Fresh Start

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Colossians 3:12-17

June 1, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

We are in the midst of huge transition in our home; the reality has been slowly settling in all year, and now we’re one week away from graduation. Next Sunday, Christopher will proudly graduate from Portage High School, and then begin studying at Purdue Calumet in just a few short months. This is a transition we’ve never faced before. Cathy and I were married six years before Christopher was born, but honestly, those days are a dim, distant memory. For the last eighteen years, we’ve been a family, not just a couple. And even though Christopher will be living at home during his freshman year, it’s going to be different. His life will be different; less family-centered and more his-own-life-centered. Then, in another four years, we’ll be going through an even more radical transition as Rachel graduates and heads off to college. In four years, we’ll be empty nesters, which is not something I’ve totally accepted yet. The question that keeps bouncing around in my head is this: what do we do then? Can we remember what it’s like to be “just us two” again?

There are these transitions that come into most every family’s life. Life phases, some people call them. And, interestingly, research shows that marital satisfaction and happiness are largely tied to those life phases. Happiness and satisfaction soar during the first two to five years, then takes a dip, down to nearly half of what it was before, during the next twenty years or so. But then, here’s the amazing part: it soars again, even higher than in those first few years of marriage, during the later years. The highest marital satisfaction for husbands and wives comes in the time when they have been married over 40 years, and especially after 50 years. Yet, it’s also true that most divorces happen in those “low” years, during the time when happiness and satisfaction have ebbed, when they are at their lowest point. The highest amount of divorces happen in years 11-20 of the marriage. So what does that tell us about how to encourage and promote marital success? We need to be aware of the many, many factors that play into that success, like “perseverance” or “commitment,” but honestly, the main factor that is most helpful to couples is simply a willingness to stick it out, to travel through the hard times in order to get to a place that is so much better. Marriage is hard work. It’s not easy. It wasn’t meant to be. We don’t always feel love for each other, and there are times when it seems just easier to walk away. Those are the times when we most need to have a fresh start alongside a commitment to stick it out through the hard times (Hamilton, Love to Stay, pgs. 132-134).

This morning, we’re wrapping up our series on covenant and relationships by considering what it is that enables any sort of relationship, and especially marriages, to go the distance. Last week, we began talking about this by looking at this short section of the letter Paul wrote to the Colossians, and we talked about three simple words we need to be able to get through times of conflict: clothe, bear, and forgive. And I told you then that we were going to look at the rest of that passage today, as we seek to find a fresh start. What does Paul say can be produced when we live by those three simple words? And how do those things show up in our marriages and in our relationships?

First of all, he says that over all the other things, we must put on “love” (3:14). The word there is one you probably know. Paul isn’t talking about the sort of mushy, feeling-centered Hallmark kind of love. The word there is “agape,” which is the highest form of love there is. It's no-strings-attached love, limitless love, loving someone just because they are. You may not agree with them, you may not always like them, but we’re still called to love. What is true in church relationships, in general relationships, is also true in marriage, even moreso. The story is told of a woman who visited her long-time friend and noticed the wonderfully caring way she treated her husband of more than sixty years, calling him “Honey,” “Sweetheart,” “Darling,” and “My Love.” The woman remarked to her friend how wonderful it was to hear her speak such loving words toward her husband after all these years, and her friend smiled and said, “To tell you the truth, his name slipped my mind about ten years ago, and I’m scared to ask him what it is!” (Hamilton 131). Agape is not just expressed in words. Agape is expressed in our actions and in our life. There is nothing more important than agape and expressing that agape toward your spouse. No strings attached. “I love you because you are.” That’s the attitude that is meant to bring all the others together, and it’s why, the Bible says, “love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Jimmy Carter tells of a time when he and his wife, Rosalynn, got in what he calls a “very serious argument.” Carter went out to his woodshop, sliced off a very thin piece of walnut, sanded it smooth and wrote this message on the wood: “To Rosalynn: each evening forever, this is good for an apology or forgiveness, as you desire.” He says she has used it several times (Carter, Through the Year with Jimmy Carter, pg. 145 [Kindle edition])! Agape calls us to love even when we don’t think we can.

So, Paul says, when we put that on over those other three simple words, that leads to three things happening. First of all, the “peace of Christ” will rule in your heart (3:15). Peace is not just the absence of conflict. Sometimes what appears to be a peaceful situation is really just unresolved tension between two people who are too stubborn to work it out. There are couples who live together but only coexist; there’s no real “peace” that exists, just a silence that dominates. Behind the word for “peace” here is the Hebrew concept of shalom, which is best translated as “wholeness.” Sometimes it referred to “soundness of body,” as in a situation in which everything is working well together. This comes as we clothe, bear and forgive…and it won’t come if we don’t pay attention to the warning signs that signal a lack of shalom. It’s a bit like this: our cars all have that “idiot light” (as we call it) that says, in some fashion, “check engine soon.” Mine came on several months ago, and I was advised it was no big deal, just a sensor problem, so I let it go. And I got used to seeing the light but not doing anything about it. All of a sudden, there were other things going wrong, and I wrote those off, too, as just one-time things. Until they happened again. And again. And then I remembered the light. Maybe it wasn’t just a sensor problem. Maybe there was a shalom problem in my vehicle. Maybe there was something not working right. Now, this is not a sermon about car maintenance, but the same thing is true in our relationships. There are very often warning signs that we ignore that ought to set off an alarm of sorts. Something is out of whack. Do I need to clothe, bear or forgive in order to find that peace, that shalom, again?

The next thing Paul says will happen is that the message of Christ will dwell among you (3:16). What is this “message of Christ”? It’s the Gospel, the good news about Jesus, what Billy Graham calls “my hope.” It’s the hope for salvation that is offered to all of humankind. And it dwells within us—it is something that will be seen in us—when we love. On his last night with his followers, Jesus told them that would be true. He said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). If you agape one another. If you love in spite of the feelings. I’ve said it before: maybe the reason we (the church) have failed to reach the world in 2,000-plus years is because the world has yet to see us agape each other, let alone really love the world. We spend so much time fussing and fighting over unimportant things, when all the while Jesus calls us to love, to agape. That’s the “message of Christ” that will dwell in us, that the world longs to see. And what happens when that “message of Christ” dwells within a marriage? Do you know that shared faith increases martial satisfaction? Couples who share faith, who pray together, who worship together, who are “on the same page” spiritually, who put God at the center of their relationship scored 26 percent higher in “marital happiness” than those who didn’t, according to a University of Virginia research study (cf. Hamilton 148). When the message of Christ dwells in you, there is a deeper commitment to go the distance.

When agape is present, we experience the peace of Christ and the message of Christ lives in us. That then leads, Paul says, to the worship of Christ. He puts it this way: “Teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (3:16). When we think of “worship,” we usually think of what we do here on Sunday mornings; sometimes maybe we only even think of the singing as “worship.” But worship is more than music, though that’s certainly an important part. Worship is more than just what this service consists of, though what we do here on Sunday mornings is a starting point. Worship is a lifestyle. Worship is what we live out every moment of every day as we live our lives. We seek to honor Jesus in everything we do and say; that is true worship. We can say and do the “right” things here, fooling others and even ourselves. Our real worship begins when we leave these doors and walk out into the world. Worship has to do with the way we treat our spouse and our kids. Worship has to do with the way we treat the mailman and the check-out attendant. Worship has to do with what we post on Facebook or Twitter. What we do here on Sunday morning is just meant to be a start, a beginning place, in a life of worship. As we gather, we cover some familiar territory, but when we step out these doors, we begin to live a life of worship, and that might take us to places we don’t want to go, places of greater faithfulness to God. It begins here and continues there. As one author puts it: “Worship is a response to God, the only one who is worthy to receive glory” (Van Opstal, The Mission of Worship, pg. 13 [iBooks version]). She goes on to say, “If our worship is just about staying in our familiar, comfortable experiences, we will get stuck. If we truly hope to go deeper in our worship with God, we may need to exchange where we want to go for where we need to go” (16).

