Rick Warren Speaks About Marriage at the Vatican

I'm very honored to be here with you I want to thank Cardinal Muller for inviting me to this colloquium thank you I want to thank Archbishop to know you for introducing me and I thank all of you for caring enough about this topic you know there's always a danger in being the 28th speaker what's left to say and after hearing so many great speakers yesterday I canceled my dinner engagement last night to go write a new message because what I had prepared to say had already been said over and over and over I had prepared a message called why marriage matters but I didn't want to repeat what you've heard many many times I actually had prepared to speak on how God reveals his presence and his character through marriage but that was eloquently explained by Cardinal Mueller thank you I then had prepared to speak on the specific ways that our lives and our culture and especially our children are damaged when we reject God's plan for marriage and sex but that was eloquently explained by pastor Arnold thank you I then had prepared to speak about how gender ideology ideologies confuse our identity and destroy our dignity but of course sister prudence brilliantly explained that now I'm starting to sweat and then I'm not kidding part of my message had prepared to speak about how the covenant of marriage and the act of sex parallel our intimate relationship with God and the one that he wants to have with us but then my former friend rabbi sacks powerfully explained that one so what would you guys like to talk about with every single speaker I kept finding myself crossing out more and more of my speech so in conclusion I now understand what the Lord Jesus felt when he said in John 10 8 all who come before me are thieves and robbers so I had to write a whole new message and I'm not kidding I did Hebrews 13:2 Strong's this interpretation yes if you say so Hebrews 13:4 says this we're given this very clear command marriage is to be honored by everybody whether you're single married divorced annulled widowed the Bible says you are to honor marriage now sadly today we all know marriage is dishonored by a lot of people it's dismissed as our cake man-made tradition it's denounced as an enemy of women it's discouraged as a clear career limiting choice it's demeaned in movies and television it's delayed out of fear that it will limit one's personal freedom so today instead of being honored marriage is ridiculed resented rejected and redefined what are we going to do about this well the church cannot cower in silence as you've already heard from all these great speakers and from these great phone clips the stakes are too high we cannot not do something so after all of what we've heard I sat down and detailed a little action plan for myself and possibly maybe you might want to do some of these things after the colloquium ends and so rather than speaking on why marriage matters I want to speak on my new tile what must we do okay what are we going to do and I have a number of suggestions here and just for fun I put them in alphabetical order so if you're taking notes a is this affirm the authority of God's Word that's the starting point we don't base our worldview on fads or feelings or opinions or political correctness we build our lives on the unchanging truth of God's Word Jesus affirmed heaven and earth will pass away but my word will never pass away Isaiah firmed the grass withers and the flower fades but the Word of God abides forever and David a fern your word Oh Lord is eternal it stands firm in the heavens you see truth is still truth no matter how many people doubt it and I may deny the law of gravity but it doesn't change gravity and just because we break God's laws does not invalidate them we don't really actually break God's laws they they break us and everything in this planet is broken so we start with the firming the authority of God's Word second thing we need to do be believe what Jesus taught about marriage we just need to believe it what Jesus taught about marriage and in mark chapter 10 verses 6 to 9 we have the owner's manual for marriage in America we have a phrase when in doubt check the owner's manual and in mark chapter 10 verses 6 to 9 Jesus quotes the Old Testament and gives us as I said the owners manual and marriage a lot of speakers have referred to this let me read it to you from the New Living Translation God's plan has been seen from the very beginning of creation when he made us male and female this explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united as one body now since they are no longer two but one no one should separate them for God has joined them together now in this one passage just one single passage Jesus gives us the five convictions about marriage that are unchangeable incontrovertible and unmovable five convictions we must believe first and this has been referred to many times gender is God's idea God chose to make us either male or female our identity is either a man or woman it's far deeper than a sociological construct a psychological condition a personal preference God made us male and female second this passage teaches that marriage is God's idea he defines it he defines it not us it's not a man-made idea that we can just toss away God created marriage number three sex was created for marriage God created the male and female body parts to fit naturally together that's obvious but they don't just fit together they fit together for a purpose and that is the creation of life and even if you disbelieve the Bible every human body and every living person is a witness and a testimony to God's intended purpose for sex sex was not created for recreation but it was created for connection of a husband and wife and a procreation of life by the way when a husband and wife make love it releases oxytocin into their bodies oxytocin is the chemical the bonding chemical that creates emotional closeness oxytocin if you're high in oxytocin you have a easy ability to relate to people if you're low in oxytocin you have a hard time making connections with people when a husband and wife make love it releases oxytocin in both the husband and the wife and it bonds them together it is an emotional cement by the way when a woman nurses a baby it releases oxytocin in both the woman and the mother and the baby studies have shown that if you own a