Welcome to part 6 in our 7-part
relationship series. The entire series has been a great time of focusing on
God’s love for us and our relationship to Him. We’ve also focused in depth on
our relationships with others. So far, we’ve talked about love in marriage,
love in family, and love in friendship. If you’re interested in those earlier
topics, I encourage you to go back and listen at the message center on the
church website. They all are good messages, but in particular if you have
family relationship issues or friend relationship issues, I strongly recommend
those two messages. (And for those who are wondering: no I did not happen to
give either of those messages.)
Today’s title is “Love in Dating (and Waiting).” There are some parallels with the Love in Marriage message. If today’s message speaks to you, I also encourage you to go back and listen to that message as well.
If we let it, this dating and waiting period of our lives has the possibility to become a very anxious time. Doesn’t it? Before I was married, I remember a lot of anxiety in this area. Both before I became a Christian and after I became Christian.
Our culture, not to mention the media, is filled with this drive to find a mate. Some time around 6-8 years old, little boys reach the “Eww, girls are gross” stage. A hallmark of this stage is never willingly taking a bath or brushing your teeth. Bad breath, wow, that’s cool. Personal hygiene is not just optional, it is avoided. Then, something happens around 13 or so and we start with trying, at least, to not repel girls by our looks or odors. Personal hygiene becomes a bigger part of our lives, probably some more than others. Guys suddenly want to impress and attract girls.
I remember being at the beach one summer when I was in junior high school, probably 13 years old. I was with my cousin and his friend. They were two years older than me. We were talking with these three girls, and they were actually talking back to us. Not “talking back,” but actually responding in conversation. Man, we thought we were hot stuff. We were standing on the deck of the pier. It had these railings and they were separated by just about the width of my leg at the knee. The railings were painted white, so they were pretty slick.
While we were talking, I was anxiously sliding my knee in and out between the railings. All of a sudden, I popped my knee all the way through, but it wouldn’t fit back out. I’m trying to discretely pull my leg out without disconnecting it at the knee, but it won’t budge. In a minor panic, you don’t really think rationally, so I was flexing my knee while trying to extract it and just making it worse. The conversation was winding down, and I had to confess that I was permanently attached to the deck. Long story short, my cousin gets a guy from the pier. He sees that the railings are slightly wider at the top and he gets me to relax my leg. Then, he shoves my leg up to the top ad then back between the railings. It came out in one piece minus a little skin on either side. I don’t even remember what happened to the girls. I think they stayed around at least out of morbid curiosity. But following the liberation of my leg, we never saw them again.
My kids love this story. They occasionally ask me to repeat it. If I knew how much laughter I would get out of this story, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so bad about it at the time. I was just mortified, and it was my fault we lost the girls. It’s a wonder my cousin would still talk to me after that. On second thought, everyone laughed so much (except me) I think they forgot about the girls
Fast forward to high school, I was having a conversation with my best friend. I was a junior, so 16 or 17. I was pretty shy around girls, probably related to the deck railing incident. I didn’t date which is not a bad thing. My best friend was constantly relating his relationship happenings good or bad. Since I wasn’t dating, I didn’t have anything to report. And guys generally don’t open up about hopes and fears. Guys talk about what they did. So one day out of the blue, I remember my buddy saying, “So, I guess you’re not interested in having kids or getting married.” It was like a glass of cold water to the face. You could not have said anything that would have brought my real feelings on the subject to the surface more quickly. I can still remember the shock and the absolute confidence that I wanted to get married and one day have kids. If you could do it in a movie, my buddy would ask the question and then there would be this zoom-in whooshy thing, I’d see the next 20 years of my life, then zoom out, and I ended up nonchalantly saying something like, “Naw, I think I’d like to get married and have kids one day.”
Before we graduate high school, ideas and expectations already form in our hearts and minds. Not to mention finding a mate is an inherent part of our culture. It affects us from childhood. We may not think about it all that much way back then, but we can and often do become more preoccupied with it as we get older. Male-female relationships are rampantly covered in the media. TV, movies, magazines, books, internet services, everywhere you turn seems to have some kind of advice or scheme of how to get the guy or get the girl. Right now, we’re going to turn to the real source of wisdom and love for insight into this crucial area. Before we do that, let’s take a moment and pray and ask God to speak to us and open our hearts to his love and truth.
Lord Jesus, You love us so much. You desire good things for us. You desire godly marriages and godly families. You are love, and You created both man and woman. You created marriage as the only righteous way to have an intimate physical love relationship. I pray that You would speak to us in the area of choosing a future spouse. Our culture is bombarding us with messages that say we can have it anyway we want it. Help us to grow in confidence that Your way is the best and only secure way to have contentment, security, joy, and love. Help us to be patient and wait on You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Wow! Where to start? I feel like the Lord has been pulling to mind a lot of the things I did wrong before I got married. I’ll share some of those. I also got counsel from my wife on this topic a couple of times. Carl and I talked last week and he shared some of his experiences. I feel like I should have passed out helmets and you need to fasten your seat belts. Hang on.