A huge part of that life of worship, Paul says, is thankfulness or gratitude. In verse 15, he has challenged us to “be thankful” and then again in verse 16, he says our life of worship should have a healthy dose of gratitude. Two words we don’t say often enough today are the words “thank you,” and I don’t know of two more important words for building relationship health than those two, especially in marriage. Think what a genuine “thank you” does for your own sense of value and worth. It tells you that someone noticed what you did. It tells you that what you did mattered. It lets you know that you are appreciated. And saying “thank you” does something in our own hearts as well. Every morning, when I wake up (because I get up long before Cathy does), I always reach out and touch her and offer up a prayer of thanksgiving for her and her presence in my life. Every day, I tell God that she is better than I deserve, and I thank God for bringing us together. I try (I don’t always succeed, but I try) to say “thank you” for things small and large because gratitude is a key to greater happiness and satisfaction. Two little words, “thank you,” can go a long way in helping us remember that life is a gift and our spouse is a blessing (cf. Hamilton 146).

When we choose love, when we seek to live out agape, then we will find the peace of Christ, the message of Christ and the worship of Christ bubbling up in our lives. Then Paul adds one more challenge in verse 17: “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” He doesn’t say, “Do things in Jesus’ name when you feel like it.” He doesn’t say, “Do things in Jesus’ name when you happen to think of it.” No, he says to do everything in Jesus’ name. Everything. You know what that word means in the Greek text? “Everything!” But, you might say, I don’t feel much love toward my spouse anymore. I think I have fallen “out of love” when him or her. And if love is only something we “fall into,” then it’s easy to think we can fall “out of” love. But the reality is that love is a choice. We choose to love, even when it’s difficult, because that’s what we know will honor Jesus. Whatever we say or do must be able to have these words written after it: “In the name of the Lord” (cf. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, pg. 183). Can we speak ill of our spouse, or anyone for that matter, and do that “in the name of the Lord”? Can we degrade our spouse, or treat them as if they don’t matter, or make fun of them, or refuse to forgive them…or any number of other actions…can we do those things “in the name of the Lord”? If we bring every deed or word to the test of the presence of Jesus, we will most likely often reconsider what we say or do (Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians, pg. 160). Whatever you do, Paul says, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. That simple rule alone will bring peace and hope and life to our marriages and our other relationships, and it will allow the world to better see Jesus shining through us. As we live in this way, we prayerfully hope to come to the point where we sing, with poet Robert Browning,

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in his hand…

This morning, as we wrap up this series, we have a couple of resources for couples as together we all seek a fresh start. First of all, when you leave this morning, you are invited to pick up a prayer card that is titled “Praying With My Spouse.” Now, the print is rather small, and I apologize for that. The proof looked much larger! But the prayer says this: “Dear God, thank you for our marriage and for all the wonderful gifts and qualities of my partner. Help us to show love regardless of feelings and, in the showing of love, to rediscover our feelings for one another. Grant us gracious perseverance through all the seasons of marriage, and teach us every day to love more like you. Amen.” We’ll also put this prayer on the Facebook page, so you can access it there. The card is simply meant to be a reminder, something to spur us on, to pray for one another daily. You don’t have to pray the words here; just let this card remind you to pray! If you know someone who could benefit from one of these cards, please take them one as well. The second resource I’ve been pushing the last few weeks. Tonight is our Covenant Renewal Service over at Crossroads. This is meant to be pretty informal, so the dress code is “come as you are.” We will have a brief Scripture reading, a time to share vows together, and then a time for each couple to say what they need to say just to each other. You might want to write a letter to read tonight, or say something from your heart. Then, we will have prayer together, and some food. This time is meant for couples whether you are having a hard time right now or if you’re in a good place. It’s meant to be, for all of us, a fresh start, a beginning from wherever we are. So, I invite you to come tonight at 6:30, with open hearts ready to live agape.

Of course, the supreme example of agape, for all of us, was found at the cross. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). The greatest agape is when one gives one’s life for others, which is what Jesus did on the cross. In the bread and in the communion cup, we find a reminder of just what agape looks like: laying down your life for the sake of the other. All of us need that reminder, married or single, because all of us are called to live that cross-shaped and cross-formed life. When we kneel at this communion table, when we receive these tokens, these reminders of what Jesus did when he gave his life, we say that we intend to live the way he called us to live. We kneel here and in so doing proclaim that we want to do everything “in the name of the Lord,” that we want our lives to reflect his agape. So I invite you, all who love Jesus or who want to love him, to come and receive and remember this agape love, given for you and for those you love…for every human on the planet. This bread, this cup…for you, for a fresh start. Amen.

Three Simple Words

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Colossians 3:12-17

May 25, 2014 • Portage First UMC

Well, as you heard, this past week was our spring rummage sale here at the church, and thanks to the hard work of so many people, $—— was raised and over the next few weeks, that money will be disbursed to several different mission projects and agencies. I am always amazed to see the way the rummage sale (this was my 18th) comes together and everyone works together for the greater good. And in the midst of it, you can see a microcosm of life as people put aside differences, work through disagreements and even maybe forgive one another as they seek to accomplish a singular goal.

I thought about that as I watched people stream in to find the best bargains on Thursday morning. Amazingly, even with the limited space, folks seem to be able to be cooperate and treat each other relatively kindly in order to be here, to shop, to participate. But that, then, made me wonder why we sometimes have such difficulty doing the same thing in our homes and in our relationships of various sorts. Why do we often insist in “jostling” one another around? Or, to use the popular question, why can’t we all just get along?

This morning, we’re continuing our series of sermons on covenant and relationships, and while we’re been focusing especially the last two weeks on marriage, this morning we’ll be focusing on something that is equally applicable to any sort of relationship, because this morning we’re going to talk about conflict and how we get along with others. We live in an increasingly polarized society. What used to be termed “political correctness” seems to have become “this way or else.” We’ve watched as people lost jobs or speaking engagements for simply saying the wrong words. Just a word or two misspoken in the wrong place at the wrong time can bring down a flood of ink or pixels of disapproval. We live in a world where it seems you’re either “with us” or “against us,” you’re either “right” or “wrong,” depending on the prevailing opinion at the moment. The only thing that isn’t tolerated is to have a different opinion. Our world seems to thrive on conflict, and while it might be enjoyable to watch that play out on television in a drama program or a reality show, when conflict invades our lives, it’s anything but fun. It’s painful. It’s hard. It leaves people hurting. Many couples and many friendships have been broken in the wake of a simple disagreement. I remember the first fight Cathy and I had after we were married. I can’t tell you what it was about, but I can still see the scene in my mind’s eye. We were both left momentarily feeling like maybe this marriage thing wasn’t the best idea. And yet, we worked through that one—and the other arguments we’ve had over the years. Some do not. Sometimes that first fight, that initial conflict, is enough to send a couple flying in opposite directions. What if there were some actions, some behaviors, some attitudes that we could adopt that would see us through most conflicts? And what if those behaviors and attitudes and actions could be summed up in just three simple words? That’s what we want to look at this morning: three words, three attitudes for healing the relationships in our lives.

Paul was probably in prison in Ephesus when he wrote this short little letter that was directed to the church at Colossae. This city was about a hundred miles inland from where Paul was (Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, pg. 142), but it was on an important travel route and had become wealthy from trade and textiles. It was known particularly for a purple wool made there called colossinus. Paul had not planted the church at Colossae, but he had met people from there and knew about the church (Archaeological Study Bible, pg. 1935). Half of this letter is doctrinal in nature; it spells out generally what Christians believe. Paul probably wrote that to help counter some false teaching that was going on in Colossae. And then the second half is all about how to live it out, practical Christian living. So what we read in chapter three this morning isn’t exclusively for marriage, because it really applies to all sorts of situations in our lives. Any place there might be conflict, these words Paul wrote can be applied. And we know that if there is more than one person in the room, there is the potential for and the probability of conflict. (Some of us don’t even need that second person; we’re good fighting with ourselves!)

