I imagined my wife would make a great pastor’s wife. She could sing too. I could see her faithfully by my side as I preached to admiring audiences, occasionally doing a solo just before the message. But somewhere along the line my dreams of saving the world turned into the nightmare of feeding six children, of figuring how to take the whole family to Chuck E Cheese, of braces, and arguing about watching Terminator instead of Pretty Woman for the 30th time. Seemingly overnight we went from sexy nighties to ratty sweats. What happened to those dreams? Is this what marriage is really all about?
So What does God Want Marriages to be?
What was His design – “Sexy Nighties” or “Ratty Sweats”? How can Marriage make us Holy and Empower us to be like God, and accommodate any attire, any stage of life? This is the purpose of this series of messages – to discover God’s design for marriage, and to discover how to become TotallyMarried.
If we are to discover God’s purpose for marriage, we must commit our heart to God, without reservation. If we are to discover God’s purpose for marriage, we must surrender our will, our notions, our preconceptions to Him. The reason is quite shocking:
God Designed Marriage to Please Him!
1 Corinthians 7:1-2 (NIV) Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
1. “So Much Immorality”
God knew we had needs and so he designed marriage to deal with those needs. But those needs aren’t limited to sex, for marriage will also deal with anger, selfishness, pride, inadequacy, loneliness, anger. We never enter marriage perfect. We bring our character needs with us, and marriage is designedby God to deal with them.
2. God uses Marriage to Confront our Needs
No one who is afraid to face themselves as they really are should ever get married. Your spouse will quickly figure out your deficiencies, idiosyncrasies, strengths, weaknesses. Marriage reveals and often brings to the forefront our character needs and deficiencies.
3. You Decide if Marriage will Shape and Empower You.
Marriage is all about relationships and is the most strenuous “relational exercise” you will ever have. Marriage is a stress-test for our heart. Failure to deal with character needs will result in fights, relational walls, alienation, bitterness and worse. Marriage becomes God’s principle means for preparing us for eternity, as He uses marriage to mold and conform us to His Son, Jesus Christ. You can accept God’s purpose and design, or you can kick and scream and throw a fit.
4. Marriage Reveals There Is No Substitute For God.
Anyone who thinks their mate will complete them or give them total fulfillment soon discovers that will not be the case. God is our source of fulfillment and peace. Marriage simply reveals our need for Him. Your spouse is designed to complement you, not complete you. We are only complete in Christ. Therefore, we must look to God anytime we feel our spouse is not meeting our needs, or neglecting us, or even abusing us.
5. Marriage: Signpost Pointing Us to God
Marriage is used to Explore and Know God. You can either be married in a vacuum and deal with life on your own, or you can accept that God has a purpose for your marriage and that is to use it and the problems and trials to explore and know Him. Marriage can be a daily reminder of God’s presence in your life. Everything about our marriage is designed to reveal Him in a more powerful and real way.
6. Marriage Pictures Reconciliation
There is no better word to describe God’s heart toward man than RECONCILIATION. The Entire Bible is God’s message of what He has done to reconcile man to Him. He offers this hope to His people, who have constantly rejected Him and killed His prophets and even killed His Son:
Isaiah 62:5 “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you”
So much of the Word illustrates marriage and this picture of RECONCILIATION.
- God became united with flesh in Jesus Christ.
- Jesus Christ is seeking His bride for the wedding to the lamb (Rev 19:7) where we will enjoy the wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1-14)
- Jesus reconciled God to Man so that we can know Him and have a relationship with Him.
- Marriage is the place of reconciliation that displays the Father’s Love to the world.
- Marriage pictures the ongoing relationship between Christ and His church.
- Couples will face moments of reconciliation constantly through their marriage.
7. We Must Chose between having a Man-centered vs. God-centered View of Marriage
- Man: We will maintain our marriage as long as our earthly comforts, desires and expectations are met. ( Marriage is all about my enjoyment.)
- God: We preserve our marriage because it brings glory to God and points a sinful world to a reconciling Creator (Marriage is about God’s Glory)
8. God Designed Marriage to Please Him
2 Corinthians 5:9 (NIV) So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.
Paul says our goal in life should be to please God. Marriage is more than happiness, sexual expression, bearing children, companionship, mutual care and provision. Marriage is designed be God to PLEASE HIM! We ask not “What will make me happy”? We ask “what will make God happy?”
2 Corinthians 5:15 (NIV)And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Married couples are to use their marriages to LIVE FOR HIM!
9. Marriage Fulfills the Ministry of Reconciliation
2 Corinthians 5:16-19 (NIV) So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
Marriages model Christs forgiveness, selfless love and sacrifice. Marriages that fail send a message to the world that I have stopped loving someone and have broken a promise I made many years earlier. Sad that Barna notes Born Again Christians have a divorce rate that is higher than non-believers (27% to 23%) How can children believe us when we tell them God’s promise to Love and forgive them is secure when they can’t see that we honor our word.
Divorce signals that at least one of the Spouses has failed to put the Gospel first in their lives.
10. Successful Marriages require a commitment to Christian Duty.
Pictured is a 700 year old tree in the Northern Cascade National Park. These trees grow so old in the Northern Cascades because the constant rain and wetness ofthe forest minimizes fire from lightning strikes.
- The Western Slope of the Cascades are so wet that lightning strikes cause relatively few fires. Traditional forests face lightning initiated fires every 50 or 60 years.
- Christian marriages will still be stuck by lightning-sexual temptation, communication problems, frustrations, trials, hardships, unrealized expectations. If marriages are heavily watered with an unwavering commitment to please God, the conditions will not be ripe for a devastating fire to follow the lightning strike.
If I am married only for my happiness, and my happiness wanes for whatever reason, one little spark will burn the entire forest down. But if my aim is to proclaim and model God’s ministry of reconciliation, my endurance and marriage will be fireproof.
11. We must practice the Spiritual Discipline of Marriage.
I must put my own relationship with God first. Sticking it out is a victory in and of itself. A 700 year old tree commands our attention simply because it has endured so long. Christians can command attention simply by staying married. When asked why, we say “would you like to hear more about the good news of reconciliation?” Of course, if our hearts are committed to God and pleasing Him, He will use our mar
riage to energize us and bring His Life to us!
Marriages Are The Message Of Reconciliation This World Needs To Hear And See.
TotallyMarried 