Marriage is a beautiful thing. Little girls dream about it. Young men wonder whether they can make the commitment. We put on elaborate catered events in beautifully decorated churches and outdoor venues with the bride in an ornate gown and groom in the finest clothes that money can rent in order to signify the importance of this event. The clothes we wear and the things we say today at weddings are connected to weddings stretching back centuries and millennia.
God instituted marriage at the very beginning between Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 2. Immediately prior to the creation of marriage, God created Eve. What did God say right before he created Eve?
“It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18
God is the ultimate problem solver. If there is a need, if there a “not good” situation, it is God’s desire to rectify or redeem the situation. If God notices and provides for Adam, He notices your circumstances and desires to provide for you.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Psalm 23:1
… those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. Psalm 34:10
For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. Psalm 84:11(NASB)
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19
In Adam’s case, he had it kind of easy, in a way. He really couldn’t go out and get a spouse on his own. He certainly couldn’t make one on his own. He had to wait on the Lord. In the present day, there are lots of potential spouses, husbands and wives. If we get impatient today, we can force the situation, right? We can get in His way. Our sinfulness and disobedience can mess up His plans.
We’ll come to the harder stuff in a minute, but even our hormones and impatience can get us into situations that God did not intend. When Carl and I were talking about this message, he pointed out that whenever you have guys and girls together, there will be attractions forming, dissolving, and forming with someone else. “Did she look at me that way because she likes me?” “Hey, he said exactly what I was thinking.” That’s one good reason why you should spend time together in groups rather than excessive time together one-on-one (i.e.- dating). Being alone together excessively prevents this ebb and flow of attraction.
Melissa and I were talking about our experiences, and naivety was another topic that came up, as well. Guys work differently than girls, and girls work differently than guys. We’re all unique with unique upbringings and experiences. A lot of time, we don’t completely understand our own motives. How much less can we understand the motives of others?
I’m going to speak for my wife here. She is a compassionate person. It is a great character trait for a Mom, and a wife. But before getting married, she experienced more than one relationship where her compassion toward a guy with deep hurts was taken to mean something that wasn’t really there. In hindsight, it is relatively easy to see that she shouldn’t have been spending so much one-on-one time with these guys, including me before we got married.
The challenge for her was the naivety of thinking she was being nice where the guy was thinking something else entirely. I’ve touched a couple of times already on the one-on-one time. It is wise to keep this to a minimum before you’re married. Another area is that of physical contact. I think women may be better able than men to separate intimate with non-intimate touching. I don’t know because I’m not a woman. But speaking as an amped-up hormone-filled guy, back rubs, neck massages, leaning on one another during movies or long car trips, these things may seem innocuous, but may be entirely too intimate to another person.
My goal here is not to isolate every unmarried person into some kind of cocoon. I’m just saying, you don’t know where the other person is coming from or what they are thinking. Song of Solomon brings this up. Song of Solomon is the most physically intimate book in the Bible, celebrating the marital love relationship, and yet it says …
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. Song of Solomon 2:7, 3:5, 8:4
It is interesting to note that this sentence occurs 3 times. Each time it appears, it is the Beloved speaking to the daughters ofJerusalem
Guys, I’m not going to let you off the hook. The same principle applies to us, but we’re not so good with subtlety. So, you get a quote from the Georgia Satellites 1986 song,
“My honey my baby don't put my love up on no shelf.
She said, ‘Don't hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself.’”
We talked about our marriage traditions and how there are commonalities all the way back to the very first marriage. However, there are stark difference on some of the ancient marriage customs and today.
Do you remember from the story of Jesus’ birth, how marriage worked at that time? It was really a three part process. There was engagement. This could even be arranged by parents for their children. That’s a pretty strange concept for us today. Then, there came a betrothal stage. At that point, you were legally married to your spouse, except you could not live together. An entire year later, there would be a wedding and then the husband would take his wife home and they would be all the way married.
I’m not really advocating for us to return to that structure. What I want to do is contrast that Biblical/historical model with what commonly goes on today. Today, people regularly move in together prior to marriage. Most often, they will say they want to find out if they are compatible before they commit to marriage. It’s completely upside down thinking. Commitment and compatibility are not closely related. Commitment is “an agreement or pledge to do something in the future.” In marriage, that means staying together through thick and thin. Compatibility is “the capability of existing together in harmony.” If something is universally compatible, then commitment is not necessary. Commitment is needed when a relationship is not capable of existing in harmony, in particular during difficult times.