So Paul emphasizes how we are all in Christ. “There is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, slave or free” (3:11). The differences aren’t what is important. When Jesus comes into our lives, we become, as Paul puts it, “God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved” (3:12). Therefore, he says, treat each other this way, with three simple words. The first is this: “clothe.” “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (3:12). They say that “clothes make the person,” and we make a choice every day how we’re going to represent ourselves. I had an event a few weeks back and I wasn’t sure how to dress for it. So I asked the person who had set it up, and he said, “Well, I used to tell people to dress like they were going to church, but since most people don’t dress up for church, I tell them to dress like they are going to meet the president.” What we wear tells others something about us, whether we intend for it to or not. We choose what we want to wear, and that’s why Paul uses that word “clothe” here. Since we are God’s “chosen” people, we have to choose what we’re going to wear spiritually, how we’re going to represent ourselves to others. As one author put it, we are to be “living advertisements of what God’s grace does in human lives” (Garland, NIV Application Commentary: Colossians/Philemon, pg. 210).

So what are we to clothe ourselves with? What must we put on? The first thing Paul mentions is compassion. The English word comes from two Latin words and it means “to suffer with.” But literally Paul says we should be clothed with “bowels of mercy.” In other words, he wants us to feel it in our gut. Compassion is more than just having a sad feeling when something bad happens to someone else. It’s more than sympathizing with someone else or their situation. Compassion is being kicked in the gut by the difficulty of the other person’s situation. Now put this in perspective. Paul lived in a world where there was no provision for the elderly, where the maimed and the sick were left to die and mental illness was viewed with disgust (Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians, pg. 157). Paul wants these Christians to be affected by the suffering around them, and more than that, to suffer with those who are hurting. After all, we serve a suffering savior, a Christ who went to the cross for us. When we clothe ourselves with compassion, we enter into the hurt of others. So when your friend or your spouse, is hurting, we stop everything and enter into that. We don’t stand at a distance and hurl platitudes. Like Job’s friends, we come and sit in the dust with them (Job 2:11-13). We suffer with those who are suffering (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:26).

Next, we “clothe” ourselves with kindness, which grows out of compassion. This is what moves us, in a time of need, to make a casserole for the one who is grieving or who is recovering from an illness. It is “gracious sensitivity toward others that is triggered by genuine care for their feelings and desires” (Garland 210). It’s when the other person’s good becomes as important to you as your own, and it’s found in increasingly smaller quantities in today’s world. There’s a beautiful story in Genesis 26, about Isaac, the son of Abraham, trying to find a place to settle with his flocks, and he digs wells, only to find that they are on someone else’s land. Now, today, we would file a lawsuit and squabble over who owns the land. Or we would get in a loud shouting match about who dug the well and so on. But Isaac didn’t do that. Isaac, in kindness, simply gave the well to the one who claimed it and settled elsewhere. He moved on until he found a place where he and his family could settle in peace (Genesis 26:17-22). Kindness motivates us to work for the best for both, and treats the other person’s needs as being as valid also. This does not mean you allow yourself to be run over all the time. Kindness calls us to work together, whether in a friendship or a marriage, to find the best solution. But we’ve got to be willing to admit that maybe I’m not right all the time, and that brings us to the next thing Paul calls us to put on: humility.

In Paul’s world, in Colossae, getting ahead was valued. In fact, in the ancient Greek language, there was no word for humility (Barclay 158). We probably would not even have a word for it were it not for the Christian faith, because it was first from the Jews and then from the Christians that the Roman world, out of which our culture has grown, ever heard about this idea of humility. In the first century, as in ours, bragging about yourself constantly was considered normal, because you were always working to make sure you were one step ahead of the other person. Doesn’t that sound a lot like the world you and I live and work in? That sort of behavior has detrimental effects on a friendship, and it has detrimental effects in the church (Garland 210-211). Humility, by contrast, is a remembrance of who we really are. Humility is not thinking poorly of ourselves; humility is thinking rightly of ourselves, seeing ourselves as God sees us: we are not self-made people. We are creatures made in God’s image. We are an incredibly valuable child of God, but so is that other person. Whether a friend, or a boss at work, or an annoying neighbor, or your husband or wife, they are created by and loved by God, just as you are. When we “put on” humility, we remember who we really are. We do not come to each other in arrogance, but in humility.

That, then, allows us to also put on gentleness. Gentleness is the willingness to make allowances for others (Garland 211). In conflict, it’s being willing to help rather than condemn. Aristotle defined it as the balance between too much and too little anger (Barclay 158). And sometimes we may need to step out of a situation for a time in order to find that balance. Some of you know Cathy and I worked with a team on the west side of Chicago during the summer of 1988, and it was a hot summer, we were far from home (not so much geographically, but certainly culturally and socially), and we had a whole team of eleven people sharing a three-bedroom apartment. One day that I’ll never forget is when things just got to be too much for me. I had misunderstood the culture, I had made assumptions that were not valid, and I was angry. I was really angry, and after saying a few words to one of the workers at the mission, words that I shouldn’t have said, I got in my car and started driving west. I had no destination; I just knew I needed at that moment to get out of there. I drove and drove and prayed and prayed and allowed God to help me put on kindness once again. I finally stopped at some store, bought a candy bar (I think it was a Snickers), and drove back. I’m not particularly proud of that day, but I am thankful that God reminded me of the need to make allowances for the faults of others, and I need to do that because I need them to make allowances for my many faults. Kindness in a relationship, and especially in a marriage, allows us to not be bothered by the small stuff, and we’re going to come back to that in a moment.

Kindness, then, leads us to the last garment Paul mentions: patience. If you know of a relationship—friendship, dating, marriage, or anything like that—that does not require patience, then I’d like to hear from you after the service. Every relationship I’ve been a part of has required patience on my part and on theirs. Patience is the willingness to endure wrongs and not strike back in revenge (Garland 211)—because that’s not our place. God says vengeance is his job, not ours (cf. Romans 12:19). Patience enables us to work through things rather than smash through them, and it’s also something in short supply these days. So these are the clothes we put on every morning; in fact, it’s not a bad idea to write these words down and put them somewhere you’ll see them in the morning. As you put on your shirt and pants and shoes, spiritually put on “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” at the same time. How might just getting dressed in that way change the way you interact with those most important relationships? Paul’s first word to us this morning is “clothe.”

Then we come to verse 13: “Bear with each other,” he says. Once you’re clothed with the attitudes of the spirit, you are enabled to “bear” the things that come your way. Now, that sounds like you just put up with stuff…and to some extent, that’s what Paul is getting at. Some of those things we fight over don’t really matter all that much in the long run, especially in light of eternity. Sometimes we would be wise to ask if this thing that upsets us so much is going to matter one bit beyond this life. Especially when it comes to husbands and wives, some of the things we get angry over, some of the things we hold grudges about, some of the things we hold against each other start out as little annoyances that we would be better off just to “bear.” Just put up with. It’s not worth getting angry about. The word Paul uses has the meaning of standing still, standing up. It’s like when the wind is blowing against you, you stand. When things aren’t going your way, you endure. It’s the image of Jesus, standing before Pilate: the savior who could have called on the heavenly host to defend him instead stood there and “bore” what came his way for the sake of the other. The “other” in that case was you and me.

So, let’s be honest: there are things about other people that irritate us. Spouses aggravate us. Often, in a wedding, I’ll warn a couple that there will be days when you don’t like each other all that much. He will leave his socks in the middle of the floor. She’ll be late to a meeting. He will work late and forget to call. She won’t cook like your mother does. There are no perfect people, and there are no perfect spouses, and there are no perfect dates, and there are no perfect friends. Let’s just affirm that and understand that the perfection we want and expect does not exist. People mess up. People make mistakes. And people have habits that irritate us. Research says that for women in particular, it’s men’s inattentiveness that drives them crazy. Wives, in particular, wish their husbands would help more around the house, would share their feelings and weren’t so short-tempered. For men, the big one is the moodiness of women (or perceived moodiness). Other things includes our perception that women aren’t as interested in physical intimacy, or that our wives nag us, or that they overreact to what, in a man’s mind, is a simple situation (Hamilton, Love to Stay, pgs. 106-111). But the big thing in any sort of relationship that both men and women are bothered by is negativity. If we’re at work or at church or at other social functions, we tend to avoid people who are negative all the time. We reason that we don’t need that in our lives. But at home, it’s harder to avoid, and that’s where it tends to show up more. I know a woman who, as a child, would bring home straight A’s and her father would ask why they weren’t A+’s. We’re more quick in our homes to criticize, to judge, or at least we sound that way. We think we don’t have to turn on our filters, but counselors will tell us that people remember the negative comments five times more than the encouraging comments. “Bearing” in this situation is not about just putting up with it. It’s about being the person who exudes hope. It’s about changing the course of the relationship by filling it with hope and encouraging words.

