A Special Report on the issue of marriage

"It’s Time for Guerrilla Living in Marriage"

Adapted from a sermon by Rev. Dr. D. M. Hoffmann, B.Th., M.Th., Ph.D., Ord./IAOGI.

In a book called “Get what you deserve” by Jay Levinson, author of the best-selling series of books on “Guerrilla Marketing” that deal with getting what you want in business, the workplace and in personal life – the author spends some time on the important part of life called “marriage”.

It says in that book that perhaps the single largest loss of productivity in the workplace is “trouble at home”, and the single biggest regret people have at the end of their lives is a “lack of success in their family life”. So, young people today, take heed, listen to the old folks, don’t wait until you get old to find the same regrets.

Over 50% of marriages, that began with a bride and groom walking down the aisle totally in love and sincere about their commitment (well today, they say "if it works, fine, if not, we'll just split) and vows to live “till death do us part”, end up in divorce.

Why? How do people change from this to being in total despair beyond a glimpse of hope to the point of seeing divorce as their only solution? How?

The book asks: “How can we know ourselves and our mates so poorly that we are unable to predict if we’ll be able to live with this person a few years or the rest of our lives?“

Well, no-one can know and predict - it's an impossibility. Marriage is about marrying for life. Improvising as we go through life together. As my new mantra is lately, picked up from The Marines, "Improvise, Adapt, Overcome". "Improvise, Adapt, Overcome".

That's what life is all about. You can't jump ship with every storm that comes along.

A young man who worked for me once said about his girlfriend, “We’ll get married and if it doesn’t work, we’ll just split”. That is not the way to enter into a marriage. Marriage is a life-long commitment, period.

It might be possible to know ourselves and our mates somewhat at least enough to make a decision to go ahead and marry that person. In which case, could it be also that people could change so much over time thereafter?

Could it be possible that we would lose the ability and desire to market ourselves to our spouses as we did when we first met?

In other words when we first meet, we do everything to please the other person. We dress up and groom ourselves, we select our clothes carefully, we clean the car, the house, we arrange for nice places to go to, restaurants, etc.

Before marriage it seems we communicate effortlessly, but after marriage we hardly communicate at all, or communicate poorly and even destructively. Before marriage, we actually gave each other compliments and did everything to communicate even without words that we wanted the other person to like us, to want to be with us, to feel important around us.

That's what happens when we care to present ourselves to another person in a proper manner.

CONTINUITY

Couples need to continue to apply these principles in order to build a strong, flexible relationship that can blossom and grow over the years to come. Whether in marriage or in business or in social activities, participants in good relationships think about “how they market themselves to the other”. I remember a company for which I did some work once had a training around the concept that everyone should be a customer within the workplace.

In other words we were to treat each other as if we were all customers to each over, as we dealt with one another's departments and functions every day, and apply the service to that person as if our salaries depended on it.

Levinson says that a spouse is nothing but a lifetime customer, who “wants” to be with you, who “wants” to work with you, who “wants” to spend time with you because you make it to be desirable.

The key word here is “want” to. Couples need to keep on doing what needs to be done in order to keep the other person “wanting" to be with them.

Well, I don't know about that. I don't have to work at that in order to have a workable marriage in my life. What I do find most important is that, one, I respect my other half at all times as the individual he is. And two, he also does the same.

We don't work at "making the other want to be with the other. We just respect one another and respect married life. But to do that, we have to be content where we are, know that our commitment was for life and -- most importantly -- make Jesus Christ the center of our lives.

In a current article by Tom Peters -- known world-wide as a cutting edge provocative business consultant -- speaking on company loyalty, he says that loyalty to the corporation for the sake of misguided convictions is “the worst reason to stick to a lousy marriage” (marriage here being an analogy to a business relationship between an employer and an employee).

He says that he does not want his employees to be loyal to him or his corporation. That would be misguided. He wants them to be loyal to the team mates, loyal to the projects, to the customers, to the craft, to the challenge, to the personal growth. “And”, he says, “if I can offer you the challenge, and if you respond accordingly, then lets keep dancing.”

To add to this, I always say, we do what we have to do for the good of the company. Whatever is best for the company.

It is the same in marriage. we do what we have to do for the good of the marriage. Whatever is best for the marriage. Marriage is a very unselfish status. Marriage is the nucleus of family. And family is the nucleus of society. It should be defended at all cost.

A mate is a lifetime customer, to whom a lifetime good service is rendered. It works both ways. Someone who wants to — not someone who is forced to, or someone who has to, in a misguided idea of loyalty to a tradition — but “wants” to be with you and stay with you, spend time with you in a meaningful experience; someone who wants to work with you on life’s common projects, goals and challenges.

And all the time letting the other pursue personal growth in every area of life - health, education, career, finance, social commitments - those things that life is all about — as partners in marriage supporting one another. It might be at different seasons in our lives, but it should be always in readiness to help the other grow and advance.

We don't really have to be conscious of it all the time. But We need to reflect on it in grateful appreciation regularly. And it has to be mutual. It has to be a two-way street. That's where both people have to work on marriage and the responsibility of marriage.

It is a sad thing when one is willing to make a marriage work and the other wants out for whatever selfish reason. Very sad indeed. But that's when diligent prayers comes it. One party may have to spend a season of fervent praying and take on the enemy (Satan) seriously in the name of the Lord and in the full Armour of God. It is that serious.