Is compatibility between spouses necessary? Yes, of course. You should be compatible with your spouse. But no two people are universally compatible.
And, your commitment to one another is independent of your compatibility. Think of our relationship to God. He loves us unconditionally. He has always loved us. And yet, our sin makes us incompatible with a pure and holy God. But, He is committed to us. He sent His only Son to die on the cross for our sins. When Adam sinned, and when you and I sin, God doesn’t throw up his hands and say, “Well, we’re just not compatible any more. You’re going to have to move out.”
Let’s touch on the topic of compatibility while we’re here. Yes, spouses should be compatible. How do you know if you’re compatible? Or even better still, how do you become a compatible spouse? Pray. Listen to God. Become the right person. When I say become the right person, I mean become the person God created you to be. I would also say having close Christian friends and Christian roommates are key to becoming the right person and determining compatibility. They can speak into your life and give you insight, in love.
Let’s look at the flip side. What drives incompatibility between spouses? Living together outside of marriage is going to create incompatibility. If you’re willing to live with someone outside of marriage, doesn’t that prove before you’re married that you’d be willing to do stuff without commitment? That plants a seed of mistrust that won’t be overcome easily, if at all.
Immorality before marriage is another big driver for incompatibility in marriage which worst case results in divorce. I don’t have statistical data on this, but Melissa and I thought through the few failed “Christian” marriages that we have some knowledge about. I’m talking about folks who were believers that got married and ultimately got divorced.
If you have a situation where there is sexual intimacy between two Christians before marriage, there is going to be guilt and there is a desire to hide that sin. That couple has already willfully disobeyed God, so confession and repentance is often not the first choice of a solution. Once we get into sin and don’t confess right away, then we start to play God. We want to fix it ourselves. What is the solution for the couple which was sexually intimate before marriage? How will they solve the guilt problem?
Let’s get married. That will fix the problem. If you don’t deal with the sin, if you don’t confess, if you try to fix it without God, there will be deep rooted guilt, shame, and doubt. In addition to that, there is a much higher likelihood of incompatibility. Two Christians who didn’t know each other very well, who weren’t praying or seeking God, who didn’t cultivate Christian friendships and respect their counsel very likely will have incompatibilities. I’m talking about “common” incompatibilities: financial, unfaithfulness, inability to communicate, intellectual, financial, family philosophy. Ultimately, the marriage may fail for financial reasons or conflict reasons or any other number of latent causes. However, the root cause of the marriage failure was immorality, physical intimacy before marriage.
While I’m on this point, what is immorality?
The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. … Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? … Flee from sexual immorality. … Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. II Corinthians 6:13, 15, 18, 19-20
Immorality is giving your body over to someone else in a sexual way outside of marriage. Trust me, I spent a great deal of time trying to find a clear line of what is too far before I got married. There is no clear line in Scripture. God’s intent and His standard is purity and holiness. Concentrate on verse 18 there, “Flee.” Don’t try to find the edge of the cliff, and then walk along the edge. Stay as far from the edge as you can.
Listen, in retrospect, I was a complete and absolute idiot in this whole area. I pushed my future wife again and again and again before we were married. I played guilt trips on her. I had this completely messed up view of what real intimacy was and the reasons for and advantages of purity before marriage.
I can stand up here and give you a whole litany of excuses, but when it comes down to it, I did not trust God that He knew what He was talking about. From where I’m standing now, it seems preposterous. Why in the world as a Christian would I think I knew better than God? Especially when he had been so clear about what to do (be pure) even if I didn’t understand the why.
I had isolated that area of my life from God and from other believers. I had problems in that area before I met my wife. My problems were not known to her or to anyone else who could help me with accountability. Just about everything I could do wrong, I did wrong. I justified my actions with every possible lame excuse you could think of. If even for a moment, I had exposed my thinking to an older brother in the Lord, they would have been able to speak truth to counter it.
It took 10 years after we were married before our physical marital relationship became truly healthy. It wasn’t 10 years of prolonged suffering. God is gracious and kind. But it was 10 years of knowing something isn’t right between us. How quickly I would trade now those 10 years lost for the 1 year I spent pushing the boundaries?
You see, my wife loved me so much before we were married. We had worked through so many “compatibility” issues. I had no reason to doubt that our marital relationship wasn’t 100% committed. For crying out loud, on our very first date, she told me that she would marry me one day. And yet, I was so selfish. I was so demanding. I was completely and totally not loving. And, it was so unnecessary. I’m under grace, and I’m forgiven, so I don’t think about it or dwell on it much any more. But, when I do think about it, I wish someone had cast a vision for me when I was younger. I wish someone had told me, “Hey, do you hear what the culture and media are telling you? I want you to know that’s a pack of lies.” So for the rest of the time today, I want to tell you a little about why it’s worth the wait.
