Answer this question: how do we go from everything
being lovey dovey and mushy TO divorce court where we're fighting over all
kinds of things? It can happen so
quickly. God does not want it to happen and it doesn't have to happen that
way. That's why we're making and keeping
five commitments. In the last five weeks
at The Community Fellowship we have been discussing a series titled FROM THIS
DAY FORWARD. Here are the topics we
covered:
SEEK GOD - FIGHT FAIR - HAVE FUN - STAY
PURE - NEVER GIVE UP
As we ended the series this past Sunday we talked
about never giving up in our marriages.
I'm not talking about staying in an abusive marriage where you're a
punching bag and someone just tears you up.
In that case I believe it's healthy to separate, to get counseling to
make sure you're safe and then work on your marriage. But I am saying though in our marriage that
we don't give up.
Forget about the past as we can't change it, but
from our purposes, let’s look from this
day forward. And no
matter what's happened in our marriages in the past, from this day forward we
as Christians are going to never give up because we serve a God who says all
things are possible with Him. Here is
what God said to us:
Hebrews 13:5 NIV
… God
has said, “Never will I leave
you; never will I forsake you.”
God said he wouldn’t leave
us or forsake us. Leaving is
physical. Forsaking is emotional. You can still be present physically but
absent emotionally. You didn’t leave her
but you may have forsaken her. That’s
our example to follow in life and in marriage.
Never, never, never, never give up. In 1929 Winston Churchill was said to have
given a speech as Harrow School where he reminded the students, mostly boys,
that life will lead them to stop, to get side tracked, to give in, to become
weak, to compromise, but this world leader who knew weakness and strength spoke
some of the most powerful words those boys would ever hear. But these may be the most important words
that we ever hear. Never, ever, and I
mean ever give up.
Andy Stanley says, "You can't un-one what God
made one." The problem in our
culture is people don't understand what marriage is. Marriage is said to be an agreement or a
contract, but the reality is, marriage is
a covenant not a contract.
What is a contract? It's based on mutual distrust. A contract limits my responsibility and it
increases my rights. It
basically says that if we're in a contract with one another, I'm in as far as
you're in. A contract is what you sign that says I will do what I need to do as
long as you do what you are supposed to do.
Many people say this in marriage, "as long as you make me happy, if
you meet my needs, as long as nothing better comes along, then we'll stick with
this; but if you don't live up to your end of the contract then I'm
out!" But marriage is not a
contract. It is a covenant.
What is a covenant?
A covenant is a permanent relationship. God is a covenantal God, and God makes
relationships with His people that are permanent. The Hebrew word that is translated as
covenant is the word “berith”. The word
covenant literally means a cutting. In
the Old Testament they would cut a bull in half, and the two parties would walk
through the inside of the bull seven times to create a covenant. They would cut
the bull in half, and they would say, "If I break my covenant may what
happened to that bull happen to me."
This is serious business.
1
Corinthians 6:19-20 NLT
19 Don’t you realize
that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given
to you by God? You do not belong to
yourself, 20 for God bought
you with a high price. So you must honor
God with your body.
When we give up our marriages or when we give sex
away or take it away from marriage, we lessen the truth of God and the strength
of our marriages. Adultery is grounds
for divorce, but it is also grounds for forgiveness. We can honor God in brokenness as we seek God
together. He wants us together.
On a contract there's an end date, you rent this
house from me for a year; at the end of the year you're through. A covenant, it is until death do us part so
help me God! And that's why we never give up, because we don't un-one what God
made one.
What happens when marriage is difficult? What happens when it's painful? Many people chose to call it quits and
divorce. That is when seeking God really
pays off because when you don't have any love left, guess who loves through
you? The God who is love, loves through
you. And then God forgives through you
when you can't forgive.
And here's the crazy thing for those of you that
are Christians. You cannot say, "I
love God but hate my husband." Scripture says that you cannot say you love
God but hate your brother.
1 John 4:20 NLT
If
someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if
we don’t love people we can see,
how can we love God, whom we cannot see?
If you truly love God then you will seek Him. And as hard as it gets, and believe me, I
know it can get very difficult. You let
God do what you don't have the strength to do and you let Him continue to love
through you.
If someone smiles at you, what are you likely to do
back? You're likely to smile back. If somebody flips you off, what are you
likely to do back? You see where that is
going. In marriage, if someone shows grace
and compassion and thoughtfulness, what are you likely to show back? You will get back Grace and compassion. If someone is always complaining and
comparing and is always critical over and over and over, what's going to
happen? You're likely to come back with
defensiveness and anger and self-justification.
Here's the bottom line men and women, if you don't like what you're getting, look at what you've been
giving.
If you will keep seeking God, fighting fair, having
fun, staying pure, never giving up; if you continue to make God your One and
seek Him with your two; if you forgive when you've been hurt and confess sin
when you need to confess and work through issues and get counseling when you
need it, and take three steps forward and sometimes two steps back; but you put
your head back down and you get back in the game. Why?
Because this isn't a contract or an agreement, this is a covenant before
a Holy God. And if you do that what
could happen?
Psalms 34:3
NASB
O
magnify the Lord with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
Together.
That is where our strength is. It
is in joining together to defeat the enemy.
It is in making a commitment that isn’t a contract but a covenant. We are in this together.
NOTE: This post is taken from the
5th week of our series FROM THIS DAY FORWARD at The Community Fellowship, and
again I want to thank lifechurch.tv and Pastor Greg Groeschel for allowing
churches to use their material.
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