Ministries:
Adult | Teens | Children

Pastor's Pen's:
2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001

Sermon Series:
Following Jesus
Earthly Cross
His Name Is
Apostles Creed
Dealing with Feelings
Jonah
Get Real
Promised Land Living

Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Email:
Pastor Scott Carson

Secretary Patti Hall

PASTOR'S PENS 2006

Grace Church of Burlington October 15, 2006 "Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up."   Joseph Barth             Unfortunately, in most marriages, couples that have been married a few years begin to live a “married/singles” lifestyle. They’ve become more like room mates or business associates than committed lovers. Even in the Church many couples do not realize that our marriage vows are also a covenant before God. Today lavish amounts are spent to have the perfect wedding and then newlyweds jet set off to exotic places for their honeymoon. Yet, the chances of their marriage lasting even ten years is pretty dismal. Contrast that to the weddings of our grandparents and even our parents. Often the wedding would consist of the bride, the groom, their parents, a few witnesses and the local pastor. They might get married in a friend's home. The total cost might be close to $25. They might spend their first night in an upstairs bedroom and the groom would head off to work the next morning. But most of their marriages reached the golden anniversary. Even our parents had smaller weddings. Often there were no photographers, minimal flowers and no musicians. The bride might have just worn a nice suit. If they had a reception, it was a modest one followed by a low-budget honeymoon. Total costs might be a couple of hundred dollars. But, again the percentages of successful marriages was well above the dismal failure rate of today.             I wasn't surprised recently when The New York Times reported that today's average wedding costs about $20,000, a very risky financial proposition given that the divorce rate is close to 50% for new marriages. When my grandparents married, the divorce rate was under 5%. It seems that the more we spend on weddings the shorter the marriages last. Our culture's focus has shifted from the spiritual and moral to the material and the immediate. We put more emphasis on how the marriage starts, but God is much more interested in how it ends!             The weddings of our forefathers primarily centered on vows. They took them seriously and burnt their bridges at the wedding altar. Divorce was not an option. Society today encourages the bride and groom to fortify their bridges so they can escape if times become difficult. Today's weddings are frequently a lavish party. Sure receptions and honeymoons are fun and significant, but they are incidental to the main purpose of a wedding: making vows of commitment. It means you are bound to your spouse even if he/she became an invalid, gets cranky in middle age, is unable to have children or if you just don’t “feel” like you love them anymore. Psalm 15 says God honors the person "who keeps his oath even when it hurts." Tragically, the concept of commitment is often lost today. According to a National Marriage Project survey, although 94% of singles want to marry a soul mate for life and 88% agree that there are too many divorces, two-thirds endorse cohabitation before marriage, and 43% will not marry until living with the person first. This mentality does not lend to making vows that will stick if a relationship becomes costly.                   Weddings of older generations also emphasized service. Today, many go to the altar in love with love, a dangerous proposition. Romance is important to a successful marriage, but service must be emphasized; otherwise romance will die. Unless I am willing to take out the garbage, forgive until it hurts and pick up my own dirty socks, our romance will be short-lived. The romance between Jane and I is far deeper and richer today, 23 years after our wedding, because we have learned to serve each other.             Another important aspect of our ancestors' marriages was to become one flesh. Today's weddings often presume the importance of maintaining separate identities of bride and groom. For example, many expect different last names, bank accounts and the preservation of his and her rights. But God's pattern is "the two shall become one flesh," each giving up a life for the other. The wonderful irony is that those who serve their mates eventually "find" their lives through the joy of making one new person out of two. Becoming one has required sacrifice between Jane and I. We’ve disagreed on how best to discipline our children and many other issues. But these conflicts have only deepened our "oneness" because our wedding was a commitment to lose our lives to one another and God. The fusing has been painful at times but God's wonderful grace has kept us growing together.             A wedding is the making of irrevocable vows before God and witnesses. Everything else in the ceremony is incidental. Whether you spend $100 or $20,000 on a wedding, you are making a lifetime commitment. So how well are you honoring your vows? Do you have a marriage or are you basically two singles living under the same roof with a piece of paper holding you together? God wants us to have healthy Christ-honoring marriages. So how’s yours doing?