I think the marital relationship can be represented by a flower, but not just any old wildflower. How about a hand cultivated rose or a greenhouse grown orchid. I put an orchid on the PowerPoint today. If you buy an orchid at the store (a live one), it will have several blooms on it, then when you bring it home, the blooms will start to die one by one. The blooms are quite long lasting, maybe several weeks. Eventually though, you just end up with the plant and no blooms. An orchid plant with no blooms looks kind of like an old hound dog, just these big flat thick flopped over leaves. Nothing anyone would even notice. Now, my Mom loves orchids, so my Dad loves my Mom and he buys her orchids a few times a year. Well, he’s got these orchids around that have no blooms. So, he’s gradually been working to get one to bloom. Now, he doesn’t have a greenhouse, yet. But, he’s read up on it some and he’s tried several different things. Special containers, proper drainage, humidity control, light control. But as far as I know, he has never gotten an orchid to bloom again. It’s not impossible, but it’s not easy.
I think the marital relationship can be compared to that orchid plant. There are millions of marriages that look like that orchid plant on the right. It’s not dead, but it sure isn’t much to look at.
Both before and after marriage, there are things that God has ordained so that the marriage stays in bloom. When I say, the marriage is in bloom, I mean that it is healthy on all levels, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, sexually, financially, relationally.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. Ephesians 5:25-27
I know this verse says husbands and wives, but I want you to think about the relationship between Christ and the church right now. In reality, Jesus is more bridegroom than husband right now. Revelation talks about the wedding feast of the Lamb and the presentation of His bride. These are things yet to come.
Purity and holiness was/is the requirement for Jesus to present the church to himself radiant. Men both married and unmarried, that’s what we’re looking for, that’s what we’re responsible for cultivating; our radiant bride. We must give ourselves up. We must give up our selfish desires so that she can be presented without stain, wrinkle or blemish. But the reward for that sacrifice will be paid back to you in unimaginable ways.
Young women, I encourage you to keep yourselves pure and by so doing to help the young men control their desires. I feel as if we are approaching the death of modesty. I marvel now not at what the young women wear, but what older women wear. I am speaking even of professional women and grandmothers. It is inappropriate. Peter exhorts the women …
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. I Peter 3:3-5
Our obsession with the outward appearance is wholly in contrast to the image Jesus himself carried. Isaiah 53:2 says …
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Isaiah 53:2
Chasing after the fads and fashions of this world are contrary to the example of Christ. Men and women, excessive focus on the outward appearance while neglecting inner beauty is loving the world.
Maintain the purity that God so desires. He looks so favorably on those who walk uprightly. Jesus said,
Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33
We are exhorted not only to seek His Kingdom, but also seek His righteousness. There is freedom in that because in the preceding verses, Jesus tells us not to worry about our food, drink, and clothing. And he was talking about basic needs, not high fashion. When we are seeking him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, He is transforming us at an ever-increasing rate.
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. II Corinthians 3:18
This glory on the face of all believers married or single cannot be hidden. You can’t just smile and pretend to have the glory of God. We met a new friend at the nursing home yesterday. He was so sad. I tried to encourage him and asked him to smile. He was willing to smile, but it was only his mouth, not his whole face. The glory of the Lord is kind of like that full face smile, but it’s more somehow. There is the face smile, but the heart is smiling, too.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. Psalm 34:4-5
Their faces are never covered with shame.
But if that’s where you are right now, if you are suffering guilt and shame, confess, repent, and get back into fellowship with God, even if it’s the first time ever. There is a powerful verse in II Corinthians …
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. II Corinthians 7:10
Godly sorrow is humble and broken. Psalm 51 says that a broken and contrite heart he will not despise. If we have sinned against God, it should bring us sorrow. The question is what do we do with that sorrow? Does it lead us to repentance, or will we try to deal with it on our own?
I told you at the beginning that God is in the business of redeeming and restoring. I told you my story. I am ashamed, and I ought to be. But when we confess, repent, and get back into a right relationship with Him, God can redeem even the sinful things you have done. I can’t pay back to my wife what I stole from her, but when God uses my testimony to keep your marriage relationships pure and in bloom, I am humbled and thankful beyond words.
