, is preparing us for.
For forever.
Crazy ideas. Do they work? Can they make a marriage stronger, better, Richer? I think so. So let's start digging.
We're going to start here. Here's piece one. This is big. If you're married, you're married to God's kid. Do you know that?
Did you know that God treasures your spouse? Now maybe you do too. Maybe you love your spouse more than any person or anything in this world. God loves them more. Or maybe you don't really love your spouse anymore passionately.
God still does. You will never love any person more than God does. And God's love for them will never, ever falter. You understand that? See, your husband or your wife is not merely your companion, your lover, your friend, the mother or father of your kids, your partner, your husband or your wife is one of God's kids.
You are married to one of God's kids, a kid he adores.
Now, I love my kids, guys. And I've always believed that if you mess with one of my kids, you're messing with me. Now, that may not give you pause because I'm kind of old and not nearly as scary as I used to be. But I wonder if God's kind of like that. I wonder if God gets ticked if you start messing with one of his kids.
And I'm pretty sure that it's stupid to tick God off.
My wife, Julie is one of God's kids. And it's kind of like God has entrusted his kid to me for a season, which is supposed to be till death do us part. When I married Julie 52 years ago, I was not just making a pact with Julie, I was making a pact with God. I will love this woman. I will stand alongside this woman, your kid, God, for better, for worse, richer or poor, in sickness and in health.
Health. Till death do us part. And Julie made that pact with God too, to take care of me, God's kid, in a way that honors God till death. In this world.
Here it is. Unless Jesus comes back first, one of us is going to stand next to a casket and ask this question. Have I done what God wanted me to do to prepare this child of his for eternity? What effect am I having on preparing my wife Julie to meet her God? Am I nudging her towards the father or am I pushing her away from him?
And guys, there's not a bigger question for a husband or a wife than that one.
Some of you guys have already stood beside that casket. You know exactly what I'm talking about. And you know that there's no bigger question for a husband or a wife. Some of you guys are pushing your spouses away from God. Some of you guys are pushing your spouses towards hell.
That's not going to go well with the father.
Now, I can't save my wife. Only God can. I can't make her holy. That's the spirit's job. I can't choose Jesus for her.
But I can be a tool of God's grace or I can be an obstacle to it. And guys, listen My job is to do everything I can to drag my wife, God's child, to heaven. Her job is to do everything she can to drive me, God's kid, to heaven. You get it? Jesus gave us two great commandments.
He says, love the Lord your God, with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. And a second one is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, God is first, always, then your neighbor as much as you love yourself. And guys, you will never have a closer neighbor than the one sleeping beside you. We talk about loving the world, the poor, even our enemies.
But following Jesus. If following Jesus doesn't teach us to love the person sitting across the breakfast table, something's broken. Badly.
So here's my question for you. Is being married to you making it easier or harder for your spouse to love Jesus? Are your words moving them towards God or away from him? Does the way you handle your anger make God more believable, followable? Does the way you forgive showcase the grace of God?
How about your magnanimity, your respect, or your patience, or your faithfulness or your service?
So, very famous marriage passage in Paul's letter to the Ephesians. It's a passage that makes some people mad. Now, he starts out by saying, we often miss this part. He starts out by saying, submit yourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ. And he's talking about marriage.
Basically he's saying, it's not about you. Right, husbands, it's not about you. Wives, it's not about you.
And then he says, wives, submit yourselves to the husbands. As to the Lord. That's a part that makes a lot of ladies mad. It'd be intolerable if not for verse 21, where he tells us to serve each other, to submit to each other, because it's not about you, not even your marriage.
And then he tells husbands to love their wives, but not with any old kind of love. With the selfless self giving, unconditional, unbreakable love that Christ has for the Church. That's your model. But here's the part I want you to catch. Why does Jesus give his life for the Church?
Paul tells us to dedicate the Church to God. To dedicate the Church to God. To make her holy, to present her to, to Himself in all of its beauty, pure and faultless, without any spot or wrinkle or any other imperfection. Guys, what a husband does for a wife and what a wife does for a husband is supposed to mirror that. We're supposed to do whatever we can to prepare our Spouse to meet their God in all of their beauty.
Now, I don't have the power to make Julie holy. That's God's job. But am I doing whatever I can to help her present herself to God in all of her beauty without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish? Or am I getting in the way? Guys, that's my number one job as a man, As a husband.
Ladies, that's your number one job as a woman or as a wife to help your husband prepare himself for you, God.
Guys, ladies, your job is to do whatever you can to bring your spouse to the foot of the cross. Your job is to do whatever you can to encourage him or her to grow into everything that God wants them to be. They're not just your spouse, they're God's kid. I'm a pastor. It's my job, it's my life purpose to nudge as many of you as I can towards the foot of the cross.
It's my job to encourage you to become everything that God wants you to be. But how do you think God's going to measure me if I impact hundreds of you but turn my own wife or my own kids away from God? Because at home I'm kind of like it's all about me.
