Sunday Sermons
Enduring Love
Enduring Love
This summer I encountered someone who was on their second marriage and they referred to the first wife as a “practice wife”. Even before this encounter, I had heard people speak of first marriages as “starter marriages”, much like a starter home. Certainly a society that views people as being a “trial size” desperately needs a refresher course on what real love is. Someone noted that love is not something merely meant to be sampled or briefly tested. Rather, it is meant to be lived, or as God puts it to “walk in love” (Ephesians 5:2).
Why Do We Need Marriage?
When one considers the marriage failure rate in our contemporary society, they might question why God designed this relationship in the first place. Like everything else that God created, He designed and deemed marriage "a good thing" (Genesis 1:31). Man, however, has often taken what God has made and selfishly misused it. Even considering this, marriage still remains for those who want it, a good and wonderful thing. “It is a beautiful, priceless gift. He uses marriage to help us eliminate loneliness (Genesis 2:18), multiply our effectiveness, establish families, raise children, enjoy life, and bless us with relational intimacy. But beyond this, marriage also shows us our need to grow and deal with our own issues and self-centeredness through the help of a lifelong partner. If we are teachable, we will learn to do the one thing that is most important in marriage—to love” (The Love Dare, Stephen and Alex Kendrick, p. viii).
“Love is Patient”: 1 Corinthians 13:4
When describing love, the Holy Spirit could have started in a number of areas, but the explanation of love begins here with patience and kindness. Genuine love rests upon these two pillars.
Why Patience?
- Because people who quit early will miss all the blessings. Love and relationships are not things that one can do for a while and then simply give up and still expect to profit from the experience.
- Because none of us are born entirely patient. From infancy we have been crying out for this and that. Endurance with an contented heart is a lesson and character trait that everyone needs to learn.
- Because genuine love is all about leading your heart, emotions and feelings rather than being a follower of such desires. “The world says to follow your heart, but if you are not leading it, then someone or something else is” (The Love Dare, p. viii).
- Because love and marriage is not a process of trying to change our spouse to be the person we want them to be. Many have found that such efforts only end in frustration and failure. Rather, love is all about changing us, and practicing love even when being patient and kind is the last thing we want to do at a frustrating moment. Love is still to be expressed “when your desire is dry and your motives are low” (The Love Dare, p. viii).
Looking Up Ahead
Often I find it helpful to pause, look ahead and see what a given course of action will accomplish. When it comes to being patient, here is what some have observed: “When you choose to be patient, you respond in a positive way to a negative situation (Proverbs 15;1). You are slow to anger (James 1:19). You choose to have a long fuse instead of a quick temper. Rather than being restless and demanding, love helps you settle down and being extending mercy to those around you. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm” (The Love Dare, p. 1).
The Anger Dead End
Long ago God told us “the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). How true!
- No one enjoys being around an angry and impatient person.
- Anger moves one is react in very foolish and regrettable ways. “A hard word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1); “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife” (15:18).
- Anger only spawns new wrongs of its own.
- Anger does not solve the problem— it only creates new ones.
- Yet patience will often stop problems in their tracks, and prevent future problems as well: “And will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).
- In any relationship, anger will only spread poison rather than medicine.
Self- Test
Do you find that anger is your emotional default when you think that you are being treated unfairly by your spouse or someone else? Patience is more than merely biting one's tongue. We can fool ourselves into thinking we are being patient, when everyone around us can clearly see that we are still very angry on the inside. We cannot successfully fake patience. Your tone and body language will reveal what's how you're really feeling.
“Patience is a choice to control your emotions rather than allowing our emotions to control you” (The Love Dare, p. 2).
The Wisdom of Patience
“Patience, however, makes you wise. It doesn’t rush to judgment but listens to what the other person is saying. Patience stands in the doorway where anger is clawing to burst in, but waits to see the whole picture before passing judgment. The Bible says, ‘He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly’ (Proverbs 14:29). Patience is where love meets wisdom. And every marriage needs that combination to stay healthy” (The Love Dare, p. 2). Remember this: patience has the wisdom to see the folly of sacrificing a future life-time relationship with much freedom and happiness for the freedom to vent angry words at a given moment. Which do you value more?
The Practical Aspects of Patience
- Patience gives our spouses and others the permission to be human. This does not mean that we tolerate abuse or sinful behavior, but that is often not the problem. When others make a mistake, lock the keys in the car, forget something, etc., we feel no need to give them a lecture.
- Love is very humble as well. We want to give others the permission to be human, for we know that we have and will continue to make many mistakes.
- One place where patience is indispensable is the manner and tone in which we choose to speak to our spouses. Resolve this! "I will not say anything hurtful to my spouse. If I must offer criticism it will always been in a larger context of many loving words. Before I give them that one bit of advice that might be negative, I will first tell then all the things they are doing right."
Love Endures: 1 Corinthians 13:7
- “Of all the things that love dares to do, this is the ultimate. Though threatened, it keeps pursuing. Though challenged, it keeps moving forward…If love is really love, it doesn’t waffle when it’s not received in the way you want it to be. If love can be told to quit loving, then it’s not really love. Love that is from God is unending, unstoppable” (The Love Dare, p. 191). Never stop pursuing the course of love in any relationship, for God's love will never stop pursuing me in this life. Resolve that just as God will never stop loving me—I will never stop loving the people he has put into my life to love — especially my spouse. Ask your spouse what kinds of actions makes them feel them feel the most loved. Sometimes we express love in the way we prefer it, and because our spouse has another "love language" the love gets lost in the process. Ask your spouse what his or her primary "love language is?" Physical touch? Words of encouragement? Acts of service? Gifts? Quality time? Let's love well!
Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.com
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net