And he does give back the years that the locusts have eaten. What a much more joyful and radiant marriage we have now. I pray that those of you who are not yet married will wait on the Lord. It will be worth it, I promise. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, infuse us with Your love. You were the one who laid aside all your majesty and beauty. You gave Yourself up for us every single moment You walked this Earth as a man. Help us to submit to one another, to love one another as You have loved us. I pray for all the single folks here today. I pray that You would establish in them an unwavering commitment to purity before marriage. Give each one of them a vision of the blessings in store for those whose walk is blameless and pure. I pray for patience as they wait on You. You truly see every “not good” circumstance in our lives and desire to bring about healing and restoration. Help us to abide in You. All this I ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Today’s title is “Love in Dating (and Waiting).” There are some parallels with the Love in Marriage message. If today’s message speaks to you, I also encourage you to go back and listen to that message as well.
If we let it, this dating and waiting period of our lives has the possibility to become a very anxious time. Doesn’t it? Before I was married, I remember a lot of anxiety in this area. Both before I became a Christian and after I became Christian.
Our culture, not to mention the media, is filled with this drive to find a mate. Some time around 6-8 years old, little boys reach the “Eww, girls are gross” stage. A hallmark of this stage is never willingly taking a bath or brushing your teeth. Bad breath, wow, that’s cool. Personal hygiene is not just optional, it is avoided. Then, something happens around 13 or so and we start with trying, at least, to not repel girls by our looks or odors. Personal hygiene becomes a bigger part of our lives, probably some more than others. Guys suddenly want to impress and attract girls.
I remember being at the beach one summer when I was in junior high school, probably 13 years old. I was with my cousin and his friend. They were two years older than me. We were talking with these three girls, and they were actually talking back to us. Not “talking back,” but actually responding in conversation. Man, we thought we were hot stuff. We were standing on the deck of the pier. It had these railings and they were separated by just about the width of my leg at the knee. The railings were painted white, so they were pretty slick.
While we were talking, I was anxiously sliding my knee in and out between the railings. All of a sudden, I popped my knee all the way through, but it wouldn’t fit back out. I’m trying to discretely pull my leg out without disconnecting it at the knee, but it won’t budge. In a minor panic, you don’t really think rationally, so I was flexing my knee while trying to extract it and just making it worse. The conversation was winding down, and I had to confess that I was permanently attached to the deck. Long story short, my cousin gets a guy from the pier. He sees that the railings are slightly wider at the top and he gets me to relax my leg. Then, he shoves my leg up to the top ad then back between the railings. It came out in one piece minus a little skin on either side. I don’t even remember what happened to the girls. I think they stayed around at least out of morbid curiosity. But following the liberation of my leg, we never saw them again.
My kids love this story. They occasionally ask me to repeat it. If I knew how much laughter I would get out of this story, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so bad about it at the time. I was just mortified, and it was my fault we lost the girls. It’s a wonder my cousin would still talk to me after that. On second thought, everyone laughed so much (except me) I think they forgot about the girls
Fast forward to high school, I was having a conversation with my best friend. I was a junior, so 16 or 17. I was pretty shy around girls, probably related to the deck railing incident. I didn’t date which is not a bad thing. My best friend was constantly relating his relationship happenings good or bad. Since I wasn’t dating, I didn’t have anything to report. And guys generally don’t open up about hopes and fears. Guys talk about what they did. So one day out of the blue, I remember my buddy saying, “So, I guess you’re not interested in having kids or getting married.” It was like a glass of cold water to the face. You could not have said anything that would have brought my real feelings on the subject to the surface more quickly. I can still remember the shock and the absolute confidence that I wanted to get married and one day have kids. If you could do it in a movie, my buddy would ask the question and then there would be this zoom-in whooshy thing, I’d see the next 20 years of my life, then zoom out, and I ended up nonchalantly saying something like, “Naw, I think I’d like to get married and have kids one day.”
Before we graduate high school, ideas and expectations already form in our hearts and minds. Not to mention finding a mate is an inherent part of our culture. It affects us from childhood. We may not think about it all that much way back then, but we can and often do become more preoccupied with it as we get older. Male-female relationships are rampantly covered in the media. TV, movies, magazines, books, internet services, everywhere you turn seems to have some kind of advice or scheme of how to get the guy or get the girl. Right now, we’re going to turn to the real source of wisdom and love for insight into this crucial area. Before we do that, let’s take a moment and pray and ask God to speak to us and open our hearts to his love and truth.
Lord Jesus, You love us so much. You desire good things for us. You desire godly marriages and godly families. You are love, and You created both man and woman. You created marriage as the only righteous way to have an intimate physical love relationship. I pray that You would speak to us in the area of choosing a future spouse. Our culture is bombarding us with messages that say we can have it anyway we want it. Help us to grow in confidence that Your way is the best and only secure way to have contentment, security, joy, and love. Help us to be patient and wait on You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Wow! Where to start? I feel like the Lord has been pulling to mind a lot of the things I did wrong before I got married. I’ll share some of those. I also got counsel from my wife on this topic a couple of times. Carl and I talked last week and he shared some of his experiences. I feel like I should have passed out helmets and you need to fasten your seat belts. Hang on.
