Keeping the Knot Tied Tight

In the year 1917, a revolution took place that shook the world. Lenin and his followers overthrew the Russian czar and ushered in the age of communism. For the next 70 years, a grim shadow loomed over the world.

The communists promised utopia, but what they delivered was oppression, bondage and death. Countless millions of people lost their lives in Russia, China, and other Communist countries.

The communists took control of the media. They launched a propaganda campaign to control the minds of the people. They lied and distorted the facts to present their program and their accomplishments in the best possible light. Truth no longer mattered; what mattered was the party line.

But things began to change in the Communist world about five years ago. What began as a quiet rumbling of discontent erupted in 1989, when the people of Russia and Eastern Europe said “Enough! Enough of a system that takes away our freedom, controls our thoughts, and ruins our lives.

They revolted. In countries like East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, the people rose up and threw off the yoke of bondage. They exposed communism for what it had been all along - a big lie.

It took the events of 1989 to begin to address the devastation caused by the events of 1917. A second revolution was needed to undo the first.

And in the same way, we, here in America, need a second revolution. Not a political revolution, but a social revolution. We need a social revolution to undo the devastation caused by the social revolution that took place back in the 1960’s.

That revolution is known as the Sexual Revolution. It was a revolution that took us away from God’s absolutes concerning sex and marriage. It was a revolution that foisted upon us a lie; the lie that free sexual expression outside of marriage would be fulfilling, exciting, and good for us.

Just like the communists, the sexual revolutionists in America took control of the media. They launched a propaganda campaign to persuade us that their way was the right way. And for thirty years now, they have been drumming into us the message that sexual freedom is good; that sex outside of marriage, whether you practice it mentally or physically, is a wonderful experience.

But that’s a lie. It’s a morally bankrupt lie. We see all around us the evidence that it’s a lie. Under the banner of sexual freedom, marriages are breaking up in record numbers. The family unit is breaking down. Sexually transmitted diseases are running rampant through our population. Teen-age pregnancy has become a massive problem. We struggle with issues like AIDS, abortion, and homosexuality. All of these things are products of the Sexual Revolution.

What we need is a new revolution; a revolution that will take us back to God’s principles for sex and marriage.

We’ve been studying the Ten Commandments, and last week we looked at Commandment #7, which says “You shall not commit adultery.” We discovered that that commandment deals with the temptation to take sex outside of the boundaries that God laid out for it.

We discussed the fact that God created sex and gave it to us as a precious gift. But we also saw how that gift can become a curse if we take it outside of the marriage relationship.

Scientist have discovered that there are some precious and fragile flowers that grow only in certain parts of the world, where the climate, the soil, and even the atmosphere is perfectly suited for them. When botanists try to transplant those flowers, they die.

In the same way, when we try to transplant sex and enjoy it outside of marriage, we wrench it out of it’s created environment. It withers and dies, and in the process of dying, it poisons us. Sex outside of marriage is not satisfying and fulfilling and nourishing. It leaves us empty rather than full.

You ask the man who is addicted to pornography if he finds sex satisfying, and he’ll tell you that it’s not. It’s an obsession, an addiction that enslaves him. He’s always looking for something more. He’s empty inside.

You ask a woman who’s been through a series of extra-marital affairs if she finds her lifestyle satisfying and she’ll tell you that it’s not. She’s empty inside. Her soul bears the scars of having given herself to men who have used her and then discarded her

You can never find fulfilment by going outside God’s boundaries. You only find death of soul and spirit and body. The big lie of the Sexual Revolution needs to be exposed.

That’s why the church, and we people who call ourselves Christians, must lead a new revolution. A counter-revolution that will bring us back to God’s principles for sex and marriage. A revolution that will bring strong homes and stable families to a world where those things are fast disappearing.

I am convinced that one of the major ways we are going to have an impact for Jesus Christ in the days to come is by building strong and stable marriages. Marriages that are built on the foundation of the Bible. Marriages that put Jesus Christ at the center. Marriages where the husband and wife commit themselves wholeheartedly and unconditionally to being faithful to each other for a lifetime as a witness to the faithfulness and grace of God.

Now how can this happen? How can we Christians go about building and maintaining strong marriages? If God says in the Seventh Commandment “Do not commit adultery.” it must mean that he wants us to do the opposite. What’s the opposite of adultery? Faithfulness. So let’s consider today how we can “commit faithfulness” in our marriages.

The recipe for a strong marriage includes four major ingredients:

- commitment

- communication

- companionship

- caring

The first ingredient in a strong marriage is commitment.

When I marry a couple here at the front of the church, we reach a point in the service where they repeat their vows. They go something like this:

I, John, take you, Mary, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.

Those vows are an expression of a commitment that is the foundation of marriage. Commitment is what says “I will keep those vows I made, and I will rely on God for the strength to do it.”

So what does that mean in practical terms? It means that if I meet an attractive woman at the office who flirts with me and invites me to get to know her better, I will not do it, because I will keep those vows I made.