Unfortunately, too many folks are buckling under the prospect and giving in to this enemy. And he is literally handed over the victory. We forget that Jesus said, He will never forsake us and that we must be courageous and fight for the victory that is already ours for the taking.

Just like God wants us to come to Him and love Him with all our heart, with all our mind with all our strength because we want to. He doesn’t force us to come to Him. He doesn’t want us to come reluctantly, nor for the wrong reasons. He gives us a choice; and when we make the choice to follow Him and serve Him, we do it from a “want to” position. And for a lifetime. That is the best kind of relationship, and the only kind of relationship that will be lasting. It should be the same in marriage.

OUR MODEL

As I was reading this, I was also thinking of the ultimate marriage that will be between the Church and Christ. We are now the bride preparing herself. “We” is the body of believers. We are the bride waiting for the groom to call us at the right moment, in the tradition of Jewish weddings. The groom has already said, “I go to prepare a place for you… and I will come again and receive you unto myself…”(John 14:2, 3). And those of us who will be with Him will be there because we want to.

The only difference between that marriage and the earthly marriage, is that the bride is marrying the perfect groom!

Do you know of any perfect groom in this world? Many of them think they are perfect. Sometimes that’s where all the troubles begin. What about a perfect bride? Is there one somewhere? Hardly.

We like to think that we are right, we are perfect, and that it is the other who needs to change, don’t we? One of the secrets to a good marriage is to let the other person be himself or herself – just the way each were when each were attracted to one another.

When we enter into marriage we don’t enter into jail. It should not be a prison. Both should continue to be the person they were – but each changing their own selves into a better person as life deals its cards. We have to be willing to change ourselves, from within. Both have to do this. It's just one-sided.

When we are Christians, the model of a better person is the Son of God. “To be like Jesus, To be like Jesus, all I want is to be like Him.” The song goes. And another one: “Make me more like thee… Oh make me more like thee. Give me a heart that’s filled with praise. Make me more like thee”. That should be our continuous, daily prayer. And He will change us, that we may be conformed into the image of the Son of God.

In the marriage of the Church and Christ, the groom is perfect; it is the marriage of the perfect Lamb of God who was slain from the foundation of the world — slain for his own bride! And He is looking for a bride without blemish and wrinkle.

"That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."(Ephesians 5:27)

Now, this bride is made up of both men and women. The earthly, mortal groom here is not comparable to the Divine, Eternal Groom up there.

The Divine bride-to-be down here is the combination of both males and females in each our temporary, responsible roles - whether married or not - as men and women. When we get to heaven there will be no sex, there will be no gender. To this issue Jesus answered the disciples, “In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven (Matt.22:30).

But in the meantime, while we’re down here, we — the bride — have to learn to live righteously before God. We have to stop the squabbling and the fighting that drain us of our energy to be productive for the kingdom.

In the earthly life, being a good husband, a good wife, a good parent, a good citizen, is all part of living righteously, living productively.

Why is it that some couples seem blessed with a wonderful relationship while others are not? Some couples seem to spend very little time squabbling and fighting. Their marriage seems to grow stronger over time instead of courting the edge of misery and disaster itself. Others are arguing and picking on one another all the time, even to the point of making visitors uncomfortable.

What do these happy couples do that’s different? What is their secret?

THE SECRET

The secret is surprisingly simple:

“I can control the messages I send to my spouse.”

And that is the whole essence of this book I referred to. That “I” am responsible for the messages I send to others.

The key word here is “messages”. Messages I send to my spouse. Messages I send to co-workers, messages I send to fellow Christians, messages I send to family members. Messages I send to my children, my friends, my neighbours, my boss, my employees...

Every time we communicate, we send messages to someone. And depending on what kind of messages we send and how we send them - our tone of voice, our words, our gestures, our non-verbal expressions - every time we send messages to someone, we invite a response or a reaction.

We get what we deserve by the way we control our own personal responsibilities to communicate properly. We get what we deserve according to how we take control of the messages we send to others.

And the understanding of our responsibilities begins in the Word of God. We find the instructions on how to live a Christian life in the letters to the Christians.

Remember the Gospels is on how we get saved and then the letters are on how we live in our new saved life. Then we have other books and people and seminars and tools at our disposal that we are responsible to pursue in order to grow and continue to grow wiser in life and be the best that we can be.

That’s continuous “Guerilla Living”. Whether we are Christians or not, the principles for living are the same. Life is an on-going war. Sometimes there is peace for a while, then a battle breaks out. A war between good and evil -- doing right or doing wrong.

But because we are all sinners we all need to be saved — one individual at a time. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. We’re born sinners. Whether we like to admit it or not makes no difference, that’s just the way it is — every person on this earth has to come to that point of repenting from his/her sin -- separation from God. It means turning around and accepting the free gift of Salvation given to us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And the sooner we all get a hold of this, the better we will be and the more at peace we will all be - in marriage and in life.

If you don’t know Christ as your personal Saviour, now is a good time to ask Him to come into your life.

If you are saved and you want to commit yourself again to Him this morning, just ask Him.

Say, Lord come into my heart and be Master of my Life.

Let's turn to Hymn # 311.

“Into my heart,Into my heart, Come Into my heart, Lord Jesus.”

/End of sermon.

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