Marriage is a beautiful thing. Little girls dream about it. Young men wonder whether they can make the commitment. We put on elaborate catered events in beautifully decorated churches and outdoor venues with the bride in an ornate gown and groom in the finest clothes that money can rent in order to signify the importance of this event. The clothes we wear and the things we say today at weddings are connected to weddings stretching back centuries and millennia.
God instituted marriage at the very beginning between Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 2. Immediately prior to the creation of marriage, God created Eve. What did God say right before he created Eve?
“It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18
God is the ultimate problem solver. If there is a need, if there a “not good” situation, it is God’s desire to rectify or redeem the situation. If God notices and provides for Adam, He notices your circumstances and desires to provide for you.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Psalm 23:1
… those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. Psalm 34:10
For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. Psalm 84:11(NASB)
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19
In Adam’s case, he had it kind of easy, in a way. He really couldn’t go out and get a spouse on his own. He certainly couldn’t make one on his own. He had to wait on the Lord. In the present day, there are lots of potential spouses, husbands and wives. If we get impatient today, we can force the situation, right? We can get in His way. Our sinfulness and disobedience can mess up His plans.
We’ll come to the harder stuff in a minute, but even our hormones and impatience can get us into situations that God did not intend. When Carl and I were talking about this message, he pointed out that whenever you have guys and girls together, there will be attractions forming, dissolving, and forming with someone else. “Did she look at me that way because she likes me?” “Hey, he said exactly what I was thinking.” That’s one good reason why you should spend time together in groups rather than excessive time together one-on-one (i.e.- dating). Being alone together excessively prevents this ebb and flow of attraction.
Melissa and I were talking about our experiences, and naivety was another topic that came up, as well. Guys work differently than girls, and girls work differently than guys. We’re all unique with unique upbringings and experiences. A lot of time, we don’t completely understand our own motives. How much less can we understand the motives of others?
I’m going to speak for my wife here. She is a compassionate person. It is a great character trait for a Mom, and a wife. But before getting married, she experienced more than one relationship where her compassion toward a guy with deep hurts was taken to mean something that wasn’t really there. In hindsight, it is relatively easy to see that she shouldn’t have been spending so much one-on-one time with these guys, including me before we got married.
The challenge for her was the naivety of thinking she was being nice where the guy was thinking something else entirely. I’ve touched a couple of times already on the one-on-one time. It is wise to keep this to a minimum before you’re married. Another area is that of physical contact. I think women may be better able than men to separate intimate with non-intimate touching. I don’t know because I’m not a woman. But speaking as an amped-up hormone-filled guy, back rubs, neck massages, leaning on one another during movies or long car trips, these things may seem innocuous, but may be entirely too intimate to another person.
My goal here is not to isolate every unmarried person into some kind of cocoon. I’m just saying, you don’t know where the other person is coming from or what they are thinking. Song of Solomon brings this up. Song of Solomon is the most physically intimate book in the Bible, celebrating the marital love relationship, and yet it says …
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. Song of Solomon 2:7, 3:5, 8:4
It is interesting to note that this sentence occurs 3 times. Each time it appears, it is the Beloved speaking to the daughters of
Guys, I’m not going to let you off the hook. The same principle applies to us, but we’re not so good with subtlety. So, you get a quote from the Georgia Satellites 1986 song,
“My honey my baby don't put my love up on no shelf.
She said, ‘Don't hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself.’”
We talked about our marriage traditions and how there are commonalities all the way back to the very first marriage. However, there are stark difference on some of the ancient marriage customs and today.
Do you remember from the story of Jesus’ birth, how marriage worked at that time? It was really a three part process. There was engagement. This could even be arranged by parents for their children. That’s a pretty strange concept for us today. Then, there came a betrothal stage. At that point, you were legally married to your spouse, except you could not live together. An entire year later, there would be a wedding and then the husband would take his wife home and they would be all the way married.
I’m not really advocating for us to return to that structure. What I want to do is contrast that Biblical/historical model with what commonly goes on today. Today, people regularly move in together prior to marriage. Most often, they will say they want to find out if they are compatible before they commit to marriage. It’s completely upside down thinking. Commitment and compatibility are not closely related. Commitment is “an agreement or pledge to do something in the future.” In marriage, that means staying together through thick and thin. Compatibility is “the capability of existing together in harmony.” If something is universally compatible, then commitment is not necessary. Commitment is needed when a relationship is not capable of existing in harmony, in particular during difficult times.
Is compatibility between spouses necessary? Yes, of course. You should be compatible with your spouse. But no two people are universally compatible.