Same for you. How's God going to measure you if you touch dozens or hundreds with the gifts that he has given to you, but you turn your part partner away from God by your meanness or your unforgiveness or by your selfishness?
Peace one. You're married to God's kid. See, your main job as a husband or a wife is to do whatever you can to prepare the one that you have committed your life to for there forever.
Peace 2. It's going to be hard. It's going to be flat out hard. It's a guarantee. You know why?
Because we live in a broken world and you are married to a broken person. And so are they.
James, the brother of Jesus, put it like this. He says we all stumble in so many ways. No kidding. Sometimes the stumbles we make are just mistakes. We make a lot of mistakes, don't we?
But sometimes we just sin. We know what's right and we don't do it. We know what's wrong and we do it anyway. We're broken people living in a broken world. So you cannot expect a perfectly happy, perfectly smooth, problem free marriage.
Guys, when things get hard, and they will, forever makes the difference. Let me show you.
Bottom line, guys, one of the biggest sins, putting stresses on Our marriages is that we can be so self centered, so self absorbed, so self focused on what we want, what we like, what makes me comfortable. It's that self, isn't it? Pride. Me first, my way, my needs, my comfort. And with that attitude, before long, the person I promise to love with God's kind of love, that person becomes an obstacle to the life I think I deserve.
Right?
You see, God's goal for your marriage is not simply that you stay married till one of you dies. Two self absorbed, self centered twits can stay married for 60 years. That is not a God honoring success story. God wants our marriages to be a gymnasium for the soul. A place where two people are increasingly morphed into the image of Jesus, what we were meant to be.
And that goes way beyond endurance. And endurance by itself is hard for a lot of people today in our world, maybe for some of you guys, it's no longer till death do us part. It's more about till I'm not happy or till I find someone better. And so we quit.
We're a nation of quitters. By that you a quitter. Some people hop from job to job when things get tough. Some bosses quit on their employees, some at the slightest provocation. Some people hop from church to church because every church is going to give you a reason to be annoyed from time to time.
A lot of people quit on their faith entirely because God isn't behaving the way they think he should. And a whole lot of people quit their marriage. And a whole lot of people quit in their marriage. There's a difference.
Now, it's true that the divorce rate in America is declining. Did you know that? But did you know that one of the reasons is that a whole lot more people are simply not getting married. They're just living together without getting married. So when they split, there's no divorce.
By the way, your chances of quitting when living together is way higher than your chances of quitting in marriage. Nevertheless, still, about a third of our marriages currently end in divorce. Unfortunately, that number is about the same for Jesus followers. Although those who are serious about Jesus following seem to do better.
What we don't usually factor in are the couples who quit in their marriage without an official divorce. A lot of people, maybe some of you guys, you're married legally, but you quit loving and respecting and serving each other a long time ago.
Still living under the same roof. But calling you husband and wife is a bit of a stretch. Some of our marriages have devolved into kind of like a cold war. Some of them worse.
So what do you do when you see that something in your marriage is broken, badly broken? Maybe you've got options. You can leave. And occasionally, occasionally leaving is the right thing to do. When you study the scriptures, you're going to find that there are times when God permits divorce.
Just make sure it's one of those times. Guys, you can leave. Whether you're leaving is God honoring or not? Or you can simply choose to stay and accept, tolerate, surrender to the brokenness, the dysfunction. She wants war.
Fine with me. He doesn't love me anymore. Well, as long as he keeps bringing a paycheck and paying the bills, so be it.
So you can leave, or you can choose to live in a loveless marriage under the same roof. Or you can try to love each other God's way and say, by the grace of God, I am not going to quit on you. I'm never going to be content with less than what God wants from my marriage, but I'm not going to quit on you. Paul, David, Tripp and Hardwired Forever calls it righteous dissatisfaction. I'm not going to accept the brokenness, but I'm always going to love my husband or my wife.
Till death do us part anyway. Righteous dissatisfaction means I refuse to make sin with the peace with make peace with the sin in our marriage, which includes my own sin. It's not about pretending that sin is harmless or requiring one spouse to repair what both have to address.
Guys, there are things in every marriage that need to change. There are sins that need to be battled. There are wounds that need healing. There are apologies that need making. In some marriages, there are serious issues that need some intervention and some protection.
But here it is. Guys, listen. I can be dissatisfied with what sin is doing to our marriage without being dissatisfied with my commitment to the person that God has entrusted to me for a time.
I'm going to take you to a really tough scripture. We don't usually apply this verse to marriage, but we should. This is in the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans. He says God will give eternal life to those who keep on, keep on doing good, seeking after the glory, the honor and the immortality that God offers.
Listen, guys, goodness isn't measured by times. When it's easy, real goodness is persistent. It's easy to flirt with goodness. It's easy to be courteous, courteous to other drivers occasionally when we're in a good mood, have plenty of time. It's easy to help someone out by opening a door.