It means that if my husband gets us into a financial mess because of his bad business decisions, I will not leave him, because I will keep those vows I made.

It means that if my wife is diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoes a radical mastectomy, I will love her and cherish her and see her as the apple of my eye, because I will keep those vows I made.

It means that if my husband doesn’t always meet my needs, and if he isn’t as caring and tender and communicative as I would like him to be, I will not begin to look elsewhere for fulfilment, because I will keep those vows I made.

Commitment is the act of creating an exclusive relationship with your spouse. When you stand at the altar on your wedding day, that choice of commitment is very visible. But there are going to be thousands of opportunities during the rest of your life for you to make that choice again in small, invisible ways.

When a man begins to daydream about that attractive woman in the office, he is making a choice about his commitment to his wife. It’s an invisible choice, but it’s a significant choice nonetheless.

When a woman begins to emotionally withdraw from her husband and withhold her affection from him, when she begins to criticize him to her friends, she is making a choice about her commitment. It’s a small choice, but it’s a significant choice nonetheless.

Marriages break up when those many small choices finally undercut the one big choice. Enough little cracks in the foundation, and the whole building comes tumbling down. Think about it. You commit in a big way on your wedding day, but you commit in small ways every day for the rest of your life as well.

We need to pray that God would help us to make the right choices in the small everyday matters so that our commitment to one another will remain strong.

The second ingredient in a strong marriage is communication.

A middle aged wife looks over at her husband who is snoring beside her in bed. She gives him a poke and she says “Honey, do you love me?”

He grunts and groans and rolls over and says “Of course I love you. Now go to sleep.”

But his wife persists “How come you never tell me you love me anymore?”

He says “Look. I told you I loved you the day we got married. If it ever changes, I’ll let you know.”

When it comes to communication, there are a lot of marriages like that!

Communication in marriage means self-disclosure. When a couple fails to communicate, it is because they are actually withholding an essential part of themselves from each other. They aren’t sharing on the level of their thoughts and feelings.

This is one of the major causes of sexual problems in a marriage relationship. A couple that isn’t sharing on the social and emotional level, isn’t going to be ready for sharing on the physical level.

A few years ago, someone wrote a book: it was called Sex Begins in the Kitchen. The point of the book is that physical intimacy begins with a loving word, with a shared cup of coffee, with a stroll hand-in-hand in the park. It begins with communication.

The self-disclosure of minds leads naturally to the self-disclosure of bodies. Intimate communication - the sharing of minds and emotions - is the most powerful aphrodisiac known.

This principle is true in marriage, but it is also true outside of marriage. If you find yourself involved in a deep, communicative relationship with a person of the opposite sex who is not your spouse, you must be extremely careful.

Many people have fallen into sexual sin in this way. Co-workers working together long hours on a project. Counselors counseling with an individual for extended periods. Total strangers meeting on an airplane or in a bar, engaging in deep conversation. Intimacy, and warmth, and caring on the social and emotional level can easily lead to something more on the physical level.

So you need to make sure that the person you’re communicating with most deeply is your spouse.

A third ingredient in a strong marriage is companionship

When I look at a young couple on their honeymoon, I have to smile. Because they are sailing along with the winds of romance at their backs. Building companionship into their marriage is effortless.

But I want to tell them that it won’t always be that way. Much of the time, marriage is more like a rowboat than a sailing ship. It takes two dedicated people pulling at the oars together to make that marriage go. Successful and strong marriages don’t just happen; they take teamwork.

There are three kinds of love spoken of in the Bible, and each one is a component of a healthy marriage.

1. Agape - that’s the unconditional, no-strings attached, committed for a lifetime sort of love that God shows to us. And that’s the kind of love that a couple is going to have to give to each other for a marriage to work. Agape is the bedrock upon which a healthy marriage is built.

2. Eros - that’s the physical side of love - the erotic, physical, sexual side of love. The tragedy of our time is that couples are trying to build and sustain marriages on this kind of love alone. It doesn’t work. Eros was never meant to serve as the foundation for marriage.

3. Phileo - that’s the companionship side of love. It’s the kind of love that grows up around mutual interests, and shared experiences. It is simply being good friends; enjoying one another’s company, having things in common.

Too many couples neglect this ingredient in their relationship. When kids come along, and life gets hectic, it becomes harder and harder to spend time together. Your relationship begins to revolve around the kids. But then twenty years later, when the kids are gone, you look at one another as total strangers, because you have grown apart. That’s why it’s important to work at companionship all the way along.

Carolyn and I have always tried to spend special time together every week. We go out on dates. Now when you have five kids, it takes a lot of planning to get away, even for a couple of hours.

When we lived on Long Island, we used to love to go to the beach. No matter what time of year it was, we would grab a sandwich from the deli and head down to the shore. It didn’t matter if it was a grey, cold day, or even raining. That didn’t dampen our spirits.

