Building Homes on a Strong Foundation

A passage in 1st Corinthians 3 underscores the importance of building our lives on a firm foundation, applying Godly wisdom and strength in building according to His plan, not our own ideas.
9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, you are God's building.
10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it.
11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul understood the important of a firm foundation.  Jesus taught that the wise man who built his house on a rock would withstand the storms that came his way.  So, in our individual lives, our marriages, the way we raise our children, and in our churches, our workplaces, and more, we have to inspect the foundation and make sure that we are building correctly and that we can withstand the cultural influences that would cause us to veer off course, to lure us from those bedrock principles, and cause our lives and our homes to collapse.  God's foundation is sure, but we have to be careful to build on it.

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In Isaiah 28, we read about the importance of a strong foundation. Verse 16 says:
16 Therefore thus says the Lord God: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily.

At The Meeting House, I want to continue to inform and challenge you in the aftermath of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on marriage, and there are several different areas in which I want to provide insight and commentary.  We must understand the significance of that decision - that it was a bold step by a small, select group of judges to redefine an institution that was established by God.

In an interview for The Gospel Coalition website with Trevin Wax, the authors of the book, Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage, John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell discussed two definitions of marriage.  They refer to the "long-held definition," which "is what Robert George, Ryan Anderson, and Sherif Girgis call the 'conjugal' view."  The authors say that this view, "...essentially recognizes that marriage serves a larger purpose than just recognizing sincerely held affections. Primarily its purpose was that of protecting, producing, and preserving future generations. Therefore, marriage is a pre-governmental institution that gives a context for procreation. It’s not created by the state. It’s recognized by the state. This has been the accepted definition for a long-time."

Not created by the state; recognized by the state.  Good point.  The authors continue to quote
George, Anderson, and Girgis and what they call the "revisionist view," which sees marriage as a "human construct."  In this view, the purpose of marriage is simply to bless strongly held affections and thus “sincere love” is all it takes to justify marriage,

As McDowell and Stonestreet contend, "These are radically different definitions, and it’s been rightly noted that to transition to the second view will not merely include same-sex couples in this institution. Rather, it fundamentally re-defines marriage for everyone, and will lead to other forms of so-called marriages (and already is)."

So, we can not only refuse to accept a court's attempt to redefine the institution, but also be aware of challenges to our deeply held faith convictions for standing with God's Word concerning marriage. And, it's important that we double down on building strong marriages.

McDowell and Stonestreet say that Christians need to repent for not upholding marriage and to repent for anytime that we have failed to reach out to the LGBT community with the love of Christ.

With regard to the former, they contend that:

Same-sex marriage is only the latest example of how marriage has failed, and it’s not the most important. We have not taught clearly what marriage is. We’ve had seminar after seminar on how to have happy marriages, “godly” marriages, and great sex lives. But because we’ve not taught what marriage is, we’ve essentially decorated a wrong view of marriage with Christian lingo. We’ve also not modeled marriage well. It’s not lost on the larger culture that there were no marches against no-fault divorce or cohabitation, which have been more destructive to marriage than same-sex marriage.

Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint and Senior Research Fellow Ryan Anderson concur in a piece on The Daily Signal website:

The judicial redefinition of marriage has no basis in our Constitution, but it didn’t come out of thin air. For the last 50 years, we have not done enough to combat the faulty liberal ideology that has wreaked havoc on America’s families.

Redefining marriage is only possible in a culture that has accepted the results of the Sexual Revolution, like non-marital childbearing and no-fault divorce, and so many other bad ideas about human sexuality and the family.

DeMint and Anderson contend that, "Ideas go only so far, but the beauty of lived witness is what moves people the most. It’s not just that for 50 years we’ve bought into a lie about marriage; it’s that we haven’t lived out the truth." They continue, "Raising children and grandchildren to believe the truth—and, more importantly, live out the truth—must be done with all diligence, and we must form communities of virtue to help one another do that."

So the words for today are: foundation, forthrightness, and fortitude.

We must make sure that our individual marriages are based on a firm foundation, centered on our love for Jesus and for one another, and that we are devoted to living out the truth of Christ in the way we relate to each other.  If the foundation is right for each couple, then we can also work to develop a cultural appreciation of the sanctity of marriage.  

As DeMint and Anderson contend, we have to live out the truth.  A sense of forthrightness is necessary as we seek to uphold the institution of marriage.   It's important that we accept God's plan for marriage as the absolute best and devote ourselves to strengthening our marriages, modeling to the culture that His ways are absolute and sure.

And, we must never give up.  We have to develop a sense of fortitude, so that even when the cultural winds blow in an opposite direction than the truths of Scripture, that we are convinced in our own minds that God has established marriage, He gives us the love and the principles to build a marriage to last, and that He will bless the union of two people, a man and a woman, that are dedicated to following Him, loving one another and laying down our lives for each other, just as Christ laid down His life for His church, His bride.