If I have the time, it's easy to throw a couple of extra bucks into the offering plate once in a while if I'm not going to miss them. It's easy to be good when a husband or a wife is thoughtful and courteous and selfless and loving. Goodness is not measured by when it's easy or convenient. Real goodness is persistent. It's keeping on.
It's a commitment to doing the right thing even when you feel pulled in the opposite direction. It is not occasional. It is persistent. Surrender to God and it's all about the forever. You see it to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory, honor and immortality that God offers.
Did you know that perseverance, faithfulness, persistence in doing good do not always make sense if you're just living for the present and not for eternity. Listen guys, some kinds of faithfulness only make sense if forever is real, and it is here it is. Sometimes faithfulness is painful. Sometimes doing things God's way make us less happy brings us less pleasure than doing things our way for a while. But in the long run, doing things God's way will bring his pleasure, his glory, his honor, and his immortality.
And any sacrifice that you make for God here will be infinitely small compared to the wonder of what he has in store for his children.
Which means that preparing for eternity by sticking with a difficult spouse makes a whole lot more sense than destroying a marriage and risking God's displeasure. Most divorces are initiated by someone running from at most a few difficulties, decades, and risk the glory and the honor that lasts an eternity. And that's a terrible trade.
The Bible doesn't promise the crown of heaven to the person who's had the happiest life on earth. God doesn't award ribbons to Christians who've been able to avoid the most pain. True goodness is proven when it's hard. We're faithful because we don't just live for this life, we live for another one infinitely more precious.
Now listen, guys, some of you are divorced. I know. If you are, I'm not talking about your past. God's grace covers your past. What matters now are the choices you make now.
And I know that occasionally there are biblical reasons for a marriage to break up before death. Maybe you're in a spot like that now where it's not just broken, but the covenant that you made seems irreparably broken.
Or maybe God's precious kids are being damaged in some horrible way.
But guys, God is pretty good at fixing broken. Some of the most beautiful mosaics are crafted from broken pieces that have been put together in beautiful new ways. And God can do that if both of you are willing to try.
So piece one, you're married to someone that God loves passionately. You're married to God's kid. And your main job as a husband or a wife is to do whatever you can to prep that one that you've committed your life to for their forever. It's not about you and peace too. It's going to be hard, sometimes really hard.
But it's our sense of forever that gives us this toughness, this endurance, this perseverance in doing good.
So where does the rubber hit the road? What do you take home from these ramblings? What do you keep on doing to create a God honoring marriage even when it's extra hard? And I'm going to give you an answer that just seems too simple. I kind of stole the big idea from Andy Stanley.
And you can apply it to so many different contexts. And here it is. Guys, just do the God honoring thing.
Guys, just keep doing what a great God honoring husband would do. Ladies, just keep doing what a great God honoring wife would do. And don't quit how to fight. Maybe. What do you do next?
Just do what a great God honoring husband would do. You figure it out, ladies. Maybe he was thoughtless in your eyes. What do you do next? Just do what a great God honoring wife would do.
Don't quit loving on him, respecting him.
Maybe you're like, but I've apologized three times. She's still dogging me. What do you do next? Well, what does God do when you persist in being a twit? Does he quit loving you?
Maybe you're like, but he never. Well, it's not about whether he ever. You just keep doing what a great God honoring wife would do. But she isn't. But guys, what does it matter?
You keep doing what a great God honoring husband would do. Just do that. It's not about whether you think they're acting in a God honoring way. It's about you choosing a God honoring way as often as God does.
I'm not talking about just keeping on absorbing sin. Sometimes the God honoring thing to do is to confront, get help, get safe.
Loving someone God's way never means enabling their sin. It's not about becoming a doormat. But we always try to choose a God honoring path.
So let me kind of wrap this up with some thesis statements and you can tell me whether or not these kind of map out a path for a Jesus follower in marriage or any other relationship that God has gifted you with. Number one, it's not about me. I'm here to serve God first, always God first. And then I'm here to love on and serve those that he has entrusted to me. And if I am married, there is not a human being who's been entrusted to be more intimately than my spouse.
Number two, it's my job to do everything I can to nudge them towards God. Kind of like to do whatever I can to drag them to heaven best I can. It's my job to help prep them for forever as best I can. Number three, don't quit doing good. When the going gets tough, it's going to get tough.
But guys, the love of God is tougher and forever makes it worth it. And number four, always ask the question, what would a great God honoring spouse do? And just do that. Don't wait for them to go first. You just keep on doing the right God honoring thing.
Listen guys, your marriage is not going to last forever. A few decades at most, but your spouse will.
Don't focus your time and your energy on what will not last. Pay attention to what will. Let's pray.
Father, sometimes your truths are hard, but they're always right.
And they will make life better.
Give us wisdom and give us courage to be children of God. To choose youe path.
Father, help us to be channels of youf grace to those in our life. Your grace and you'd truth and never to settle for less.
We love you dearly. We want to honor you in all of our relationships. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray these things. Amen.