The anchoring text was Joshua 7 and the story of Achan, his secret sin of smuggling devoted items out of Jericho and hiding them in his tent by burying them in the ground. Ultimately, his sin was uncovered and his entire family payed a severe price for his hidden sin.
The point of the message yesterday, as the principal was applied to marriage, was simple. Don’t get married til you deal with your junk; your sin, your issues, your past, your regret, and your secrets. You are not damaged goods because you have baggage, you are simply a human, and no human effort can fix you. Only the grace of God in Jesus Christ can fix, save, heal, and redeem you.
There are four major areas that every dating couple needs to “spread out before the Lord.” If these areas are not disclosed, discussed, and dealt with, they will rise up later in marriage and cause tremendous difficulty, possibly leading to divorce.
1. Money and Debt
2. Family Issues
3. Bad Habits and Personal Maturity
4. Past Relationships and Sexual History
My wife and I live by a code in our marriage. NO SECRETS, NO SURPRISES. The only way to continue living that way is to be open, honest, and transparent about everything. It’s much healthier and Biblical to set that tone before you tie the knot.
To watch this sermon, simply log on to www.newspring.cc sometime Tuesday afternoon, or download it from iTunes. I pray it is a service and blessing to you, especially if you are single.
Comments (20)
"Money and debt" is not necessary to deal with before you get married. However, it is extremely important to talk about it whether you have dealt with it or not! (I know that's what claytonking meant, but I'm just fleshing it out a little more.) You don't have to be debt-free to get married. But you do need to have a handle on how to eliminate debt, and how to talk about money issues.
My folks both got married with debt, and couldn't even afford to have kids really. They've now been married for more than 30 years, and had six kids. The dividing factor isn't debt itself, but the lack of accountability. Both husband and wife have to be on the same page when it comes to finances before they become husband and wife. The number one most-referenced cause for divorce is money. "No secrets, no surprises" is a great motto to have, particularly when it comes to finances.
GOOD post!
There's a newspring in Greenville SC where I live.
Excellent post! I totally agree. Sometimes I wish that we had paid down a little more debt than we did before we got married (mainly because we had to incur a small amount of debt to pay for the wedding and honeymoon). Other than that, I think we did talk about everything else before we got married. We were required to do premarital counseling before the minister would marry us. I am really grateful for that - it helped us a bunch in our marriage.
My husband I had no secrets when we got married, even though we did date a short amount of time. We are dealing with the burden of debt we both owe, but that was something no matter what we would of had to deal with, I don't think debt should matter when you get married as long as both know about it. Its the same with sexual history and maturity once you told your potentional spouse, realize that it was a mistake and move on.
And with some family issues, it takes a while to resolve, sometimes marriage doesn't solve them, its the after getting married and proving yourself to them that works.
I like this =) I wish more people would come to realize this before getting married
Yeah. Good suggestions. I think #2 is the most important out of those.
@gabrielpeter@xanga - i agree. great job furthering this message.
great post, author. =)
I don't like the idea of "take care of all this stuff before you get married" just like I don't like the idea of "take care of all your unchristian stuff before you unite with Christ and his Church." Sure, all those issues should be discussed but refusing to marry because of some debt, biting ones nails, etc is extreme. Maybe I'm taking this further than intended but the idea of "get perfect then act" seems idealistic to me.
I've got to say, I sorta disagree.
My husband and I married quickly, and have been married now for four years almost. But when we got married, we thought we had things pretty much together, until we were living in such close community with one another, that our junk started pouring out. This is like saying, as TheGreatBout said, that we should deal with out sin before uniting with Christ. Especially since a nonchristian may not know a thing was even "sinful" until they had a Jesus conversation. Marriage, I think, is a sacrament BECAUSE it is difficult and BECAUSE it helps you deal with your "junk". I am holier today, and more whole in general, because I married Mark. And some of that is because I married a big fat sinner, and some of it is because he did too. There is literally no way to know what will come out when you are in that close of a community with anther human being. As iron sharpens iron, right?And the debt thing- who can handle all their debt before marriage?? Especially those of us who went to private christian schools as we were told to by our churches.
