Buyer’s Remorse

Good things over at Firewheel Bible Fellowship. This past sunday we started a new series entitled “Desperate Households” dealing with family issues, broken homes, etc.

Despite it being Easter –and I know all good Christian boys should go to church on Easter– we actually skipped church. Why? Um… i wanted to. But thanks to the internet I was able to listen online to the initial message entitled Buyer’s Remorse.

It was really a solid message to jumpstart the series dealing with the fact that we all at some point in our marriage (if we haven’t already) ask ourselves “What was I thinking when I said ‘I Do’!” Correctly stated, when we say “I Do” we really don’t fully know and understand what or even who we are saying “I Do” to.  The premarital facade that we hide behind fades after marriage; our rose colored glasses that we see each other through are torn from our face and trampled on the first time tempers flare… or conflict arises… or bills come in… or we’re denied marital pleasures…

I appreciate the choice of scripture used to apply in our marriages (Luke 6:32-35), though find it very humorous and ironic that using this passage implies (he never said this) that our spouse is our enemy.

The bottom line: Stop Playing Fair in our marriages. Thank GOD that He does not play fair. He loves unconditionally through grace and mercy, and that is love we need to have in our relationships. We tend to “play fair” in all relationships; if you’re sarcastic with me, I’m sarcastic back; if you gripe at me, i bicker back… retaliation becomes the norm and spirals out of control until our relationships deteriorate.

Yet, this passage is calling us to a higher standard of love; a love where we give back better than we get– i.e. – Grace — i.e. – unmerited favor — i.e. – I love you even when you are a jerk. Where playing fair deteriorates a marriage, Grace elevates relationships.

I also appreciated how Pastor Jeff kind of tied in the whole traditional easter/gospel message. When we think “this kind of love is too difficult… I can’t do this!” that is exactly what Christ wants us to understand. Unconditional love is supernatural cannot be given naturally without some sort of intervention. He is calling us to this love yet it can only be manifest through Christ living in us. He shows us this love through the message of the cross, and yet we must allow him to live through us so that we can love like this in our relationships. (wow, thats a lot of “love”). This point easily lead Jeff into a concise and relevant salvation message that you might expect to hear on easter sunday.

A couple of parting thoughts of my own.

1.) Parents generally do not have a problem expressing unconditional love to their children, but have a very difficult time expressing it to the spouse that helped create those children. Perhaps if we learn to translate our unconditional love from our children to our spouses, our marriages might have a higher survival rate.

2.) Proverbs 31 is often used to challenge women to be a Godly / biblical wife. While this message barely even mentions this in an illustration, it got me thinking. A Proverbs 31 Woman is built by the character and love imposed on her by her husband. Much like our Love for Christ compels us to serve him, a husband’s love and treatment of his wife will compel her to be a Provs. 31 woman. In other words, Proverbs 31 is as much of a challenge for a husband as it is for the spouse. (If memory serves me correctly, this was ingrained in me through a message that Mark Driscoll preached.)

Looking forward to the rest of the series.