Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning!

Glad that you’re here.

The very first Sunday of 2022, I had shared with you that we were planning to do a series later in the year called Tough Issues… and the during that series, we’d be looking at different issues that we believe are bringing pressure to bear on the church.

And back in January, we talked about the issue of homosexuality because of the law that Canada had passed.

Last week, we picked the series back up… Pastor Matthew talked about living with Joy.

You know… with everything going on in the world, and how grim things look… and then add in our own personal dilemmas, it’s getting difficult for Christians to live in joy… but no matter what happens, I’m glad that Romans 8 is still true…

I appreciate Pastor Matthew preaching last week.

This morning, we continue with another Tough Issue that most of us will deal with… Marital Conflict.

I’m not necessarily recommending his work, but I wanted to introduce you to Dr. John Gottman.

Dr. Gottman is a psychologist that specializes in marriage and divorce.

In 1992, Dr. Gottman created a model in which he was predicting with 93.6% accuracy, whether a couple would stay married for the long haul, or end in divorce… simply by observing the couple converse for 5 minutes.

Would you like to know what factors his model used to make the predictions?

It’s a bit more complicated than this, but I’m going to simplify it a little for time sake.

Dr. Gottman said this… If there were more than 5 positive elements in the conversation for every 1 negative interaction, the couple is likely to stay married.

But… if there are less than 5 positive elements in the conversation, they are likely to get divorced.

In 2018, the Barna research group found that 32% of people that claimed to be born again Christians have been through divorce… while the national average for divorce is 33%.

The point I’m trying to make in giving you all that information is that we need to be a people that look at our own marriages… and honestly evaluate what our marriages look like.

And we need to be a people that teach the younger generation… by action, and through word… what a marriage should look like.

And how do we know what a marriage should look like?

We ask the one who created and designed marriage.

So, if you have your Bible, and I hope that you do, turn with me to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians 5 is Paul talking to the church in Ephesus about marriage… and as he talks about marriage… we won’t read the whole thing… but as he concludes, he quotes from Genesis chapter 2. Look at verse 31…

He’s talking about the unity of man and woman based on God bringing them together… again, quoting from Genesis 2 and the very first wedding.

Then, he says this in verse 32… Pay attention, because this is so very important…

In other words, Paul defines marriage as within the realm of Christ’s love for His people.

And so… Understand… Marriage is not about us specifically.

It’s not about our happiness.

Marriage is about God.

So, in a very real sense, marriage, as it’s intended, is missional.

When we are married well, what we doing is, we are showing the world how God loves His people and the deep care that Christ has for His church.

That’s significant because we have a Western Romantic view of marriage.

Now… I want to say this very clearly… There is nothing wrong with the Western Romantic view of marriage… but, let’s think for a second about what it is and analyze it.

So… You find a person that you’re attracted to… you hang out with them… you have dates… you look at each other with googly eyes… and then, after six months, a year, 5 years… whatever… you get married because you’re in love.

That’s the western romantic view of marriage.

Believe it or not… there are other views in the world.

So, let’s just compare the western romantic view to some other views simply so we can see how the western romantic view impacts our marriages… specifically… conflict in marriage.

Another view of marriage is economic.

This is when two people get married because the person you marry will benefit you and your family and further yourselves economically.

Sometimes… only one party receives that benefit… sometimes, the benefit is mutual.

And look… I get it.

We hear about this view and it rubs us the wrong way.

How could someone marry for that reason?!?

But honestly, for the majority of human history, this has been the main reason people got married… at least, some version of this.

In some places, marriage is a social contract.

In other words, you get married because it helps create a stable society.

Typically, when you see a social contract type marriage, you see parental arranged marriages.

Two sets of parents decide their families are a good match, and so they arrange for their children to get married.

I wanted to highlight some of these different types of marriages because we swim in a particular cultural stream… and we don’t recognize that not everyone in the world is like us.

And when we do hear of anything different… it’s just very foreign to us.

For example… If you watch much television… or very many movies… you may have realized that in the last 10 years or so, film makers have using this concept of love triangles.

Usually it looks like this… there’s a woman and she falls in love with this guy… but perhaps the guy really isn’t good for her.

Then this other guy comes along… and this other guy is better looking… maybe he can protect her better… or provide for her better… she would, for all intents and purposes, have a better life with this other guy.

But she doesn’t love him.

And she’s torn.

Does she marry the man that she loves but is bad for her?

Or does she marry the guy that is good for her… but she doesn’t love?

Have you seen that story line in movies?

Tv shows?

In our cultural stream, just about everyone wants the girl to follow love.

In other cultural streams… most everyone wants the girl to marry the other guy.

It makes more sense to them.

Now… Because we have this western romantic view of marriage, we think and we assume that when we find that right person, we will live happily ever after.

I’ve found my soulmate and my best friend… it’s meant to be… so it must be forever… right?!?

But then… something happens… something goes haywire.

Turn with me now to Colossians chapter 3 and we’ll see what goes haywire.

In our western romantic view of marriage… we get distraught when we run into marital conflict… and we begin to doubt… we begin to wonder… Did I make a mistake?

Was this not the person I was supposed to be with?

Was this not my knight in shining armor?

Was this not the girl of my dreams?

The one I was supposed to be with forever?

What we have done in the western romantic view of marriage is… we’ve made marriage all about us… and not about God.

Remember what we just read?

What Paul said in Ephesians 5? Marriage is defined within the realm of God’s glory… it’s not about our personal happiness.

There’s a big difference there.

Again… I’m not criticizing the western romantic view of marriage… but what I am saying is this… our particular view has caused problems because when there is conflict, we tend to become self-absorbed… thinking we’re missing out on something that everybody else has.

And because we’re self-absorbed, we have robbed the glory from God, where it belongs.

We have defined marriage in the human realm and taken it completely out of God’s realm… thereby, we screw up marriage.

We’ve made marriage so much about us… so much about finding the right person, we have failed to point the glory to God… which is what He wants from our marriages.

So how does this happen?

Look at Colossians chapter 3 with me.

This is Paul writing to the church at Colossae… he says in verse 12 in preparation for some more marriage talk…

Paul says… you are to be a people that is compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patent… and a people that forgive… and a people that love.

Now… there’s an assumption there that I want us to grab onto.

The assumption is… that the people around us are broken, sinful people.

And because we are broken, sinful people… we screw stuff up.

Let me say it this way.

“I” am a broken, sinful person… and therefore… “I” screw stuff up.

I need forgiveness sometimes.

YOU need forgiveness sometimes.

You ain’t got all this figured out either… right?!?

Now… take that into the context of marriage.

You have two broken and sinful people… and they get married… do they fix each other’s brokenness?

Of course they don’t.

In fact, a sure-fire way to ensure that the marriage ends is to try and fix each other’s brokenness.

You can’t!

It’s not possible.

So… I’m going to share with you my first session in pre-marital counseling.

When a couple asks if I’ll marry them, I require 6 weeks of pre-marital counseling with them where we talk about things like money, sex, children… all kinds of things.

The very first week of that counseling, this is what I share with the couple.

Imagine this line.

This line is the minimum level that we need to remain satisfied in a marriage.