THE SOLID MARRIAGE, pt. 1

It was fun being a baby boomer...till now. Some of the artists of the '60s are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate aging baby boomers. They include:
Herman's Hermits - Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Walker
The Bee Gees - How Can You Mend a Broken Hip
Bobby Darin - Splish, Splash, I Was Havin' a Flash
Ringo Starr - I Get By With a Little Help from Depends
Roberta Flack - The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face
Johnny Nash - I Can't See Clearly Now
Paul Simon - Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver
Commodores - Once, Twice, Three Times to the Bathroom
Marvin Gaye - I Heard it Through the GrapeNuts
Procol Harem - A Whiter Shade of Hair
Leo Sayer - You Make Me Feel Like Napping
The Temptations - Papa's Got a Kidney Stone
Abba - Denture Queen
Tony Orlando - Knock 3 Times on the Ceiling if you Hear Me Fall
Helen Reddy - I am Woman, Hear me Snore
Willie Nelson - On the Throne Again

Leslie Gore - It's My Procedure and I'll Cry if I Want To


“THE SOLID MARRIAGE”

I want to begin talking about marriage this morning, and what I am using this morning is based on personal study and 31 years of marriage. I will be the first to tell you that I am not an expert on marriage, if you don’t believe me you can ask my wife, and I also know that there are those in this church who have been married longer that we have, but… I am the one preaching. Maybe, just maybe during this series we will get to hear from some of the others in our church who have been married for a while and hear what they have learned about marriage.
Now you may think that this sermon series is only for people who are married, or for couples who haven’t been married long enough to figure out whose boss. But I believe that it is for everyone who is married, has been married or may get married in the future. Many people have ended up divorced or in a miserable marriage because they did not learn what I will be sharing. Much of what I will be sharing is good for every person to learn, married or single.

“IF I HAVE NOT LOVE ...”

Now, I know that the origins of Valentine's Day may have a pagan feel since it was established in Rome centuries ago, but the main emphasis of Valentine's Day today is filled with expressions of love and appreciation. And we all know what today is…, many people throughout the world celebrate this day with flowers, candy and cards with meaningful messages. Many of you were here last night for our Annual Sweetheart Banquet. Poems will be read and new commitments made to one another. Valentine's Day is a wonderful thing.
Remember the old 1965 song by Jackie DeShannon:
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of ...No not just for some, but for everyone."
The song went on to say, we don't need any more mountains or meadows, but lots more love. Makes sense to me.
The Apostle Paul had a similar idea when he wrote to the Corinthians that I can possess all the characteristics of a Christian, "but have not love, I am nothing" (1 Cor. 13:2). In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Paul wrote about what love is;
1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Read this out loud with me, let’s all stand.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (Don’t look at your wife). Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always perseveres. LOVE NEVER FAILS.”
Stay on your feet because I want us to read this again, only this time we are going to do something a bit different. We are to be the love of Christ to a lost world, we are to love our spouse, and we are to be love! But do we practice love? We are going to read this again, but this time we are going to put our own name in the place of love, ready? Everyplace there is a blank add your name, are you ready, now this mat get a little confusing but concentrate.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
“______ is patient, ______ is kind. ______ does not envy, ______ does not boast, ______ is not proud. ______ is not rude, ______ is not self-seeking, ______ is not easily angered, ______ keeps no record of wrongs. ______ does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ______ always protects, ______ always perseveres.
LOVE NEVER FAILS.”
You may sit down.
We have seen it, we have read it out loud, but, do we truly live the message of 1 Corinthians 13? Are we truly love? Do we live it?
John wrote about this topic in his first epistle. "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth" (1 John 3:18). And, again in chapter 4:20, 21: "If anyone says 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar ... Whoever loves God must also love his brother." It would seem to me that the church has a whole lot of self-examination to do, some valentines to send, some more love to pass around.
Note: The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year world-wide. Yet, in spite of all those that are exchanged, the valentines that really matter are the ones we receive and give where love is unconditional, that say, "No matter what ... I love you!"
"... but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13).
1 Corinthians 14:1 says, “Follow the way of LOVE”.
BUT WHAT IS LOVE?
We all want a marriage that lasts, before we get married we are giddy with love, everything is good and everything is right and this is the marriage that will last through eternity. Then we get married and 6 months down the road this is not the person I married. But how many of you realize that you are not the person they married either? We need to know what real love is.
1 John 2:4-6; “The man who says, “I know Him,” but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys His word, GOD’S LOVE is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.”
Before we decide if we love someone, if we want to marry them, we need to watch and see if they love God, their life will show it, they should be bearing fruit, we should be seeing fruit.

1 John 3:11 says, “This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another”.
There must be love in that person, real, true love.

2 John 6, “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to His commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”

John 3:16

Jack Kelly is the foreign affairs editor for USA Today and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He tells the story of a boy’s sacrificial love:
We were in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, in East Africa, during a famine. It was so bad we walked into one village and everyone was dead. There is a stench of death that gets into your hair, gets onto your skin, gets onto your clothes, and you can’t wash it off.
We saw this little boy. You could tell he had worms and was malnourished; his stomach was protruding. When a child is extremely malnourished, the hair turns a reddish color, and the skin becomes crinkled as though he’s one hundred years old.
Our photographer had a grapefruit, which he gave to the boy. The boy was so weak he didn’t have the strength to hold the grapefruit, so we cut it in half and gave it to him. He picked it up, looked at us as if to say thanks, and began to walk back towards his village.
We walked behind him in a way that he couldn’t see us. When he entered the village, there on the ground was a little boy who I thought was dead. His eyes were completely glazed over. It turned out that this was his younger brother. The older brother kneeled down next to his younger brother, bit off a piece of the grapefruit, and chewed it. Then he opened up his younger brother’s mouth, put the grapefruit in, and worked his brother’s up and down. We learned that the older brother had been doing that for the younger brother for two weeks.
A couple of days later the older brother died of malnutrition and the younger brother lived. I remember driving home that night thinking, “I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when he said, and “There is no greater love than to lay down our life for somebody else.”