Sunday Sermons

Wet Cement - Applications

Mark Dunagan
12/17/06 - Sunday Morning

Wet Cement

In the book, The Most Important Year in a Woman’s (and Man’s) life, the authors write, “Particularly for a husband, there is a receptivity to change during this year (the first year of marriage), perhaps as at no other time in his life. We call this ‘the wet cement year’” (p. 19). It is certainly true that God considers the first year of marriage to be an important year in the life of any couple, “If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married” (Deuteronomy 24:5). It is significant that God did not say, “After you have been married for a number of years then work on your marriage”. There is clearly a lot of wisdom in working hard on one’s marriage in the early years:

· Dangerous seeds can be planted in the early years that, if not weeded out, can end up corroding the couple’s commitment to each other.

· Five, ten or twenty years of bad habits or sinful ways of relating can create a tidal wave of negativity that a couple may find extremely difficult to change.

The Value of a Happy Marriage

Before we spend more time on “how to have a happy marriage” lets spend a moment on “why should I have a happy marriage?”

· Enjoying marriage is God’s will for our lives (Ecclesiastes 9:9; Titus 2:4-5). Whatever effort we put into our marriages will be more than worth it. Hockey star Wayne Gretzky noted, “We miss 100 percent of the shots we never take”. Not taking the risk to improve will result in failure.

· “People with satisfying marriages live longer, enjoy better health, and report a much higher level of satisfaction about life in general. In fact, people who stay married, live an average of four years longer than people who don’t.

· Forty percent of married couples say they are very happy, compared to eighteen percent of those divorced and twenty two percent of unmarried couples who live together.

· The average married couple in their fifties has a net worth nearly five times that of the average divorced person.

· Divorce dramatically increases the likelihood of early death from strokes, hypertension, respiratory cancer, and intestinal cancer. Astonishingly, being a divorced non-smoker is only slightly less dangerous than smoking a pack or more of cigarettes a day” (The Most Important Year in a Woman’s Life p. 18). The writers observed that maybe divorce papers need to come with a Surgeon General’s warning.

Wet Cement Forever

I agree that the first year of marriage is one of “wet cement”, yet for Christians we should always be willing to be wet cement. I know that conventional wisdom says that we become more and more set in our ways the longer we live, yet I do not see the Bible giving Christians the right to become set in ways that harm relationships. In fact, the Bible teaches that we are to be continually altering, changing and improving ourselves for good. I hope we don’t make the mistake of thinking that the level of spiritually or personal growth that we have attained by age thirty will do for the rest of our lives or the rest of our marriages. Even the seasoned apostle Paul said, “I press on” (Philippians 3:12,14); “Reaching forward” (3:13). Equally consider 2 Peter 1:5-11 and 2 Corinthians 7:1. Thus, a Christian should never say, “This is just the way I am”—if such a way is not in the direction of spiritual growth.

The Transcendent Third

In many marriages there is a “third partner” who keeps a couple married. Unfortunately, this partner is often the children, a business, mutual hobby or interest. While children are wonderful, they were not designed to hold a marriage together. God must be the third partner in our marriages, “Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth” (Malachi 2:14); “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6).

· Because of a common commitment to God, couples will not simply resign themselves to tolerating a lifetime of mutual annoyance. “They were motivated to change the ingrained patterns of resistance toward each other that could have pulled them apart. The good news is that you and your husband cannot both move closer to God without moving closer to each other” (The Most Important Year p. 38). This truth is seen in Matthew 22:37-39. Any true movement or love towards God must result in a greater love for one’s neighbor. Or, in other terms, the very fact that the God who died upon the cross for us, tells us to love our mates as a favor to Him (Ephesians 5:22 “as to the Lord”), is the highest motivation possible to do so.

· When children (or something else) become the highest transcendent third partner, this is only masking the absence of a true spiritual connection in the marriage. Children are wonderful, yet they are not big enough to do what only God can. “When a husband and wife are each actively seeking God, they pursue One who is so engaging, so captivating, so transforming, so supremely good, that loyalty to Him stabilizes and engulfs all other loyalties. God is big enough” (p. 38).

What can a Wife Do?

Being a husband I have spent many lessons in the past addressing what a husband can do to improve his marriage, but in the second half of this lesson I want to address wives because they equally have a responsibility in this area. The Holy Spirit specifically tells wives, “to love their husbands” (Titus 2:4). May I suggest that the following encouraging statements are sentences which men love to hear from their wives:

· “I like that’: When a man is told that he has brought a woman pleasure, he feels respected and his confidence grows. In contrast, when a man is told or given the impression that no matter how hard he tries, it is not good enough, he often gives up.

· “I don’t know how you do it”: Now and then a man loves to hear that his wife considers him number one and she is the most loyal member of his fan club.

· “That counts”: This lets a man know that he is on the right track. He does not have to guess or remain clueless concerning what his wife needs or is wanting. “A woman who waits around for her husband to figure out what it is that she needs from him will likely be waiting a very long time” (p. 72). “Catching your husband doing something well and telling him that you noticed will go a long way toward affirming his spiritual growth” (p. 40).

· “You know what I would just love?”: Men appreciate hearing questions placed in the language of pleasure rather than the language of complaint. This is a far more loving and useful question than, “Can’t you just once?” Or, “Why don’t you ever?” May I suggest that when God commands wives to be kind (Titus 2:5), have the language of kindness on their tongue (Proverbs 31:26), and to be respectful to their husbands (Ephesians 5:31), that the above is a practical application of such verses. “Many men stop being conversationalists with their wives because too many conversations end with the husband feeling as though he just didn’t get it right. When a man becomes convinced that he is ‘no good at talking’ with his wife, he stops playing the conversation game altogether” (p. 73). Thus, a wise woman will help her husband feel like he is succeeding when they talk.

Many studies have concluded that the “marriage vaccine” (besides God at the center) is friendship. “The determining factor in whether wives (and husbands) feel satisfied with romance, and passion in their marriage is, by seventy percent, the quality of the couple’s friendship. Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse” (p. 78). May I suggest that the previously noted encouraging expressions are part of the language of friendship.

Handling Conflict

Husbands, as well as wives, play a major role in how conflicts are handled. Studies note that wives bring up problem areas in a marriage more than eighty percent of the time. There is nothing wrong with addressing or bringing up problems, yet here are some suggestions when it is done:

· Start softly, remember this is your friend and lover: Proverbs 15:1

· Conflicts will happen; disagreements are simply a chance to grow together. How you start and close the discussion is at times far more important than even what you are discussing.

· Unresolved disagreements are not the end of the world, for God does allow us to have different views in the realm of opinion

· Do not overwhelm him with all sorts of issues, and let go of a conversation when you can tell he needs to spend some time processing the situation.

· Let him know that the situation is not hopeless, and even during conflict continue to strengthen and patch up the relationship. That is, continue to be his friend, and lover and helpmeet after the disagreement.