Let me invite you and charge you if I might be so bold to do two things, in this order. I believe that if build on these two things in your marriage in this order, it will set you on the right trajectory as you share in your married life together.
The first is Jesus’ word to us in this passage: that you abide in Christ. I want to challenge and remind you that for both of you, you come into this marriage with a prior commitment and a greater lover: Jesus Christ himself.
And sometimes you’re going to have to remind each other of that as various things attempt pull you away from your first love
The siren call of career and work, kids, even one another and even service to others will attempt to call you away from abiding in Christ and towards trusting and attempting to find life in other things.
It can be a tricky thing, especially initially, to tell the love of your life that they’re just not supposed to be that into you. But that’s your first job towards one another—to point one another to Christ.
So the Scripture you’ve chosen and had read over you this afternoon is your first call: abide in Christ, turn toward him, rest in him,
The second thing I want to charge you to do after you’ve made abiding in Christ your priority is this—there’s going to be times when you have conflict, get frustrated with each other, drive each other more than just a little crazy.
And while here and now we smile and laugh and everyone here who’s married can identify with a rueful smile
The honest truth is that conflict is where the true battles are fought for the quality, character, intimacy and direction of your marriage. How we handle conflict is what makes or breaks our marriage relationship
And I want to call you, and charge you with this: in the midst of difficulty and hardship, as long as you both shall live, turn toward each other, not away from each other. Turn towards each other, not away from each other
In those hard moments, those conflicts where you can’t see how you can work around it or manage it, when the other person appears to you at that moment to be the most obstinate, wrong-headed person you have ever met in your entire life and you just honestly can’t stand them
You have a choice to make: will I harden my heart toward this man, this woman, will I shut down, check out, give up on him or her, roll my eyes and just quit?
Or will I turn toward him, turn towards her? Will I fight to keep my heart soft? Will I turn toward and not away?
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