Introduction: A man from the east had always dreamed of owning a cattle ranch and had finally saved enough money to buy his dream spread in Wyoming. His best friend flew out to visit and asked, “So, what’s the name of your ranch?” His buddy told him that he had a really hard time coming up with a name that he liked. He and his wife couldn’t agree on what to call it so they settled on, “The Double R, Lazy L, Triple horseshoe, Bar-7, Lucky Diamond ranch.” His friend was really impressed and then asked, “So where are all the cows?” To which the new rancher answered, “We had quite a few, but none of them survived the branding!”
It’s hard to recover from a bad beginning in business. Likewise, it’s hard to recover from a bad beginning in marriage. I’m in a sermon series on “imperfect love” because I think that phrase describes MOST of our love lives. Maybe not YOU, but most of us are not living the charmed lives of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. We’re not “Brangelina”. Truth be told, even “Brangelina” probably aren’t living a charmed life either. In Hollywood, nothing is as it seems on the surface.
In this sermon series I just want to note that a lot of marriages struggle. If you have to “work hard” to just get along with that person you married…you are not alone. I want you to know that.
ILLUSTRATION: A dietitian was addressing a large audience in Chicago: "The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Soft drinks erode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. Vegetables can be disastrous to some and none of us realize the long term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water. But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have eaten or will eat it. Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?" A 75 year old man in the front row stood up and said, "Wedding cake."
And now you’re thinking “Steve, I can’t believe you said that. You’re trashing marriage and giving it a bad name. We LOVE being married, Steve. Marriage is great. Marriage is God’s idea!” Okay, okay. I know marriage is good and I know that marriage is God’s idea. I’m not saying that marriage is bad. I’m not against marriage, I’m for it. I don’t want to discourage anyone who is married today and I don’t want to discourage anyone from GETTING married today. I just want to inject a little honesty and realism into my lesson today and recognize that as good as marriage is, all marriages go through trouble. Even God, who INVENTED marriage, said “Those who marry will face many troubles in this life” - I Corinthians 7:28. Today, specifically, I want to note that a lot of marriages struggle because of a bad beginning. However, having said that, a bad beginning in marriage does not have to result in a bad ending TO that marriage. There are some ways to overcome the imperfect love of a bad beginning. Today I want us to see how we can overcome a bad beginning in our marriage. From the marriage of Jacob to TWO women, we’re going to look at what contributes to a bad beginning and then the ways to overcome.