This past week, as most of you know, Cathy and I celebrated our silver anniversary, and during this week I’ve been remembering a lot. There were and are things she does that drive me crazy, just as there were and are things I do that drive her crazy. But I realized that, somewhere along the way, it wasn’t helpful for us to fight or get upset at every little thing that irritated us about the other. We would never have made it twenty-five years if we did. Rather, we have learned to be people of hope, to be people who bear with the other. In every situation, you have to ask: is this irritation something worth real conflict? Is this going to matter in the long run? Is this a habit that is threatening to our relationship or is this something I can “bear”? When we are clothed with the character of Christ, we can “bear with” many things we wouldn’t have thought we could otherwise.

And that brings us to Paul’s third word. It’s so important that he mentions it twice in this brief passage. Paul says, “Forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (3:13). The word translated as “grievance” means “blame or accusation.” Basically, if there’s anything between the two of you, anything that is hurting the relationship, your calling is to work on forgiveness. He doesn’t give another option. This is a command. Jesus didn’t give an option either. In the Sermon on the Mount, as he’s explaining what life in his kingdom is to be like, he gives a model prayer, one we pray every week here, and it includes this request: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). And then, after the model prayer, to drive the point home, he makes it clear what rests on whether or not we forgive: “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (6:14-15). That sounds harsh, which is why, as I’ve said many times, I wish Jesus hadn’t said it, but he did. And he’s getting at the same thing Paul is. The way we forgive is to be the same way God forgives us, and if we aren’t able to forgive freely, as God forgives us, then we can’t really experience the joy and freedom and power of healing and hope that only comes when we forgive. It’s not that God refuses to forgive. It’s that we block our ability to receive his forgiveness by our own hard hearts. And you’ve known couples who do just that, who shut down, whose heart becomes so hardened toward each other that they no longer even want to forgive whatever the grievance might have been. They might not even remember what it was! As individuals we do this, too. The longer we refuse to forgive, the harder our hearts become toward that other person and the less likely it will be that forgiveness will take place. It's not impossible, just less likely because we become entrenched in our own right-ness. That’s why Jesus and Paul both stress the vital importance of forgiveness in any relationship. There is power in those words, “I forgive you.”

Clothe yourself with the character of Christ. Bear with one another in the midst of irritations. And forgive the things that stand between you. The secret to facing conflict head on, whether in a marriage or any other relationship, is to behave and act and live like Jesus. As N. T. Wright puts it, “Christian behavior…makes you more human, not less” (Wright 181). Three simple words: clothe…bear…forgive…and we will become more who God intended us to be from the very beginning.

Now, the point of all of this is not so you can go home and point out to your spouse or to your friends how much they need these three words. You’re not supposed to say, “You need to clothe…bear…forgive.” That misses the point. Do you remember when I said that none of us are perfect? Paul wasn’t intending the church at Colossae to say, “Hey, yeah, those Corinthians really need to get it together. If they did this, it would all be better.” No, he’s telling the Colossians that there are areas where they themselves need to clothe, bear and forgive. So to us, he would say that it’s not about straightening out your friends, your date or your spouse. What is it you need to take action on in order to be a person who is more like Jesus? If you say “nothing,” you’re in denial; none of us are perfect and none of us are all God wants us to be yet.

In terms of marriage, some experts suggest that couples do a regular “marriage performance review,” much like most of us have at our jobs. The two of you, separately, would list maybe five things about yourself you’d like to work on, things that will enhance the relationship or lead to greater intimacy. Then, together, you talk about what it is that you need or want or are willing to do in order to bring greater harmony to the marriage. It's sort of like the way we set goals at our jobs; what will allow you to be a better husband or wife? What is it that you need to put on, clothe yourself with? What is it you need to bear? And, most importantly, what is it you need to forgive, or what do you need to be forgiven for? As a reminder, next Sunday evening, we are going to have a Covenant Renewal Service over at Crossroads, and our goal in that time is for it to be a new beginning from wherever you are in your marriage right now. Good, bad, indifferent…this is a new start, a chance to begin again. That will take place, as I said, next Sunday evening at 6:30 over at Crossroads. And that’s why this week is a good week to sit down together, to see how things are really going, to begin to clothe, bear and forgive. Is there anything standing in your way that needs to be forgiven? Is there anything you need to hear from the other? It may not be easy to hear those things, but it is necessary. Maybe this song will say it better than I can. Listen to this with your heart.

VIDEO: “Broken Together” (Casting Crowns)

Broken…together…is a good way to be. Clothe…bear…forgive. Now, next week, we’re going to look at the rest of this passage from Colossians, because when we learn to clothe, bear and forgive, we are led into a place where, Paul says, the peace of Christ will live, the message of Christ will dwell, and the worship of Christ will become our lifestyle. Those are things we need to go the distance in any relationship, and so that’s where we’re headed next Sunday. But today, for just a bit, I want us to pray, to open our hands on our laps and ask God what it is that we most need to receive from him to experience healing, wholeness and hope. Let’s pray, shall we?

When It's Broken

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8; Matthew 5:27-32

May 18, 2014 (Confirmation Sunday) • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

Last Sunday, if you remember, was a fairly beautiful day when we left worship. I went home and finished mowing the yard after lunch, and enjoyed some time reading on the deck. Then, after Cathy and Rachel got home, we decided to take Linus, our exchange student from Germany, out to the Lakefront Park, one of our favorite places. By the time we got there, and walked the length of the pier, the sky over Chicago and over the lake started to get really dark. Then there was lightning in the distance, and me, being one who can always clearly state the obvious, said that maybe we should get inside. I know, brilliant, right? So we got back in our car and headed over to McDonald’s at Ameriplex, where we rode out most of the storm.

Wherever you were during last Sunday’s storm, we all discovered the next morning and maybe even that night that there was clean-up to do. There were broken things littering our streets and yards. Broken trees, damaged roofs, and so on. Crossroads had a tree down as well as damage to one of the barn roofs. And some of us, including the church, were left with broken power lines to deal with in the form of no power to our homes. Within a few days, the worst of the damage was cleaned up, the power lines were replaced, and life went on as usual.

And I couldn't help but think—if only life were that easy to repair! Because there are times in life, we all know, when things seem to be perfectly normal. It's a sunshiny day, as far as we can tell, and then, just on the relational horizon, a few clouds appear. Then, the clouds turn dark (maybe suddenly). And then it’s obvious a storm is coming in your life. And the storm may have any number of different origins, but nevertheless, no matter what the origin is, it becomes clear that life, as it has been, is about to be disrupted, even broken. Life, in fact, may never be the same after the storm.

This morning, we’re continuing our series of messages on covenant and relationships, and today we're going to focus on those times when storms come, when a relationship seems to be broken beyond repair. And while much of our focus this morning will be on marriages, there are principles here that apply to all sorts of relationships, and I’ll do my best to draw those out as we go along. But, as I’ve said for the last several weeks, statistics indicate that 50% or better of marriages today end in divorce, and those who are part of the church do not have any better numbers than those outside of the church. We tend to divorce at the same rate as everyone else, despite our belief that divorce is not God’s best plan for us, and we’ll talk about that a bit more near the end this morning. Three weeks ago, when we began this series, I asked for a show of hands as to who had been touched in some way by divorce, and there were a whole lot of you who indicated you had. So what is it that leads to those kinds of storms?