And, your commitment to one another is independent of your compatibility. Think of our relationship to God. He loves us unconditionally. He has always loved us. And yet, our sin makes us incompatible with a pure and holy God. But, He is committed to us. He sent His only Son to die on the cross for our sins. When Adam sinned, and when you and I sin, God doesn’t throw up his hands and say, “Well, we’re just not compatible any more. You’re going to have to move out.”
Let’s touch on the topic of compatibility while we’re here. Yes, spouses should be compatible. How do you know if you’re compatible? Or even better still, how do you become a compatible spouse? Pray. Listen to God. Become the right person. When I say become the right person, I mean become the person God created you to be. I would also say having close Christian friends and Christian roommates are key to becoming the right person and determining compatibility. They can speak into your life and give you insight, in love.
Let’s look at the flip side. What drives incompatibility between spouses? Living together outside of marriage is going to create incompatibility. If you’re willing to live with someone outside of marriage, doesn’t that prove before you’re married that you’d be willing to do stuff without commitment? That plants a seed of mistrust that won’t be overcome easily, if at all.
Immorality before marriage is another big driver for incompatibility in marriage which worst case results in divorce. I don’t have statistical data on this, but Melissa and I thought through the few failed “Christian” marriages that we have some knowledge about. I’m talking about folks who were believers that got married and ultimately got divorced.
If you have a situation where there is sexual intimacy between two Christians before marriage, there is going to be guilt and there is a desire to hide that sin. That couple has already willfully disobeyed God, so confession and repentance is often not the first choice of a solution. Once we get into sin and don’t confess right away, then we start to play God. We want to fix it ourselves. What is the solution for the couple which was sexually intimate before marriage? How will they solve the guilt problem?
Let’s get married. That will fix the problem. If you don’t deal with the sin, if you don’t confess, if you try to fix it without God, there will be deep rooted guilt, shame, and doubt. In addition to that, there is a much higher likelihood of incompatibility. Two Christians who didn’t know each other very well, who weren’t praying or seeking God, who didn’t cultivate Christian friendships and respect their counsel very likely will have incompatibilities. I’m talking about “common” incompatibilities: financial, unfaithfulness, inability to communicate, intellectual, financial, family philosophy. Ultimately, the marriage may fail for financial reasons or conflict reasons or any other number of latent causes. However, the root cause of the marriage failure was immorality, physical intimacy before marriage.
While I’m on this point, what is immorality?
The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. … Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? … Flee from sexual immorality. … Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. II Corinthians 6:13, 15, 18, 19-20
Immorality is giving your body over to someone else in a sexual way outside of marriage. Trust me, I spent a great deal of time trying to find a clear line of what is too far before I got married. There is no clear line in Scripture. God’s intent and His standard is purity and holiness. Concentrate on verse 18 there, “Flee.” Don’t try to find the edge of the cliff, and then walk along the edge. Stay as far from the edge as you can.
Listen, in retrospect, I was a complete and absolute idiot in this whole area. I pushed my future wife again and again and again before we were married. I played guilt trips on her. I had this completely messed up view of what real intimacy was and the reasons for and advantages of purity before marriage.
I can stand up here and give you a whole litany of excuses, but when it comes down to it, I did not trust God that He knew what He was talking about. From where I’m standing now, it seems preposterous. Why in the world as a Christian would I think I knew better than God? Especially when he had been so clear about what to do (be pure) even if I didn’t understand the why.
I had isolated that area of my life from God and from other believers. I had problems in that area before I met my wife. My problems were not known to her or to anyone else who could help me with accountability. Just about everything I could do wrong, I did wrong. I justified my actions with every possible lame excuse you could think of. If even for a moment, I had exposed my thinking to an older brother in the Lord, they would have been able to speak truth to counter it.
It took 10 years after we were married before our physical marital relationship became truly healthy. It wasn’t 10 years of prolonged suffering. God is gracious and kind. But it was 10 years of knowing something isn’t right between us. How quickly I would trade now those 10 years lost for the 1 year I spent pushing the boundaries?
You see, my wife loved me so much before we were married. We had worked through so many “compatibility” issues. I had no reason to doubt that our marital relationship wasn’t 100% committed. For crying out loud, on our very first date, she told me that she would marry me one day. And yet, I was so selfish. I was so demanding. I was completely and totally not loving. And, it was so unnecessary. I’m under grace, and I’m forgiven, so I don’t think about it or dwell on it much any more. But, when I do think about it, I wish someone had cast a vision for me when I was younger. I wish someone had told me, “Hey, do you hear what the culture and media are telling you? I want you to know that’s a pack of lies.” So for the rest of the time today, I want to tell you a little about why it’s worth the wait.