pet and you have a dog and you pet a dog for 30 minutes it releases oxytocin and both the dog and the owner they've done studies about oxytocin there's a animal in the Midwest in America called the prairie voles like a little hamster and prairie voles one of the few animals in the animal kingdom that actually mate for life and when they studied the prairie voles they found that they were off the chart in oxytocin and that's why they connect with a mate and bond for life and they discovered that when they took the oxytocin out of the prairie voles they were sperm miscues rabbits now God created sex for not just the procreation of new life but for the connection of a husband and a woman and if sex was only physical then unfaithful when this would not hurt anybody but it does because it's far more than just physical and when I was a youth pastor I used to tell kids there's no such thing as safe sex because they don't make a condom that can prevent a broken heart it's far more than physical now the fourth thing Jesus said in that passage was that marriage is the union of a man and a woman now there many other kinds of relationships but those aren't marriage and definitions matter and then fifth and that passage it says marriage is to be permanent Jesus repeats Genesis saying what God has joined together no human being should separate so it's meant to last a lifetime now we know that all five of those truths that I just gave you are disputed debated and denied today every one of them but a lie doesn't become a truth and wrong doesn't become right and evil doesn't become good just because it becomes popular truth is truth so we affirm the authority of Scripture and we believe what Jesus said about marriage at sex number 3c celebrate healthy marriages it's not enough to defend marriage we have to celebrate it we have to celebrate it we have to be a proponent of what's right not simply an opponent of what's wrong we have to offer an appealing alternative to the empty promises of the world and celebrating and highlighting and honoring marriage I believe is the best defense when you show people what's real how do you do that I'm a pastor so let me give you if you are a pastor parish priest or if you're over some priest let me give you some suggestions for a local church to celebrating healthy marriage number one use testimonies of happy marriages in your church services we need more testimonies people need less hear a sermon they need more see a sermon and both single adults and married couples are actually inspired more by example than they are by exhortation so we have these testimonies in our church but people never hear them and if you can incorporate them in your services a marriage doesn't have to be perfect to be healthy last month a Kay and I sat on stage at our church for six services in a row and talked about how our nearly forty years of marriage has been worth all the effort now our marriage was not perfect in fact the two years is pretty much hell on earth we said we're going to make this marriage last if it kills us it nearly did okay but she was gone crazy and I ended up in the hospital we went and got 15 weeks of marriage counseling and the early years of our marriage it cost me a hundred dollars a week and I was making $400 a month it's easy to figure out that I put it on my credit card I've often said I should do a commercial MasterCard saved my marriage saved marriage priceless and when when people say well I can't afford counseling I say how much is your happiness worth really to me what I've got today is worth a million dollars my wife is my best friend there would be no Saddleback Church there would be no Purpose Driven Life no movement no training of over 400,000 pastors and 164 countries none of that would have ever happened if our marriage had fallen apart and so whatever it takes but have testimonies of happy marriages second I would encourage you to do an annual wedding renewal of vows service we do one every year at Saddleback I take an entire weekend we dress up we invite people to wear their original wedding gowns if they can still get on them we have a processional and we do a renewal of the vows every year let Saddleback Church it's very tender service people weep and it's a great model and by the way we found couples who were living together who said we would like to get married we always announce it several months in advance so they can take our eight weeks of premarital counseling repent and get married and we do that number three publicly recognize and reward long-term marriages in your parishes whatever gets rewarded gets repeated so whatever you want repeated that kind of behavior you need to figure out a way to reward it and you need to reward anniversaries and you need to honor them and celebrate the sweetness and the beauty of a love that lasts a lifetime because we're we're wired to crave this and then another thing continually point out the benefits of marriage is a good way to celebrate healthy marriages for instance when a culture claims and in Western culture we claim this to care about children we must point out the children who grow up with both mom and a father grew up healthier happier and stronger they're less likely to fail in school less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol less likely to do jail time less likely to experience the stress depression thoughts of suicide they're also less likely to perpetuate the problems in the next generation so do you really care about kids then promote marriage lasting married when a culture claims to champion women we must point out that those who marry women who marry and stay married have lower rates of depression have a lower risk of being a victim of crime or violence and have a higher net worth and women living with an unmarried men when the culture claims to care about the poor we must point out that the dissolution of marriage disproportionately hurts the poor a single mother with the child has never been a viable economic unit that's why God created fathers and poor children get hurt the most by the economic consequences divorced children who grow without both mother and father more likely to live their entire lives in poverty it's just a fact what about men men who marry and stay married have fewer illnesses have fewer injuries and live longer than single men they earned more money amass more Net Worth