A couple of weeks ago, on our church’s Facebook page, I asked folks who would be willing for me to use their stories to share what had led to their experience of divorce, and several of you graciously responded, for which I thank you. If nothing else, the stories that were shared with me remind us that broken relationships and especially broken marriages are not easy to categorize. We may want to blame this one or that one, but there are always at least two sides to the story. One person shared with me that their divorce grew out of a lot of different factors, including differing values and goals. That led to different ways to managing money, not ever feeling like a team and neither person being willing to see things from the other person’s point of view. Another story shared how lack of communication led to the break, that they married young and never fully committed to making their union work. Not knowing each other very well led to living different lives. Still another person shared about an in-law who went through a very difficult divorce in which the relationship broke apart because one of them had never learned how to show love or affection. There was a coldness between the two of them, and like the storm clouds suddenly arriving on the horizon, she was completely surprised when her husband asked for a divorce. She had assumed you didn’t have to work at marriage, that it was forever automatically. And while those stories made me sad, they’re also a good reminder that every broken relationship is made up of complicated and complex reasons and events that led to the difficult decision, to a dark place of brokenness.

Having said that, though, for the sake of time there are three primary threats to relational harmony that I want to focus on this morning. The first of these is emotional or physical abuse. Every fifteen seconds in our country, a woman is battered by her husband or boyfriend. That means that just during this worship service, 240 women will be beaten somewhere. Four of those women will die today (Hamilton, Love to Stay, pg. 81). And yes, there are instances of women battering their husbands or boyfriends, but that is still a small number today comparatively speaking. However, not all abuse is physical. Much more often, there is emotional or spiritual abuse taking place. When it’s physical abuse, we can sometimes see the wounds or the bruises; we might even think that it’s easier to intervene in those cases. With emotional or spiritual abuse, the wounds are invisible. One woman described it this way to me: it’s like “being treated like nothing more than the scum on your shoe…when someone ignores you, dismisses your feelings, calls you names, ignores your kids, would rather sleep than be intimate, you start to feel like you are worthless and unloved.” When we're talking about emotional abuse, we’re focusing on a persistent pattern of demeaning, speaking with contempt toward the other, undercutting them in various ways. It’s not a way we should treat anyone, especially when we remember that Jesus said to treat others the way we want to be treated (Luke 6:31). When we treat another person that way, when we undercut them, demean them, speak poorly of them, we must want to be treated that way as well. True? And if not, then why do we treat someone else that way, especially one we have promised to “love and to cherish” until death?

Now, all of us say things from time to time that we later regret. Maybe we regret them as soon as they come out of our mouths! That’s normal; not good, but normal. I’m talking about a pattern, often established early on in a relationship or a marriage. Some believe that any sort of fighting or argument is evidence of abuse, but that’s simply not the case. When you bring two different people together, there are going to be disagreements and even arguments. It’s not whether couples fight or not, or even how often they fight. It’s how they disagree, how they fight. John Gottman, a professor of psychology, says he can predict with 91% accuracy whether a couple will divorce or not, all within the first five minutes of meeting the couple. He sets up a question he knows will cause conflict and then watches how the two react. If they go on the attack, demean or abuse the other, he says, it's a sign of an impending shipwreck (Hamilton 82). So how do you fight with your spouse? How do you argue with your friends? Does your response lead to abuse, to greater brokenness, to demeaning the other person, or does it lead to wholeness and healing? Abuse is one sign of an impending storm.

The second threat to relational harmony is addiction. One woman described the events leading to her divorce this way: “[My husband] was a womanizer and alcoholic, and after we were married [he] became a cocaine addict…I knew I was clinically depressed and went to counseling. He told me I had to choose counseling or him. I chose counseling to save my life.” Addiction begins with the promise of pleasure, and it often starts as just something on the side, a hobby, but the problem is it has diminishing returns. By that I mean that what once gave you a thrill or a “high,” over time doesn’t anymore. You need more to get the same high. And then more. And then more. And before you know it, you’ve been sucked into an all-consuming lifestyle. It doesn’t really matter if it’s alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling or any other addiction, the goal is always the pursuit of pleasure. And that pursuit, then, gets in the way of everything else, including having healthy relationships.

You see, in Genesis, as we’ve talked about several times now in this series, God created his children, us, to be relational beings. He created male and female “for each other,” and he meant for us to find “pleasure” or contentment in each other. When Genesis says that, after naming all the animals, Adam found “no suitable helper” for himself (Genesis 2:20), and when God looks over all creation and says, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18), we’re meant to remember that we were made for relationships, for community. We’re meant to find contentment in each other. And especially husbands and wives are meant to fulfill their relational longings in each other; that’s yet another side to Genesis saying we’re to “become one flesh” (2:24). When we seek other things to bring us pleasure or contentment, when we seek other substances to fulfill us, we’re falling far short of where God intends us to be. When there is addiction involved, there is something standing between the two of you—whether that’s drugs, the bottle of alcohol, the computer that beckons, or anything else—and that something is inhibiting and even bit by bit destroying the relationship you were meant to have. And here’s one more thing: usually those who are closest to us can see the addiction better than we can. If your spouse tells you you have a drinking problem or a gambling problem or an issue with pornography, you probably do (Hamilton 86). Listen to them and consider if the addiction is worth destroying those relationships that are most important to you because addiction is a sign of an impending storm.

The third threat, then, is the one we usually think of first when we think about relational storms, and that is adultery. Many think that this is the main cause of divorce, when in actuality arguments about money have, in recent years, topped that list. Still, adultery is a huge cause of brokenness. Two of the folks who responded to my Facebook post mentioned adultery as the final breaking point. One person wrote this: “I was the worst husband on the planet. I drove her away when she needed me, made up reasons to justify my actions, found fault in everything she did, convinced myself that all that I did was for her and the kids, and finally cheated on her and walked out. She hates me now and I don't blame her. [I] wish I could get a ‘do over’ as the kids say.” Another person described well how it often happens: “My ex started a casual emotional relationship with an ex-[girlfriend] he saw during his work days. This led to two marriages and families destroyed as they left us and married one another.” According to the National Marriage Project, 22 percent of men and 14 percent of women who are married have had an affair (Hamilton 94-95), and today it often begins through social media. Facebook and the like allow you to meet people all over the world, even old flames, and since we post our best pictures and best moments online for others to see, it’s easy to begin to imagine that the other person, the one who doesn’t see you when you're at your worst and whom you don’t see at their worst, might just be the one you missed out on.

You know, as a pastor I hear people say, “I don’t know what God’s will is for me.” And there is a lot of life where God’s will is ambiguous. But in the letter Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, it’s as clear as it can be. Paul says, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.” And then he goes on to define what that means: “that you should avoid sexual immorality” (4:3). Can he be any clearer than that? The city of Thessalonica, much like Corinth that we’ve looked at a couple of times recently, could find unbridled sexual temptation anywhere they looked. The temples doubled as brothels, and every sort of practice was tolerated or even actively encouraged (Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians, pg. 118). So, to the young Christian congregation, Paul wants to be especially clear: avoid all of those things that you used to take as “normal.” Instead, he says, “each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God” (3:4-5). Basically, Paul tells the Thessalonians that if they do not reject that old lifestyle, they are in turn rejecting not Paul, not their pastor, but God himself (Thomas, “1 Thessalonians,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 11, pg. 272).

The word there is porneia, from which we get our word “pornography,” and it’s the same word Jesus uses in Matthew 5, in our Gospel lesson this morning. There has been a considerable amount of ink spilled on exactly what this word means. In the ancient word, it could mean “incest, fornication, or adultery” (Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII, pg.  192). In Paul’s day it certainly at least referred to the sacred prostitution that took place at the pagan temples, but much more generally it seems to have referred to any sort of physically intimate activity outside of marriage (Wright, Paul, pg. 119). Jesus uses the word when he describes the only exception he gives for lifelong marriage: “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality [porneia], makes her the victim of adultery” (5:32). Jesus certainly seems to be referring specifically to adultery, and we’ll come back to that in a moment, but in larger passage, Jesus is suggesting there are roots to this act we need to deal with much earlier. In the verses leading up to this often-quoted section, Jesus is dealing with something we don’t talk about as much: lust. In fact, his direction is that we deal aggressively with the first signs of lust and we’ll never have to get to the porneia stage. In fact, he uses exaggerated speech to make his point; if your eye causes you to lust, gouge it out. If you hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. Of course, if we took Jesus literally there, we would have a whole world full of half-blind and one-handed people. He’s not telling us literally to do that. Rather, he’s pointing out that if we deal decisively with lust, we won’t have to worry about adultery. Jesus says, in essence, that that adultery is an act of the imagination, that it begins with the intention of the heart, much earlier than an actual act might happen (Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 57-58; cf. Boring 191).