I agree that all of this stuff needs to be talked about... not really that everything needs to be fixed though... I am getting married soon... very soon... if I had to wait for me to fix everything (my debt for example), that could take longer than I could bear. But I don't think that is what you are saying.
What is important is knowing that you are with someone who can help you bear your cross. I've found that person. Another thing I would add is to never let the "D" word (obviously, divorce) come up in your life at all... that is something my bible professor taught me. For Christians, there is no reason why it should come up. We all need to understand forgiveness.
Great post! It was encouraging to read- coming from someone who will be getting married very soon.
@TheGreatBout@xanga - I didn't get the impression that the author implied you have to dump your junk before you get married. But if you don't "deal with it," as in talking it out, disaster looms. I think the title eludes to a false conclusion, as is pretty common with ReveLife titles.
Wowzers.....a Revelife posting that I can actually somewhat agree with. =)
Minus the religious mumbo-jumbo this list of 4 things are universal to all couples getting married (regardless of their religion...if any) and I 100% agree with it.
I agree...completely. I am very thankful that my husband and I hashed out the above topics before we said "I do." Some of them were hard topics to discuss....but it worked out for the best and our relationship is so much stronger because of it!
This is typical of the blind leading the blind. Marriage is not the absence of problems. If people waited until they resolved all of their problems to get married none of us would be here right now, except for those of us who were conceived out of wedlock of course.
"1. Money and Debt
2. Family Issues
3. Bad Habits and Personal Maturity
4. Past Relationships and Sexual History"1. Most people were doing pretty well with money and debt until last year when we all found out our economy was built on a stack of cards called Wall Street. It's too bad anyone in the U.S. got married before the third quarter of 2008. How stupid of us and our parents.
2. Don't get married. That will eliminate any possibility of having family issues. Too bad our parents didn't realize this.
3. Bad habits? I never even knew it was a bad habit to leave the toilet seat up until after I got married. Personal maturity? Girls, never marry a man under the age of 70. Even then you're taking a chance.
4. Yes. Make sure you don't have an STD before you even date someone.
Life and marriage are never without problems and challenges. If you don't have any challenges or struggles in your life you are not living and you definitely are not married. Good advice would have been not to expect that after marriage problems, conflicts, struggles, and obstacles will not arise.
This is awesome! Been my philosophy for years! Still not married yet, so haha!
Thanks for posting, great post!~
My fiancée and I just spoke about finances last night. The best part of the post is the motto: "No secrets. No surprises."
I 100% agree with that!! But you can't reveal everything on the first date either.
Marriage is full of surprises, no matter how much information you think you've shared with each other. But it is very important to discuss as thoroughly as possible issues of debt, sex, habits, maturity, etc.
Just get to know each other, and take seriously the input of those who are outside your relationship looking in, even if they have some harsh criticism. You can't always see everything clearly in your own relationship when you are in the middle of it. Often the input of others can help you realize the things that need to be discussed before a serious commitment like marriage.
I think those are all things that need to be talked about before you get married. "Fixed" is a bit unrealistic. Some people will be paying off student loans until they are in their 40s, and not everyone wants to wait that long to get married. And if you had a really bad past relationship, you may never completely "fix" that. It might stay with your for the rest of your life. I don't think that has to mean you can't get married, though.
Also, the "no secrets no surprises" thing is also a bit unrealistic. There will always be surprises. BUT I do agree that you should tell your potential partner about things that affect them or the relationship. Like if you have a huge debt, that will affect your finances, so your partner needs to know. If you have an STD, your partner needs to know that before you sleep together, because you could give it to them. But to have no secrets at all...I don't think you need to know absolutely everything about each other. You each need some of your own space and to retain your own identity. And even if you think you've learned absolutely everything about each other, you can still be surprised later.
THE TITLE ALONE IS ENOUGH!