and single men with similar education job histories including the men who live with unmarried women D here's a fourth thing develop small groups small group courses to support marriages I believe the small group unit in the church is the healthiest expression to support marriages twice in scripture in the book of Acts it tells us that in the New Testament church they met in the temple courts and from house to house twice large group worship and small group fellowship and we have done this and developed at Saddleback we have small groups that study marriage all the time it's one of the keys to our growth last Saturday I was in Berlin at Saddleback Berlin and teaching pastors and priests there how to start small groups for the new evangelization I started Saddleback Church 35 years ago with a one-member my wife hi preached the first sermon she said it was too long it's been downhill ever since she still says they're too long today Saddleback is the only Church in America with more people in small groups than come on Sunday last Sunday we had I don't know maybe 25,000 people in attendance but we have about 40,000 involved in small groups in 8400 small groups and they go from Santa Monica to San Diego in California and one of the things we teach in small groups that as a couple you should never have as your best friends couples who are not as committed to their marriage as you are if you want your marriage to last you should choose as your best friends couples who are is committed to their marriage as you are because if not when the heat is on you're going to go the wrong way they're going to give you bad advice they're not going to support you they're not going to fight for your marriage so develop small groups he is engage every media to promote marriage this is something we really need to do we need to engage every single media to promote marriage right now friends the church is being out marketed by the opponents of marriage everybody agree with that and the minority view is getting the majority of the press and they're the minority there so far the minority and yet you would think that they were the majority and right now Christians we are more known for what we're against than what were for I think we need to change that I intend to change it and whichever side tells the best stories wins so we have to tell better stories about marriage and about sex I was so excited and I was telling them on senior Steven how much I appreciate these videos we've been watching we need more of these and every every Church should show these and and use them in your services so that we're not just the ones that are seeing them but that but that everybody is seeing them and we need more TV shows we need more movies that portray joyful committed marriages when was the last time you saw a happy marriage on television the father is usually a joke on and in in most Disney movies the mom and dad are absent I don't know if you noticed this but almost every Disney character is an orphan dad is never around or moms never honor that killed off early in the scene we have to use media to question what I call the cultural lies and the lies that are being perpetuated in our culture are told over and over and over and people simply believe them because they're not being questioned for instance one of the lies we have in our culture is that the only great sex is sex outside of marriage we hear this all the time you-you-you never see a loving couple that our husband wife on TV sex is always between single people or adultery yeah and I think we need tasteful movies and TV that celebrates sex in marriage they could be done set up tastefully sex is not dirty it is holy it is holy and it is a gift to married couples I'm so glad the rivers are here today all I just want to say is they're my kind of people you know just look you have honorary membership at Saddleback god bless you we need movies and we need films and we need stories that teach the difference between love and lust most love songs today are not really love songs they're love songs give it to me give it to me or I'm going to take it that's not love that's not love love can always wait to give lust can never wait to get now as Christians and we represent a lot of different tribes here we need a cooperative media strategy for producing television shows films and YouTube videos that portray the joys and benefits of healthy marriage and the hard work it takes to maintain a great marriage by the way on a personal level I want to encourage every one of you no matter who you are to use the social media to mentor the next generation if you want to mentor the next generation you have to be on social media because that's where they are they're on Facebook and MySpace and YouTube and they're on Twitter and Instagram and Google+ and LinkedIn and I'm on nine different accounts and by the way if you're not following me on Twitter you're going to hell just kidding f we must face attackers with joy and winsomeness we must face attackers the critics with joint yes there's a raging cultural battle but the Bible says we don't use the weapons of this world we don't use the weapons of this world and the Bible says you overcome evil with what yeah good good and and the Bible tells us to bless those who curse you these attackers are not the enemy they are the mission field they're people that Jesus shed his precious blood for he wants them in heaven and sometimes you have to decide are you are you are you more interested in making a point or making a friend my definition of evangelism is you build a bridge of love between your heart and theirs and Jesus walks across before people will trust Christ they've got to trust you and before they want to know is he really want to know are you real can you be trusted and so we face attackers with joy and winsomeness I have done hundreds maybe thousands of interviews with antagonistic reporters and I will have to say I've learned you never get your point across by being cross and you are never persuasive when you're abrasive that is it is in winsomeness that we that we win the battle and our culture has accepted two life's today one of them is that if you disagree with some of these lifestyle then you either hate them or you're afraid of them I don't hate them and I'm not afraid of them I'm not phobic and I'm not hateful I just disagree and that's that's that's