So is adultery the only grounds for divorce? In the ancient world, there were two schools of thought, both basing their thinking on Moses’ guidance in Deuteronomy 24. In that passage, Moses says a man can divorce a woman “who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her” (24:1). And so the rabbis debated. What did Moses mean by “displeasing”? What did he mean by finding something “indecent” about a wife? The strict, conservative school of Rabbi Shammai said divorce could only happen if there were sexual sins or “gross impropriety.” The liberal school of Rabbi Hillel said it could be anything that displeased the husband. For instance, if she burned dinner, he could divorce her. You see, divorce was not prohibited in the writings of Moses, the earliest Jewish law. Rather, it was regulated. It was easy to obtain and frequent in occurrence. Then along comes Jesus, who is reminding his followers that marriage and family are good gifts from God to humanity. They are not something designed for human regulation or mere legal arrangement. And while he seems to come down pretty much in the camp of Shammai, Jesus’ larger point is this: these relationships were meant to last. This is something God takes seriously. Malachi, the Old Testament prophet, even used divorce as a metaphor for the way Israel, the nation, had behaved toward God. They had been unfaithful, and had rejected the one who loved them. They had “divorced” God, but God was calling them back to faithfulness (Malachi 2:10-16). God takes this stuff seriously. But Jesus does allow, at the least, an exception for adultery, porneia. Does that require divorce? No, and some in our day have broadened that definition to include any sort of breaking of the vows of faithfulness. For instance, in the event of physical abuse, does God really want someone to stay in the marriage even if the spouse has never cheated on them? I don’t believe so, because that’s not the life God designed for us. At that point, the vows to honor and love and cherish have been broken. You may come down differently on that, and that's fine. Jesus does allow an exception, but he also takes these vows very seriously, and when the vows are broken, we’re not to rush into breaking the marriage. This calls for much prayer and discernment.

Paul says, in fact, that the success of any relationship depends on three things:“the commands of the Lord, the presence of God, and the power of the Spirit” (Wright, Paul, 117). The Lord Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit. We cannot hope to heal the brokenness, let alone move ahead, if we do not have the presence of God in our lives. In every wedding I do, in some way or another, I remind the couple that marriage takes three—not just the bride and groom, but they will also need the presence of God on good days and on bad days. I love the image of a triangle, with the bride and groom making the base and God at the top. As they each draw closer to God, they will inevitably draw closer to each other as well. Worshipping together, praying together, reading and discussing books together, walking together to talk over the events of the day—doing what is needed for the two of you to continue to communicate and allow God to be an integral part of your relationship.

But then, there are these things that come at us, these threats. How do we respond? Well, if we find ourselves with a threat in our face, then, as Tom Wright says, “Saying ‘no’ to desire when it strikes inappropriately—in other words, outside the context of marriage—is part of the most basic Christian discipline” (Wright, Matthew, 49). Learning to use the word “no” and knowing when to use it are very basic skills we all need to learn. But there is also the reality that, in this highly digital age, temptations can sneak up on us in form of friend requests on Facebook or tweets that are sent our way. Or it might be that ad, or a banner when we have “googled” something. It’s estimated that nine out of ten teenagers have viewed some form of pornography on the internet, whether on purpose or by accident. We need guardrails on our lives, and that begins with installing parental controls on our computers and smartphones and tablets. Some may say, “Just don’t allow the technology into your life,” but unless you’re living on an Amish farm, that’s an unlikely thing to happen. The technology is real, it's here and it's pervasive. So install filters. Turn on the “safe search” mode on Google. Do everything you can to protect what comes in via the technology. And make sure someone else can hold you accountable. Cathy has all my passwords to the computer, to my Facebook, and since I pretty much use just two or three passwords, to everything else. She can check my e-mail or my Facebook at any time. I don’t know if she does or not. I know her passwords, and I could do the same. Even if you’re not married, this is a good discipline to get into, to have someone you trust who can and will hold you accountable. As I said a week or so ago, the patterns we establish early in life are those we will carry throughout life and into any relationship we become a part of.

Now, maybe some of you are sitting here this morning and your life feels broken. Maybe you’re on the verge of a divorce. Maybe there have been things in your life that you haven’t told anyone—addictions, adultery, abuse, or something else. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we are planning a covenant renewal service for husbands and wives on June 1, over at Crossroads, and today at the Connection Center, you can pick up an invitation to give to your spouse, to invite them to come with you. It’s not meant to be a judgment, because we invite you to come if things are going great or if storms are brewing. What this is meant to be is a new start, a chance to walk together from wherever you are right now. Especially if you’re in a broken place, think what an invitation from you to the one you still want to love might mean, what possibilities it might hold for your relationship. And what a great thing if you both pick up an invitation and find surprising ways to share it with the other; that would mean you’re on the same page and ready to move ahead together! We would love to see all husbands and wives there with us that evening.

The storms will come, of that we can be sure. And that’s why we need one more “habit of life,” one we come to celebrate on this Confirmation Sunday. The most important habit of life, for marrieds and for singles, is to cultivate is a relationship with Jesus Christ. This morning, eight of our teenagers are going to come in front of the congregation and before God to say, “This day, I am declaring my faith in Jesus and that I intend to live my faith out every day. This day, in this place, I vow to follow Jesus through this church, to give my prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness to him.” It’s a bold thing to do, in this world, to stand up for a life that is often so contrary to what the world offers and says is “right and good.” But when we make that stand, that vow, as they will this morning, we will find that Jesus walks faithfully with us through the storms of life. We also find we gain a family, a church family, that will suffer when we suffer and rejoice when we rejoice (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:26). This relationship with Jesus, the one that these Confirmands are declaring today, is bedrock for navigating the storms that come our way, for facing whatever threats come our way, so let’s celebrate his presence in our lives today and in the lives of our Confirmands.

A Good Gift

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

1 Corinthians 7:1-5

May 11, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

Well, it’s Mother’s Day. One hundred years ago, Anna Jarvis from West Virginia was successful in establishing a recognized holiday on the second Sunday in May to honor all mothers, and yet six years later she was already frustrated by the commercialization of the day. Cards, flowers and dinners out seem to be the order of the day—and I learned several years ago to make sure the Disciple class is finished by Mother’s Day! You don’t mess with moms! In this church, being good United Methodists, we always celebrate with food—our third “sacrament,” after baptism and communion! One breakfast, several years ago, blended this holiday with what we want to talk about this morning, believe it or not. I was the pastor at Brushwood at the time, and after the worship service on Mother’s Day, I noticed Jerry Stowers (some of you knew Jerry, he’s gone home to be Jesus) hurrying toward the breakfast line. “Jerry,” I said, “this is a Mother’s Day breakfast! Maybe you should let Merrie Etta go first!” Jerry turned around, smiled at me and said, “She wouldn’t be a mother if it weren’t for me!” And on to the front of the line he went. I couldn’t argue with that logic!

We’re in the midst of a series of messages on marriage and relationships, and this morning we come to a topic few people want to discuss in church. In fact, church is one of the few places remaining today (maybe the only place) where we’re uncomfortable talking about sex (cf. Hamilton, Love to Stay, pg. 56). Certainly, society is unafraid of the topic anymore. You can turn on your television any evening at 7:00 p.m., during what used to be called “the family hour,” and you’ll find dramas featuring it and comedies talking about it constantly. And the church sits quietly, afraid of entering the conversation, letting society set the norms and standards and meaning of this good gift from God. This is a very real issue for our home right now. Rachel has just recently been in that section in her health class, and she brought home a paper to “inform” us that they were going to be discussing sex. I told her I remembered when they did that at my high school (not middle school, high school), the whole community was in an uproar over it. They had to have specially signed permission forms from each parent; now it’s just an “informing” that happens. But, more than that, something that worried me was when she said her assignment was to ask Cathy and I any questions she had. So I asked her what questions she had, and she said, “None. I go to school, Dad. I learned everything there!” When did the church give over control of this good gift to the secular world?