I think the marital relationship can be represented by a flower, but not just any old wildflower. How about a hand cultivated rose or a greenhouse grown orchid. I put an orchid on the PowerPoint today. If you buy an orchid at the store (a live one), it will have several blooms on it, then when you bring it home, the blooms will start to die one by one. The blooms are quite long lasting, maybe several weeks. Eventually though, you just end up with the plant and no blooms. An orchid plant with no blooms looks kind of like an old hound dog, just these big flat thick flopped over leaves. Nothing anyone would even notice. Now, my Mom loves orchids, so my Dad loves my Mom and he buys her orchids a few times a year. Well, he’s got these orchids around that have no blooms. So, he’s gradually been working to get one to bloom. Now, he doesn’t have a greenhouse, yet. But, he’s read up on it some and he’s tried several different things. Special containers, proper drainage, humidity control, light control. But as far as I know, he has never gotten an orchid to bloom again. It’s not impossible, but it’s not easy.
I think the marital relationship can be compared to that orchid plant. There are millions of marriages that look like that orchid plant on the right. It’s not dead, but it sure isn’t much to look at.
Both before and after marriage, there are things that God has ordained so that the marriage stays in bloom. When I say, the marriage is in bloom, I mean that it is healthy on all levels, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, sexually, financially, relationally.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. Ephesians 5:25-27
I know this verse says husbands and wives, but I want you to think about the relationship between Christ and the church right now. In reality, Jesus is more bridegroom than husband right now. Revelation talks about the wedding feast of the Lamb and the presentation of His bride. These are things yet to come.
Purity and holiness was/is the requirement for Jesus to present the church to himself radiant. Men both married and unmarried, that’s what we’re looking for, that’s what we’re responsible for cultivating; our radiant bride. We must give ourselves up. We must give up our selfish desires so that she can be presented without stain, wrinkle or blemish. But the reward for that sacrifice will be paid back to you in unimaginable ways.
Young women, I encourage you to keep yourselves pure and by so doing to help the young men control their desires. I feel as if we are approaching the death of modesty. I marvel now not at what the young women wear, but what older women wear. I am speaking even of professional women and grandmothers. It is inappropriate. Peter exhorts the women …
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. I Peter 3:3-5
Our obsession with the outward appearance is wholly in contrast to the image Jesus himself carried. Isaiah 53:2 says …
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Isaiah 53:2
Chasing after the fads and fashions of this world are contrary to the example of Christ. Men and women, excessive focus on the outward appearance while neglecting inner beauty is loving the world.
Maintain the purity that God so desires. He looks so favorably on those who walk uprightly. Jesus said,
Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33
We are exhorted not only to seek His Kingdom, but also seek His righteousness. There is freedom in that because in the preceding verses, Jesus tells us not to worry about our food, drink, and clothing. And he was talking about basic needs, not high fashion. When we are seeking him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, He is transforming us at an ever-increasing rate.
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. II Corinthians 3:18
This glory on the face of all believers married or single cannot be hidden. You can’t just smile and pretend to have the glory of God. We met a new friend at the nursing home yesterday. He was so sad. I tried to encourage him and asked him to smile. He was willing to smile, but it was only his mouth, not his whole face. The glory of the Lord is kind of like that full face smile, but it’s more somehow. There is the face smile, but the heart is smiling, too.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. Psalm 34:4-5
Their faces are never covered with shame.
But if that’s where you are right now, if you are suffering guilt and shame, confess, repent, and get back into fellowship with God, even if it’s the first time ever. There is a powerful verse in II Corinthians …
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. II Corinthians 7:10
Godly sorrow is humble and broken. Psalm 51 says that a broken and contrite heart he will not despise. If we have sinned against God, it should bring us sorrow. The question is what do we do with that sorrow? Does it lead us to repentance, or will we try to deal with it on our own?
I told you at the beginning that God is in the business of redeeming and restoring. I told you my story. I am ashamed, and I ought to be. But when we confess, repent, and get back into a right relationship with Him, God can redeem even the sinful things you have done. I can’t pay back to my wife what I stole from her, but when God uses my testimony to keep your marriage relationships pure and in bloom, I am humbled and thankful beyond words.
And he does give back the years that the locusts have eaten. What a much more joyful and radiant marriage we have now. I pray that those of you who are not yet married will wait on the Lord. It will be worth it, I promise. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, infuse us with Your love. You were the one who laid aside all your majesty and beauty. You gave Yourself up for us every single moment You walked this Earth as a man. Help us to submit to one another, to love one another as You have loved us. I pray for all the single folks here today. I pray that You would establish in them an unwavering commitment to purity before marriage. Give each one of them a vision of the blessings in store for those whose walk is blameless and pure. I pray for patience as they wait on You. You truly see every “not good” circumstance in our lives and desire to bring about healing and restoration. Help us to abide in You. All this I ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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