This past weekend I participated in a worship service in Saint Louis in honor of a couple’s 50th wedding anniversary. Below are my opening remarks, which I would encourage every young married couple to review.
Someone suggested, “Marriage is an agreement between two people to work through the difficulties and problems they would have never had if they hadn’t got married in the first place!”
That’s not true! God intended marriage to be the highest of all human relationships. Admittedly, there are challenges at times. But there’s nothing better than coming home at the end of the day knowing there is someone there to whom you are the most important person in the world.
Marriage is the basic building block of society. The very first institution God established was the family. In the opening pages of the Bible, God brought Adam and Eve together and stated, “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24)
God intended the home to be the primary place of identity and love for the married couple and a place of security and instruction for their children. That’s why God established marriage as a covenant with Him. He said, “What God has joined together let no one separate” (Mark 10:9).
The Bible emphasizes that theme repeatedly:
“’The man who hates and divorces his wife… does violence to the one he should protect,’ says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful” (Malachi 2:16).
“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4).
“…each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Ephesians 5:33).
However, what God intended to be honored as a sacred covenant Satan is determined to kill, steal and destroy. And Satan has widely succeeded. Rather than regarding marriage as a divine institution, we now view it as a human innovation that can be totally disregarded, easily dissolved, or dramatically redefined. Consequently, the foundations are being destroyed, and the culture is coming unraveled. As a result, about half of today’s youth grow up in broken homes and have no concept of what a Godly marriage is supposed to be.
Eddie Phillips is a police officer in Louisville who spoke last month at a Christian event in our city. Eddie is an African American and an impressive young Christian man. He said, “The greatest problem in our community is not crime. The greatest problem in our community is not race. The greatest problem in Louisville is fatherlessness.” And he added, “Absentee fathers are now enabled by government programs that actually encourage and underwrite the source of the problem.”
A High School football coach in Port Charlotte, Florida, told my son Rusty last winter that 2/3 of the young men on his football team have no father figure in their lives. And it was not just having no father in the home but also no father figure in their lives at all. That’s so sad! But it underscores a nationwide problem that a significant contributor to the decay of our culture is the breakdown of the family.
There’s an old saying, “The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” I want to suggest another, “The best thing the church can do for the world is to model marriage.” We should demonstrate to the world a positive example of a loving, secure family.
Our culture’s poor perception of marriage cannot only be blamed on Satan or politicians or Hollywood. Unfortunately, many within the church have not set a very inspiring example. When you see a couple in a restaurant talking, laughing, touching, actively listening, what do you conclude? You likely presume they’re not married yet! When you see another couple staring into space, checking their cell phone, seemingly bored to tears, what do you conclude? They must be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary!
No wonder young people have such a negative concept of marriage. They hear sermons about what a marriage is to be, but they don’t see many examples of couples who are fulfilled and happy. Even worse, they see couples in the church divorcing each other for some pretty shallow, unbiblical reasons.
So, one of the best things we can do is model what marriage and family should be. The women of the world should be saying to their husbands, “I want you to treat me the way those husbands in the church treat their wives” (and vice versa). Youth should be telling their Christian friends, “I hope I can have a home like yours someday.”
When I say, “model marriage,” I’m not talking about a syrupy, sickeningly sweet relationship that’s so phony it turns people off. One woman said, “My parents were married for 55 years, and they never argued or even exchanged a harsh word.” That’s ideal, but my kids couldn’t say that. My wife and I both have strong personalities. We spend a lot of time telling each other what to do, and we disagree quite a bit.
But I think we can model marriage to others by showing them we love each other despite disagreements. We’ve stuck with it for 56 years, even though the going wasn’t always easy. We can be different and still love and complement each other. Somehow I think that’s more inspirational and more realistic than pretending a perfect relationship.
Years ago, I attended a reception for Ken and Mary Frances Myers of our church honoring their 50thanniversary. I congratulated Ken on 50 years of marriage, and then, looking for something else to say, I remarked, “That’s a long time!” Without batting an eye or trying to be clever, he responded simply, “Not as long as it would have been without her.” That’s lasting love. That’s a model worth emulating.
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