Matt Chandler - Fighting Fair

If you have a Bible, grab it; we’re going to be in Chapter Six. I didn’t want Heidi to read two chapters of Scripture over you, so if you’ll grab your Bible and open it there, that’s where we’ll be camping out. We’ve been saying this really for five weeks now: if you’ve ever been to a Christian marriage, in particular, there are many components that can be part of the service. Oftentimes, they’ll have a setup like this in one of the corners, and what will happen is the husband’s mom and dad will come down and pick up something like this, or maybe a torch, and they’ll light it. They’re basically saying, «Hey, this represents our baby boy.» But it actually represents more than just their baby boy; for the purpose of today’s sermon, it represents a conflict style. It represents whether you yell, whether you shut down and get cold, or whether you argue in a healthy way. It will represent whether there is some emotional stunting based on abuse or neglect. It will represent all sorts of things that will bear weight on this new light that we’re going to light. Then, mom and dad will sit down, and the bride’s mom and dad will come up, light this one, and this represents «baby girl princess.» It will also represent a style of conflict; it will represent whether they yell, whether they shut down and get cold, whether they call names, and on and on I could go. It will have with it any abuse or neglect involved. Then, at some point in the sermon, a guy like me or their good friend who got licensed to do the ceremony will use the phrase from the Scriptures that «the two become one flesh.» A song will either play or be sung, and they’ll pick up these two candles and light this middle one, which means they’re bringing these two people into something new. If I give you no other gift, what I want for the rest of your life is that if you’re at a ceremony and see them blow out these candles, you should think, «They shouldn’t have done that.» You don’t need to say anything; you don’t need to raise your hand. Just wait for them to say, «If there’s any reason… ” and in your heart, I want you to know they shouldn’t have done that. We do not lose ourselves when we get married; in fact, what makes marriage hard is that we bring ourselves and all of that to bear on this new work. What we’re saying is that we’re committed to doing that. We’ve said that marriage has two primary purposes: the first is that it is a legitimate partnership; neither of us can fulfill God’s ordained mission of filling the earth with truth, beauty, and goodness by ourselves. That’s not to say that singles or divorced or widowed people don’t contribute to that; it’s that the primary picture given in Scripture is of marriage between a man and a woman. However, it’s not just a partnership to fill the earth with truth, beauty, and goodness; it is a picture of the covenantal faithfulness of God to his people, which is why when the people of God rebel against God, it is most frequently called adultery, not idolatry. This partnership and picture is a very different idea than the more popular version today, which is super romantic and emotionally charged. The belief that I’m getting married so that my life might be made complete; this other person exists really to fulfill all of my needs — you need to go back and listen to week one if that’s your framework because that is an impossible weight to put on another person. It’s parasitic; it’s not love. If you both have come in this way — this is the first time I’m trying this since I messed it up a couple of weeks ago — it is parasitic. If one of you comes in this way, it’s like a tick on a dog; if you both come in this way, it’s two ticks — no dog. Nailed it! If you weren’t here a couple of weeks ago, you missed out; it’s fine. When we have this understanding, we have a real shot for marriage to be all that it can be. Where we don’t understand this, problems flare all across the relationship, but I don’t need to preach all four sermons again—just a brief catch-up. When Lauren and I were doing premarital counseling, a guy named David McQueen at Belway Park, where I was serving, gave us this quiz. He gave both of us the quiz and asked us to fill it out separately, then we would get together and discuss our answers. I should have seen it for the trap that it was. I’m going to date myself; let me give you some examples of questions: who holds the checkbook? If you’re a little bit younger here, there was a day when we couldn’t just touch stuff with our phones; we had this tool that looked like a piece of…