In the Diner

It was hard to find a parking place this morning. Good for business. Bad for people who don’t like to walk very far in the cold. I suppose I fit into both categories.

I am studying the life of John the Baptizer for Sunday’s message—along the lines of His Mission, His Message, His Martyrdom. I don’t normally alliterate my talks because it’s too hard and I think that sometimes it tends to manipulate the the story or passage based on words you want to use (or can think of) rather than preaching the story or passage itself. But this one came pretty easy.(That’s my homiletical digression.)

I look across the diner and see a bunch of people and think to myself, “What difference does John the Baptist make to them?” That is the question I must answer.

Billy Joel is on the radio. His “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” is serenading us.

This song is a reminiscence of sorts about a high school couple, Brenda(r) and Eddie, who was “the king and queen of the prom.” They got married, started their life together, and then came the problems they weren’t expecting.

Then “they got a divorce as a matter of course.”

This song tells the story of millions who got married to their high school sweetheart or some other “like no one else” thinking that life was going to be one long weekend date with a house and furniture rather than the backseat of a car.

When life settles in, they realize that things aren’t quite what they thought they were going to be.

And they are totally unprepared for reality because they have been raised from birth with the idea that life is all about them. Pursue your dreams (most of which involved self-satisfaction). The whole world exists to make you happy and satisfied. And in that little apartment or big house they find that the person who used to make them happy now wants to be made happy above all else.

There is no teaching of self-sacrifice and self-denial. And life crashes rather quickly.

A divorce is the course for millions of couples.

Part of raising children and making disciples is to prepare people for the reality of life as a Christlike husband and a churchlike wife.

Premarital counseling can only do so much when parents have dropped the ball for twenty years already.

You see, being a godly husband or a godly wife doesn’t start with marriage preparations. It doesn’t even start with training to be a godly husband or a godly wife.

It starts with training to be a godly person in all areas of life, from toddler obedience and kindness to teenage humility and self-control.

You see, being a godly spouse is the natural extension of being a godly person. You won’t be one without the other.

Parents, we must start when our children are young, to prepare them for life by teaching them to be godly people, transformed by Jesus through the gospel, and living for something bigger than ourselves.