Because we live in an overly-sexualized culture, and because sexual union is an important part of marriage, I want to explore this morning what the Bible says and what a Christian perspective is on this act that, in the last few decades, has seemed to become to many people what defines them. So, first of all, this morning, we’re going to look at what Paul had to say to the church in the midst of a first-century over-sexualized culture, that being in the city of Corinth, and then we’ll look at what a Christian view of sex is, and we’ll conclude by talking about how grace fits into all of that. So, that’s where we’re going this morning, and we start in the ancient Greek city of Corinth.

Corinth was a strategic city, having controlling access to two seas, east and west. They were located on a five-mile-wide piece of land that was easier and quicker to transport ships and cargo across than to go around. Today there is a canal there. So Corinth became quite wealthy in ancient times. Not only was sea trade a huge industry, they also became famous for their pottery and Corinthian brass. Corinth was a lively city, where all sorts of cultures and peoples jostled together, just like many places today. It was also a city with a reputation for loose living. One of the festivals that was held in Corinth centered around the goddess Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation. Her temple employed more than 1,000 prostitutes, and some people came to the city just for that. “Corinthian” came to be a slang term for “loose sexual morals” (Mare, “1 Corinthians,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, pgs. 175-179; Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians, pg. xii). Prostitution and sex were big business for this city. And into this setting, Paul came preaching the Gospel and established a church made up of Jews and Gentiles alike. Paul spent 18 months in Corinth, and then he continued to pastor them by writing letters, two of which we have in our Bibles.

In the passage we read this morning, Paul is directly responding to some of the things the Corinthian Christians had written him about. But just before this, he has been instructing them very strongly about some other issues. Incest in the church—he tells them to hand that man over to Satan (chapter 5)! Lawsuits between believers—he asks why they are letting unbelievers decide their disputes (6:1-11). And he deals with the issue of temple prostitution, telling them they should never unite their body with such a person, and that to do so is dishonoring to Christ (6:12-20). Now, what’s interesting is that these are issues they apparently didn’t ask him about. He says people have reported these things to him (5:1). It’s almost like they were saying, “We can’t ask Paul about incest or prostitution, so let’s ask him about safer topics, like, you know, marriage and divorce.” So Paul begins not with what they asked about, but with what’s really going on, as if to say, like a parent to a child who thinks they can hide what they did wrong, “I know everything. I have eyes keeping watch on you!” (cf. Bailey, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes, pgs. 198-199).

So, in that context of setting clear boundaries of what is right and wrong, Paul launches into discussing the things they actually asked about, the first of which is sexual relations in marriage. It seems there were two extremes in the Corinthian church, much as there can be also today. One group we might call the “libertines,” the ones who insist that “anything goes.” This would be a large segment of our population today, as it was for Corinth. These folks generally believe that what you do with your body has nothing to do with your soul, so you can do anything and it won’t affect your relationship with Jesus. So you have celebrities who live hedonistic lives, abusing various substances and sleeping with this person today and that person tomorrow, then turning around at the awards show and thanking Jesus for the win. It’s the idea that what we do doesn’t affect our soul. Paul says that’s not true, and he has spent chapters 5 and 6 dealing with those folks in particular. The other group, the ones dealt with here in chapter 7, are the “ascetics,” or the ones who believe the body is evil. Physical matter is evil, and the truly spiritual person will forego all earthly pleasures, including marital relations. They are the ones who are saying things like what the Corinthians wrote Paul about, in verse 1 of this chapter: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman” (7:1). The text literally says, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” So the ascetics were even more radical than just worrying about intimacy; they suggested that all sort of physical touch be done away with (cf. Bailey 200), and they would have this apply even to married couples. These folks have existed throughout history as well, including fringe religious groups where even married men and women live separately. And they wonder why their group dies out!

Paul disagrees with that position as well. Even though, from all the evidence, Paul was not married at the time he wrote this (it’s possible he was widowed or he may never have been married), Paul still was brought up in the Jewish tradition that favored marriage and encouraged normal sexual relations within the marriage. So he is clear here that husbands and wives have a “marital duty” to one another that should be fulfilled (7:3), but lest that sound like drudgery, Paul goes on to use language that reminds us that it is a gift, a good gift, given to husbands and wives for a purpose (which we’ll look at in a few moments). The only reason to “deprive” each other, he says, is by mutual agreement so that you can spend more time in prayer, but it should not be forever. It should be for a short time, so that you will not be tempted to look elsewhere (7:5). “To be married, but to abstain from sexual relations, is to ask for trouble” (Wright 78).

So what, then, is this matter of authority? In verse 4, Paul says, “The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife” (7:4). This is one of those things that gets taken out of context, and “authority” is taken to mean demanding what we want, when we want it. When we hear “having authority,” we think of being the boss, being in charge. But Paul’s language actually refers to having “exclusive claim to.” Husbands and wives belong to each other in that sense, that they have chosen to “forsake all others,” as the marriage vows say (Mare 228). But notice the mutuality in Paul’s instructions. There’s an equality here that was way ahead of its time in the first century and, sadly, ahead of its time in some ways still today. We live in a world where, today in the “enlightened 21st century,” one in five women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape at some point in her life. Thirty million people are held in slavery, many if not most of them in the sex slavery industry. Two million of those are children (https://www.ijm.org/the-problem). Part of the reason for that is, as I shared a few weeks ago, the great imbalance in birth rates; in some part of the world, more men are born than women because girls are not wanted and are therefore aborted or abandoned. Men want sex, they’ve forgotten God’s boundaries and guidelines, and so they take what they want. There’s no equality, mutuality, choice or decency about it. What Paul describes between husbands and wives is giving a gift to the other, a gift given by a person’s free choice, without demands, in the boundaries of marriage where there is trust and equality. It has to be a choice; if it is coerced, it’s no longer a gift (cf. Bailey 201-202). And Paul’s perspective is that sex is a good gift, given by God at creation, for husbands and wives to give to each other. It’s not a place for power plays, for abuse, or for punishment. It’s a gift, a good gift. And so Eugene Peterson, in The Message, translates verse 4 this way: “The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality—the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to ‘stand up for your rights.’ Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out” (The Message Bible, pg. 2073).

So Paul says, in verse 2, “Each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.” Within marriage, it’s a normal behavior. What we’ve done in our day is cheapened this good gift. We hear talk of “hooking up” or having “friends with benefits,” and we laugh at coarse jokes that usually make sport of women, and we bit by bit have forgotten that there is a purpose to sexual relations beyond our own personal (and dare I say selfish) pleasure. So what does the Bible say about the purpose of sex? There are three main ideas, according to the Bible, and the first one is simple procreation. Well, I say “simple,” but it’s not quite that simple. It’s an amazing process, actually, that we are allowed and called to be co-creators with God. I know when I stood in that delivery room during the birth of both of our kids, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the life that came out of the love between Cathy and I. It’s a marvelous mystery, and even if we can explain all the biology and map all the genetic material, it's still a marvelous, wonderful mystery that out of love comes life. And what a gift that God made the process of reproduction pleasurable as well, so that we would want to continue to perpetuate the human race (Hamilton 57-58). It’s that mystery, in many ways, that we celebrate today and also in June on Father’s Day. We can be co-creators with God.

Now, I also want to recognize that today and Father's Day can also be painful for some people. There are those who have tried and who would like to have children and, for whatever reason, have found that they are unable to. There are also some that have chosen, for various reasons, not to have children. And so, for some, even talking about Mother’s Day or Father’s Day can be difficult. I’ve known folks who would make wonderful parents and, for whatever reasons that I don’t understand, they haven’t been able to have children, despite their best efforts. Again, despite perhaps understanding and being able to explain the biology, we can’t make sense of that. There is mystery there, too. And that’s why procreation or reproduction is only one purpose of sexual intimacy. Having children is not the only end to the act.