a myth and the other is that if you love somebody you must agree with everything they believe or do well that's nonsense because nobody agrees with everything you do including your wife or your husband or whatever both of those are nonsense I over past 35 years I've had the privilege of training over 400,000 pastors in 164 countries and one of the things I've learned and talking to that many pastors is that every leader needs learn how to represent Christ when attacked and if you stand courageously for the truth you're going to be attacked you can count on it so how do you stay winsome under attack how do you do that well let me give you a couple ways number one is remember the reward you're going to get remember the reward jesus said it like this in the Beatitudes blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you this is not the end of the story and we must be willing to be ridiculed and even suffer for the truth courage by its very nature means that sometimes you have to take a stand that's unpopular and I meet a lot of pastors and priests who are afraid to be unpopular you cannot please yet you have to do what st. Peter said we must obey God rather than men when the Sanhedrin took them in you know in the concluding message at the end of the extraordinary Synod the Holy Father said this we must avoid quote the temptation to come down off the cross to please the people instead of staying on the cross fulfilling the will of the Father the temptation to bow down to a worldly spirit instead of purifying it and bending it to the Spirit of God wow wow jesus said if they hated me they're going to hate you so you remember your reward and the other thing you do is you live for an audience of one that you don't care about really what other people think if you haven't got people's approval by now you're not going to but and I'll tell you this you don't need it to be happy you don't need it to be happy remember who is the one that we are answering to at the end of the day it's not Time magazine it's Jesus Christ I remember one time I was interviewed on CNN and every time I'd go on there they asked me the same question about gay marriage and one of the well-known speakers on CNN as we said Rick as a pastor do you ever think you will ever change your your opinion on this and I said no and he said why and I said because I fear the disapproval of God more than I feared that your disapproval or the disapproval Society and and I wasn't saying that in a mean way I was just trying to be honest the only way to always be relevant is to be eternal anything that is in style is going out of style by its very nature styles go out of style so you should never try to be stylish no you know no revolution last including the sexual revolution no dictator last no no revolution last and every lie eventually crumbles under its own deception cultures rise and fall they come and go but the Word of God and the Church of God continues so what I'm saying is it isn't necessary to be on the side of culture it's not even necessary to be on the right side of history it's just important to be on the right side okay I guess what I'm saying is that the debate over the definition of life and of sex and of marriage is in reality question of leadership and the question is who's going to lead well the church follow the crowd or will the church lead the crowd and in Exodus 23 - God says this do not follow the crowd and doing wrong why because history shows the majority is often wrong remember Hitler the dustbins of history are stuffed with conventional wisdom of cultures that proved false and truth is not decided by a popularity contest G give people confidence this is something we need he give them confidence that their marriage can make it - of the Catholic leaders that I respect the most I've talked about this Archbishop Kurtz told me he said Rick we must restore confidence that even in a broken world the biblical marriage is attainable brilliant and Anne Cardinal chap you right here says said believers don't have the luxury of pessimism that's great we must give people confidence we must preach the good news about marriage with hope and faith not doom and gloom this is important instead of merely telling it like it is pastors must tell it like it can be telling it like it is it changes nothing it just labels people and like if somebody says you're a bad husband then you tendency say yes I am a bad husband look how bad I can be but if somebody says I see in you the potential to be a great husband I see in you the potential to be a man of God that your wife loves your kids honor the community respects this could be you with God's holy spirit in and through you that changes me this is preaching for faith preaching for faith give people confidence the good news of marriage with hope and faith we can show that they can beat the odds jesus said according to your faith it will be done to you we must help couples imagine imagine how good their marriage could be if they'll just make the effort to improve it and we must help people this is important help people see that their primary identity is found in Christ not their sins or any other distinction help people see that their primary identity is in Christ not their sins or any other distinction for I left Los Angeles I had lunch with Archbishop Gomez and we talked about this issue of identity which we both feel very deeply about let me just give you an example at Saddleback we have a recovery program based on the Beatitudes we started at 25 years ago tens of thousands of people have been through it through Saddleback around the world it's called celebrate recovery and it's based on the Beatitudes of Jesus as the steps of recovery now one of the things that makes out a celebrate recovery different from ATLA Alcoholics Anonymous is if you go to a meeting at every meeting you stand up and for the rest of your life you say hi I'm John and I'm a ha alcoholic your primary identity is your senton your weakness and celebrate recovery said no no you don't do that you would say hi my name Rick is a Rick and I'm a disciple of Christ who struggles with alcohol see the difference my primary identity is in Christ and I'm just struggling with an area in my life that makes a huge difference in theology and practice finally teach the purposes of marriage I skipped all the way to t because amount of time teach the