September 15, 2013
THE MYSTERYOF MARRIAGE
CLASS I
Friends with Benefits: On Sacred Mission
FOUR WARNINGS:
1. PRINCIPLE VS. PRACTICE
The principle in scripture is our ultimate source for transformation.
Our practice is merely an attempt to apply the scriptures to our lives.
For example: Eph. 5- “Husbands love your wives” is a principle.
I may add “Love your wives responsibly and efficaciously”
I may then illustrate how I practice that principle.
Do not feel compelled to follow my way of practicing.
Do follow the principle that undergirds the practice.
Adorn the principle with your own creative practice.
2. THESE CLASSES ARE NOT COUNSELING SESSIONS
Counseling sessions are intimate and personal.
These classes raise awareness of the scriptures as applied to marriage.
The classes present big ideas that require wise and personal application.
3. DON’T DRIVE HOME SAYING:
“I’ve been trying to tell you that for years”!
“My God, this is hopeless”!
4. WE ARE NOT THE SINE QUA NON OF MARRIGE
Though fortunate to be married 40 years and happily at that,
we are surely flawed by sin and simply fellow strugglers!
2.
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS: ON SACRED MISSION
THE STATISTICAL WONDER OF MARRIAGE:
50,000 - Weddings this week- 50% will fail
1/3 is second and third attempts- 80% will fail
Why is man so driven to marry?
What is the purpose of marriage?
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM:
To exp. true love and romance and sexual intimacy
Companionship
Financial security
Procreation to find fulfillment in a family
Division of labor- He brings the paycheck/ she guides the home
Everybody seems to be doing it!
*All these reasons are well rooted in reality and backed up by experience.
HOWEVER- For the Christian marriage, it includes the above list
plus much more. The bible tells us what the big reason is- and it is glorious!
BETTER THAN A SOUL MATE
Before the fall (Gen. 1) God declares everything He made- Good!
The exception- (Gen. 2) Adam’s aloneness- “It is not good”!
Blaise Pascal- God shaped vacuum
Companion shaped vacuum
3.
“Let us make man in our own image”- “Who is us”?
In “God’s image” means we were designed for relationships
God’s remedy for Adam: Providing a “suitable” partner
Jerry McGuire- “You complete me”-Parroting universal truth
Adam to Eve-“This is bone of my bone…”- “You complete me”
SOUL MATE vs. SUITABLE COMPANION
Soul Mate- Knows the real you and accepts you
Often- compatible sin natures
These traits will contribute to your happiness
Suitable Companion- Foremost a spiritual “helper”
A spiritual “friend”
What God has originally intended is that this spiritual helper not only helps when it
comes to your personal happiness but this person helps when it comes to your personal
holiness.
Today our culture loosely tosses around the term “friends with benefits”- suggesting
casual friendship with sex thrown in, yet, without commitment.
In a Christian marriage your spouse should be a true friend with “spiritual benefits”.
These “spiritual benefits” help us define the purpose of marriage:
DEFINITION OF THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE
A Christian marriage is a covenant of spiritual friendship between husband and wife that
mutually promotes the spiritual wellbeing and advancement of the other partner.
4.
THINK ABOUT IT:
-As Christians we have all experienced the grace of God in the gospel
- Our identities have been changed to the root
-God’s calling and love is the most foundational elements in our lives
- As spouses we long for the same future & journey to the same horizon
-What the bible calls the “new creation.” (2Cor. 5:17)
- God is doing a “good work” in us that will be complete at end of time
We will become our true selves
The persons we were created to be
Free from all flaws, imperfections and weaknesses i.e. “sin”
Described as the “glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18)
We “hope” and ‘wait eagerly” for this final & full redemption
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
It means that any two spouses, can have a robust spiritual friendship, helping each
other on their journey toward the “new creation” and their “recreated selves”, while doing
ministry together in the world.
THE CHARACTER OF FRIENDSHIP
I. CONSTANCY- Friends love at all times (Prov. 17:17) especially in
Adversity- For better or worse
For richer or poorer
In sickness or health
5.
II. TRANSPERANCY AND CANDOR
They are your greatest affirmation on the one hand
Offering bracing critiques on the other hand
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Prov. 27: 5-6)
“As iron sharpens iron…” (Prov. 27: 17)
Why you need a “suitable” helper or friend
They must approximate you enough to sharpen
III. A THIRD AND MOST IMPORTANT QUALITY
This quality serves as a foundation for the other two
“SYMPATHY”- sym-pathos= COMMON PASSION
This quality is discovered more than created at will
This quality arises between people who discover that they
have common interests in and longings for the same
things.
C.S Lewis
And
-each wrote well know essays about how a common
Ralph W. Emerson
vision can unite people of very different temperaments.
LEWIS: insisted that the essence of friendship is the exclamation “You, too?” While erotic love
can be depicted as two people looking at one another, friendship can be depicted as two
people standing side by side looking at the same object and being stirred and entranced by it
together.
THE PARADOX is that friendship cannot be merely about itself. It must be about something
else, something that both friends are committed to and passionate about besides one
another. (Four loves- C.S. Lewis)
6.
COMMON INTEREST- EXAMPLES
Steve Neptune- July 3, 1976 at Dairy Queen – N.T. Pattern
Jonathan & Megan Putnam- at Starbucks- Mission work in Turkey
Marcia and I- at church - Commitment to Christ and His Church
THE POINT: People who you have, necessarily, no affinity with…when you include
Christ…there is an automatic connection. A connection so strong that it can withstand
enormous differences in class, temperament, culture, race, sensibility, and personality. There
is an underlying commonality that is more powerful than them all.
SO:
1. A Christian can become great friends with a non-Christian = Author
2. Perhaps the richest and best relationships, however, are those that combine
both natural and supernatural elements= Christ and Christianity
3. Marriage, of course, can add the power of romantic love to the natural and
supernatural bonds of friendship, and this is what can make marriage the
richest of all human relationships.
SUMMARY:
-Your spouse can and should be your best friend and lover- S.O.S
-Your spiritual oneness will prompt you to speak the truth in love to each other as you
journey towards the same horizon, a horizon so high and far, yet sure- it is nothing less that
“the day of Jesus Christ” and what we will be like when we finally see him face- to- face.
7.
Apostle John said - “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not
yet been known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see
him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” (1Jn. 3:2-3)
Ancient cultures married for security and status (love not until middle ages)
Modern culture marries for happiness
Christian Community marries for gospel reenactment
Gospel- Jesus sees us stuck in human condition & lays down his life
Now- we are on a journey with him to a “future glory self” of perfection
We- are not even close to the people we were designed to be
THE PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE- is to help your spouse become his or her future glory self
through sacrificial service- as exemplified in Ephesians 5
THEREFORE- love is an action first and a feeling second
Most imp. Aspect of marriage to remember is that you have
to take up a ministry or service mindset.
We basically have a consumer mindset when it comes to marriage= happiness
MAXIM: I’ll be the spouse I ought to be if you to degree are the spouse you ought to be.
GOSPEL REENACTMENT: I will be the spouse I ought to be whether you are being the spouse
you should be- or not. Because Jesus gave me spousal love like that and because he loved me
not because I was lovely but rather to make me lovely - I am going to do that for you.
EPHESIANS 5:25-28 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself
up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the
word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle of
any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands
should love their wives…