The second purpose the Bible gives for physical intimacy is that it allows two people, as Genesis 2 describes it, to “become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). We looked at this passage two weeks ago, when we talked about the mission of marriage, and how couples are called to be united in mission to the world. I said then that this verse also tells us that husbands and wives are meant to be bound together in physical intimacy, a unity which creates a deep emotional bond between husband and wife. It deepens our love. It creates affection for one another (Hamilton 58), and this is where the way our society has trivialized this act becomes such a huge concern. Ideas like “hooking up” and “friends with benefits” cheapen what was meant to be beautiful because when we think of physical intimacy as simply a means to an end, a way of feeling pleasure, it becomes a purely selfish act, something centered on “me” rather than the culmination of a deep and meaningful relationship as it was meant to be (Hamilton 59).

Allow me to illustrate this idea with duct tape. Yes, duct tape can fix nearly everything, but it cannot fix relational wounds. It can, however, demonstrate what happens when we give ourselves away to person after person after person. Duct tape will stick to most anything, and it creates a strong bond. But it you tear it off and try then to stick it to something else, the bond is less strong. And every time you tear it off and re-use it, the bond is less and less until eventually it simply won’t stick anymore. That’s what happens when we cheapen sex, when we hurry too quickly into that bonding, when we have not yet made a covenant before God and with each other to love the other until we are parted by death. Our society seems to have the idea that “more is better,” but what actually happens is that, like the duct tape, we begin to lose our capacity to feel anything, to “stick to” or connect with our mate. There is biochemical evidence for this, as the chemicals in our brain that bond us to someone, oxytocin and vasopressin, are depleted as we chase after this next conquest and that so-called connection. We actually lessen our ability to bond with someone, anyone.

In fact, psychology has backed this up as well, telling us that couples who waited until their wedding night have 22% higher relationship stability, 20% increased levels of relationship satisfaction, 12% better communication and 15% improved physical intimacy. Now, maybe those numbers don’t sound all that high to you, but for many, many couples, those percentages can be the difference between marriage and divorce. As I said two weeks ago, couples who live together before getting married have higher divorce rates, and 50% of them will divorce within the first five years (Hamilton 15, 61). Rollo May, writing in 1969, put it this way: “The more we became preoccupied with sex, the more truncated and shrunken became the human experience to which it referred” (Hamilton 60). What we have trivialized, God meant to help husbands and wives become one flesh.

The Bible gives one other purpose for physical intimacy and that’s as a means of one person knowing another person more deeply. In fact, beginning in Genesis, particularly in older translations, you will often read that a husband “knew” his wife. Genesis 4:1, for instance, says, “Adam knew Eve his wife” (KJV). Modern translations will say, “Adam made love to his wife Eve,” which is certainly the intent, because the end result, Genesis says, is that she became pregnant, but the word used is literally “know.” Yada (yaw-dah) means to really see someone, to know someone on a deeper level than others, to be revealed, or to distinguish. It has the sense of knowing this person better than anyone else on the planet. It means that you become completely vulnerable, naked, open to your spouse. It’s a holy, beautiful thing, which again speaks to why the way we’ve trivialized it is so wrong and harmful. When we “hook up” after a second date, we’ve not given time nor have we given the commitment necessary for there to be true revelation, true knowing.

So…what if you’ve failed? What happens if we fail to follow God’s intent and direction for this good gift? Does it mean that God is done with me? Does that mean I’m a bad person? No, what it means is that you’re human. And because you’re human, that means there is ample grace for you and for me. Because of our culture’s obsessive preoccupation with this topic, we have tended to swing to one of those two extremes that Paul talked about with the Corinthians: believing that breaking God’s law on this topic is either no big deal or it’s the worst sin of all. As with most things, though, the truth is somewhere closer to the middle. Yes, God longs for us to listen, to obey, to follow his direction, but God did not give this instruction to take away anyone’s “fun.” It’s in the Bible because that’s the way God designed life and he knows how it works best. The boundaries God puts around sexual intimacy are not to destroy our joy but to enhance it, to help us live life to the fullest extent possible. It’s like when we set boundaries for our children when they are younger: you can go this far down the sidewalk on your bike, you must stay inside the yard, you can do these things and not those. We don’t do those things or set those boundaries to rob them of their fun, though they may accuse us of that. We set those boundaries so that they can live, so that they can have the fullest life possible. We set the boundaries because we know how life works, what’s dangerous and what is not, and children do not. The same is true with God and us. God sets boundaries not to hurt us but to help us, to bring us to life. Because he sees things we cannot, he knows the dangers we seem to either not see or don’t want to see.

But when our children break the rules or cross the boundaries, do we disown them? Do we tell them, “Sorry, you broke one rule, you’ll have to move out because you’re no longer welcome in my home?” Of course not. We offer grace and forgiveness. The same is true of God. Breaking boundaries when it comes to sexual intimacy is not the absolute worst sin in the world, but it does rob us of the full joy God intends and plans for us. And yet there is grace and forgiveness when we come to him in repentance, when we turn around and allow him to transform our hearts and lives. That “turn around” part is very important. Many years ago, in the weeks leading up to prom season, I had a youth in my church come to me and ask about having sex with her boyfriend. They were planning it for prom. I’m not sure if she was asking me for permission or why she was even telling me this, but she said to me, “If I do, God will have to forgive me, right?” To which I responded, “God will forgive you, yes, but the question is more if you really want to be forgiven. If you’re going to just keep doing what you know is not what God wants, do you really want to be forgiven? Do you really want to make a new start?” She didn’t have any answer for me, but a week or so later she contacted me to tell me she had given herself away to someone else at a party. It’s not an uncommon story, and this was many years ago. That girl, now a woman, has had difficulty connecting in any real way with others all of her life, and she’s still not sure if she wants anything to do with God. You see, there is grace and there is mercy and there is forgiveness—if that’s what we want. Is that what we want?

So let me say a word to all of of you who are single. It’s important to make up your mind how you want to live in this oversexualized society. What choices will you make in how you respond to others, and how you represent yourself? Despite everything that the media and movies and advertising and even the people around you tell you, you are more than a sexual being. You are a person created and designed to honor God. Just before our passage today, Paul reminds the Corinthians that “you were bought with a price.” Jesus died to save you, body and soul. It matters what you do with your body, which is why Paul goes on to say, “Therefore, honor God with your body” (6:20). That’s a good verse to memorize, and allow it to become a standard for the way you interact with others. Is what I’m doing in this moment with my body honoring to God? We can live better than the world around us. It is possible to live in a way that honors God, even with all the pressures around us. But it will take a lot of prayer and dependance on Jesus to give you strength and resolve. And it may require someone holding you accountable as well.

As for those of us who are married, here’s your assignment for this week. Plan a date, just the two of you, and decide ahead of time that there is no pressure for physical intimacy. Plan time just for the two of you to be together, to talk (put away those cell phones), to enjoy each other’s company. In a world in which sex is often the centerpiece, time just to be together without any pressure is often in short supply and incredibly valuable. With the pressure off, what might you learn about each other, what might you be able to focus on instead? Do you know that there are several factors which, research indicates, lead to a more fulfilling physical life? The first is conversation; couples who spend at least 30 minutes a day in conversation are more connected when it comes to physical intimacy. But the physical also depends on the spiritual. Those who worship together and those who pray together find much more satisfaction in their physical intimacy. Paul wouldn’t have been surprised at that. He was not telling the Corinthians not to “touch” each other. Instead, he’s reminding them husbands and wives should be together in sexual ways, but also that isn’t the whole of what life is about. For all of us, the important thing to remember is that though, as Paul affirms, this gift is a good one, given by God, it is not what primarily defines us. First and foremost, we are children of God, called into relationships to bless, encourage and fill the other with joy (cf. Hamilton 73-75). For husbands and wives, this good gift is one way to do exactly that, to be a blessing and an encouragement.

Now, I know this morning is uncomfortable. It’s at least as uncomfortable for me as it probably is for you. But, church, it’s time for us to speak truth into our culture in this area. It’s time for us to live relationally the way God intended us to, the way God calls us to. When we do that, when we live differently because we follow Jesus, then I believe the world will take notice. Living faithfully and fully in this area of our lives is just one more way we can love God, love others and offer Jesus to a world that is so broken is this area of life. So I challenge you to live this way, to honor God with your body. Amen.