After wolfing down our sandwiches in the car, we would set out for a walk along the deserted beach. Hand in hand, we would watch the sandpipers running along beside us and listen to the crash of the waves. The cold wind would sting our faces and the spray would salt our lips. And I wouldn’t have traded places with anyone.

We would talk about life and family and laugh together and share memories with each other. All too soon, it was time to be get back - back to reality, back to the kids, back to our responsibilities. But we went back refreshed and rejuvenated in our relationship. And we built another memory in the process.

This is what I’m talking about when I talk about companionship. It doesn’t just happen. You have to work for it; strive for it; plan for it, and as Nike says, just do it! And if you’re not doing it, your marriage is in trouble.

The final ingredient is caring.

Some married couples really look more like roommates than lovers. They’re living together under one roof, they’ve made an accommodation for each other; they’ve divided up the living responsibilities, and they’re getting along, but there’s no spark, there’s no electricity in their relationship.

A husband and wife came to a marriage counselor. They said that they had fallen out of love and were thinking of getting a divorce. They had no more feelings for each other.

The counselor saw them again separately and asked them each to take on a project for one more month before giving up. Here’s what he asked them to do. He asked them every day, for the next month, to find one way of communicating love and caring to their spouse. Even though they had lost all feeling for each other, they were simply, as an act of the will, to do this. And they weren’t allowed to do anything more than once. Each day had to be different.

So they began. The first day, the husband brought her flowers. She made his favorite dessert. The next day, he sent her a card. She put a humorous cartoon in his briefcase. And so it went. At first they did it as a duty, but soon, as the days went by, they began to enjoy the creative challenge. And slowly, imperceptibly, their feelings for each other began to grow.

Their love began to blossom, like the crocuses of spring poking up through the snow of neglect that had smothered their relationship.

Caring, in creative ways, says “I love you. You are important to me. I want to spend time showing you that you mean very much to me.” What you do doesn’t have to be elaborate, or contrived. Just sincere.

Bill Hybels tells of his own stumbling efforts to learn how to truly care for his wife. One day, on his way home from work, he happened to notice a cut-rate flower salesman who operated out of the trunk of an old car.

Wanting to impress his wife Lynne with his romantic flair, he pulled over and bought a dozen of roses. Cost him three dollars. After that, quite regularly, on his way home from work, he would stop and pick up a bunch of flowers for his wife. Sometimes, they were a little wilted, and the flower man gave him a dollar off. But Bill figured that the flowers would perk up when Lynne put them in water.

Bill began to feel quite proud of himself for doing this. He thought about all the other guys driving past. “Are they stopping to buy flowers for their wives? Nooo! But look at me - I’m super husband.”

The only problem was that Lynne’s response to the flowers was lukewarm at best. She’d take the flowers, put them in water, and forget about them. Finally, her lack of enthusiasm for the gift drained Bill’s enthusiasm for the practice. So he stopped. And the thing that killed him when he stopped bringing flowers home was that she didn’t even seem to notice!

So finally, he asked her “What gives? What is your problem?” Her answer blew him away.

She looked him in the eye and said “The truth is, Bill, I’m not too impressed when you give me a bunch of half-dead flowers that came out of the trunk of a ‘58 DeSoto that you were lucky enough to run into on your way home from work. The flowers are cheap and the effort is minimal. The way I see it, you’re not investing enough time or energy to warrant a wholehearted response from me. You’re not thinking about what would make me happy; you’re just doing what’s convenient for you.”

So Bill, in his best masculine logical way, said, “OK. Let’s get this straight. You would be happier if I got up from my desk in the middle of the day, threw my schedule to the wind, walked all the way across the parking lot, got in my car, and made a special trip into town where I’d have to pay quadruple the price for flowers just because of the name on the bag? And you wouldn’t mind if I came home late because of all that extra running around I’d have to do to get you expensive flowers? Is that what you’re saying?”

She said, “That’s exactly what I’m saying. That would make me happy.”

Bill was flabbergasted. “What are you talking about? What you’re asking me to do is neither practical, nor economical, nor an efficient use of time.”

Lynne replied, “That’s a pretty good definition of romance, Bill. You’re learning.”

Showing that you care. It’ll keep the sparkle in your marriage.

Commitment, Communication, Companionship, and Caring. Ingredients that are essential in our marriages if we’re going to obey the seventh commandment. And ingredients that are necessary if we’re going to have an impact for Jesus Christ.

We live in a generation that has abandoned God’s design for sex and marriage. The sexual revolution has brought us death and despair. Our culture is in bondage to a view of reality that is a lie. We need a new sexual revolution that will lead us back to the truth.

I’m praying that the church will form a new sexual counterculture that will shine like a beacon in our dark world. A counterculture that is true to God’s design for human sexuality. A counterculture that will be obedient to God’s principles for marriage. A counterculture that will provide our children - the next generation - with the right model to follow.

Carolyn and I want to be a part of that revolution. We believe that we can make a difference. And we believe that you can too. Obeying the Seventh Commandment is how it begins.