purposes of marriage you cannot value something you don't understand its purpose now any time we forget God's purpose for any of his gifts that gets going to be misused abused confused wasted perverted and even destroyed it's true of your time your money your health your gifts your freedom your sexuality even even marriage now the Bible primarily in Genesis gives us the six purposes of marriage and I'll close with this and we've discussed these at the conference but let me just summarize them in a list the Bible says that there are six purposes for marriage number one for the elimination of loneliness it's the first thing God said Genesis 1:18 God tells Adam it's not good for the man to be alone I will make you a companion it's the first thing God said it's elimination lonely number two for the expression of sex Genesis 2:24 for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh elimination of loneliness expression of status number three the multiplication of the human race 1:28 Genesis 1:20 God says be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth by the way this is the only command of God that the human race has ever been able to keep we did this one successfully there are seven billion of us to prove it number four by the way it always amazes me that God chose to bring people into the world through sex so that Jesus could bring them into heaven think about this Jesus told that this there's going to be no sex in heaven but without sex on earth there'd be no people to go to heaven number four for the protection and the education of children feegans 4:6 for God says father's bring up your children in the nurture and instruction protection and education in the nurture instruction of the Lord and a lot of people have already pointed out that children are hurt the most in a culture that devalues marriage I love the I love the message paraphrase of Malachi 2:18 let me read this to you God not you made marriage his spirit inhabits even the smallest detail of marriage what does he want from marriage godly children from your Union so guard the spirit of marriage within you that's beautiful the fifth purpose for the perfection of our character first Corinthians 7:14 tells us very clearly the husband is sanctified through his wife and the wife is sanctified through her husband one of the purposes of the marriage is to make you holy not just happy now holiness creates happiness but marriage is the laboratory for learning how to love it is the school for learning sacrifice it's the university for learning unselfishness it's the lifelong course for becoming like Christ and if you are married the number one tool God uses to shape you is your spouse and then number six the sixth purpose of marriage for the reflection of our union with Christ Ephesians 4:5 22 233 very powerful passage explains that marriage is a metaphor marriage is a model of the mystery of Christ's love for his bride and his body it is a spiritual object lesson Paul explained it this way let me read this to you husbands love your wives love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy and to presenter is a beautiful bride to himself a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or blemish but holy and pure in this same way husbands must love their wives as their own bodies and he who loves his wife loves himself after all no one ever hated his own body but he feeds it and he cares for it just as Christ does his church for we are members of Christ's body is for this reason that a man will leave his father and mother there it is again and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh this is a profound mystery but I am talking about Christ in His Church so each of you must also love your wife as you love yourself and your wife your wife must respect your husband this is the deepest meaning of marriage this is the most profound purpose of marriage and this is the strongest reason why marriage can only be between a man and a woman there is no other relationship including the parent-child relationship that can picture this intimate union and to redefine marriage would destroy the picture that God intends for marriage to portray and we cannot cave on this issue it's a picture of Christ in his church jesus said there's no marriage in heaven quite because you're not going to need any of these six reasons in heaven you're not going to need we're not gonna need the protection of children in heaven we're not going to need the connection between men and women we're not going to need the perfection of character and we're not even going to need the reflection of our union with Christ we don't need the metaphor because now we've got the real thing so in closing I just threw out the other message because I wanted to encourage you to never give up and then never give in the church cannot be salt and light in a crumbling culture if we cave into the sexual revolution and if we fail to provide a counter culture witness it is a total myth that we must compromise and give up on biblical truth and marriage in order to evangelize people say well the reason people aren't coming to church is because we're - where's - see that's just not true 20 years ago I wrote a book called The Purpose Driven Church and the subtitle of that book was called growth without compromising your message and your mission and I think we proved it last month I baptized the forty thousand adult convert at Saddleback Church forty thousand adult converts and we didn't compromise and we didn't cave in now in the end we have to be merciful to the fallen we have to show grace to the struggling we have to be patient to the doubting but when God's Word is clear we must not we cannot back up back down back off backslide or just give in the church must never be captivated by culture manipulated by critics motivated by applause frustrated by problems debilitated by distractions or intimidated by evil we must keep running the race with our eye on the goal not on those shouting from the sidelines we must be spirit-led Purpose Driven and mission focused so that we cannot be bought we will not be compromised and we shall not quit until we finish the race may God bless you and all who serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

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Length: 41min 19sec (2479 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 01 2014