Transcript
You know, there is a bit of a romantic lie that courses its way through western culture. It's a lie that you don't see advanced in the word of God and the lie is this, that the foundation stone of a good marriage is romance. A romantic marriage is a good marriage.
Romance Is Not the Foundation
I think the opposite is true. If you look for romance - as wonderful as it is - to form for you a good marriage, you're going to be a freaked out, discouraged, disappointed, angry, ultimately hopeless human being. I want you hear what I'm about to say. Romance is not the cause of a good marriage. Romance is the result of a good marriage.
Now, here's what this means. Romance doesn't fix things. Fixing things fixes things. One of the things that the Bible says is that if you deny your sin, you won't prosper; but confessing it and forsaking it is a way to the good things in life. And so, you have to have two mentalities.
First of all, you have to have a fix-it mentality. That's a mentality where you're always working to repair what's broken in your marriage. You're always looking for brokenness and you're always trying to exercise biblical wisdom and gospel grace to fix those difficulties.
The Mentality of a Work Ethic
The second mentality you need to have is you need to have the mentality of a work ethic, that you're not going to let your marriage coast. You're not going to believe that coasting works and so, everyday, you commit yourself to the labor that's necessary to form a healthy, strong, sturdy, enjoyable, joy-producing marital bond -- the kind of marriage, again, that everybody wants. You got to be committed to that work.
I'm deeply persuaded that the number one reason that marriages fail is not adultery. The number one reason marriages fail is neglect. Long before there's adultery, long before there's distance and coldness, there's been neglect. You cannot neglect marriage in this fallen world and expect it to do well.
So you don't hope that romance will fix things. Fixing things fixes things and the Bible gives us all the wisdom we need, all the strength we need, all the grace we need in the personal work of Jesus Christ to see the things that need to be fixed changed and to grow in the depth of our functional love for one another in marriage.
