The Bible emphasizes throughout, the importance of honesty and that we’re to be true to our promises-to let our “yes be yes, and our no be no.” And yet how many of us live that out in our wedding vows? When we say, “I do”—do we really?

“Americans often view the marriage vows as mere legal or religious formalities that have to be dispensed with before the party can begin. Or maybe they just consider them to be a part of our cultural tradition, like singing the national anthem before a ball game or saying the pledge of allegiance at the start of a school day. But what should it mean—what does it mean to say such things to a person in the presence of God? What does God do during the wedding? Is He, like us, merely a spectator?” (H. Dale Burke)

Those are good questions we all “should” ask ourselves and solemnly think about before we say the vow of, “I do” at our wedding ceremony. In all honesty, we must admit, that we didn’t have much of a clue as to what we in reality were committing ourselves to on the day we married. In the beginning part of our own marriage we fell into the same “trap” so many fall into—of treating our marriage as a “deal” instead of a covenant vow before God.

We thought we were committing ourselves to building a marriage of love for a lifetime but as time went on, our later actions showed we really didn’t have the resolve it would take to cherish each other “for better or worse.” When the “worse” started to play itself out in our marriage, we both started looking for an escape clause.

Except by the grace of God who woke us up, (and still works to keep us aware of the vows we made to each other and to Him) we could well have become a divorce statistic ourselves. It’s our passion to pass on to others that which we pro-actively seek to learn to make marriages stronger and to help us to be “promise-keepers” to the glory of God.

We read of one pastor who recommended that everyone should write out their wedding vows, frame them and put them up somewhere in their home so they could be periodically reviewed by the married couple as a reminder of what they promised each other. What an outstanding idea!

For the rest of this message, we’d like to share with you some thoughts from H. Dale Burke from his book entitled, Different by Design. We pray they’ll challenge us all to look more seriously at what we promised on our wedding day. He wrote:

It used to be that contracts were settled with a handshake, and once agreed upon, were binding. No more. Just take a look at the sports pages. How often have you heard that a guy with X number of years left on his contract got traded or made it abundantly clear that he wanted to play for a different team?

As prevalent as the problem is in the professional athletics, it’s not fair to lay all the blame there. The problem predates the 20th and 21st centuries. Native Americans discovered the unreliability of written contracts when they signed treaties with the U.S. government. Every century evidences this very human tendency to say one thing and then do another when it becomes convenient, expedient, or simply easier than keeping your word.

In fact, the root of the problem isn’t found in any culture or country, any generation or gender, but in the human heart itself. Like many of his generation, my high school football coach used to say: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” But unfortunately, when it comes to modern-day marriages, the tough literally do often “get going” when the going gets tough. They hit the road. Instead of jumping in, they’re bailing out in record numbers.

It used to be that things like personal religious belief, the general social stigma of divorce, the societal conviction that it was honorable to simply hang in there, and the pure economics of the family combined to work against divorce. No more.

In our 21st century world, each of these deterrents has evaporated. People who hold a faith that leads to real conviction are harder to find. The stigma of divorce has diminished dramatically. And most families in America now reflect dual careers with dual incomes, which means one spouse, can bail on the other and still be financially independent.

Granted, some of these cultural shifts do have an upside. It’s good, for example, that those who have suffered through a failed marriage, or perhaps have experienced abuse or infidelity, aren’t shunned by the church. They need the love and acceptance of God’s people and the healing power of His grace. It’s good, too, that women today are more respected and rewarded for their skills in the workplace. The wife in Proverbs 31 certainly was! But today’s culture not only grants permission for divorce, but it actually encourages couples to call it quits.

I’ll never forget the couple who showed up in my office weekly trying to patch up their marriage which, while in trouble, had incurred no damage that was beyond repair. There had been no infidelity, no unbelieving spouse who had walked out. This was just two Christians who hadn’t learned to think “we” instead of “me.” They’d never been taught to value and respect one another or nurture their love.

Tragically, the biggest obstacle standing between them and reconciliation was Christian friends who kept fueling their frustrations and counseling them to give up. The very group of people who should have been cheering their efforts to save the marriage was threatening to sabotage the rescue mission.

At least one part of this couple’s problem was rooted in a misunderstanding of what marriage is all about. They, like most newlyweds today, saw marriage as a contract, which, according to my dictionary, is a “binding agreement.” At the heart of every contract is a set of conditions or promises—the “deal.” The deal is, you do this for me and I’ll do that for you.

A contract lays out what “this” and “that” consist of. It also has an escape clause; either stated or implied, which says that if you fail to do “this,” then I can stop doing “that.” And in recent times, quite frankly, many people don’t feel that their contracts mean much of anything. All I need to justify breaking one is to say I’m not happy with the deal.

Tragically, this flexible concept of contracts is how many people now view marriage. “If my marriage is an ordeal,” they say, “I’ll opt out and look for a better deal somewhere else.” This is the unspoken amendment many people attach to their spoken vows of matrimony. Men and women differ in a lot of ways when it comes to what they bring to the marriage relationship, but this is one weakness they both share. Thousands of husbands and wives exercise this escape clause every year.

A question worth asking, then, if words have meaning and we desire to be responsible with our wedding vows, is the same question abbreviated on so many bracelets and other items in recent years: What would Jesus do? Or better yet, what would Jesus declare about marriage, divorce, and the meaning behind those vows so often heard at weddings?”

We feel led to end these thoughts from Dale Burke at this point this week. We’ll pick up next week on an abbreviated version of what he refers to as Jesus’ version of “Marriage 101″ which talks on the five essential components of God’s blueprints for marriage as laid out in Matthew 19.

For the fuller version of what he had to say, you’ll need to read the book itself. It’s entitled: Different by Design by H. Dale Burke. It’s published by Moody Press. For now we’d like to close with the words spoken by Jesus in the verses referred to above. It’s our prayer that you’ll read them very carefully and prayerfully and ask God to reveal His truth to your hearts throughout this week.

Keep in mind that the context of the events leading up to what Jesus had to say to the Pharisees on the subject of marriage. The New Life Application Bible gave this explanation:

John (the Baptist) was put in prison and killed, at least in part, for his public opinions on marriage and divorce, so the Pharisees hoped to trap Jesus too. They were trying to trick Jesus by having him choose sides in a theological controversy.

Two schools of thought represented two opposing views of divorce. One group supported divorce for almost any reason. The other believed that divorce could be allowed only for marital unfaithfulness. This conflict hinged on how each group interpreted Deuteronomy 24:1-4. In his answer, however, Jesus focused on marriage rather than divorce.

We hope that as you read the following words of Jesus that you’ll also focus on marriage rather than divorce—having the type of marriage that reflects the love of God:

“When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.” (Matthew 19: 1-11)

May Christ be honored through your marriage and ours!

Steve and Cindy Wright