Bible Talks - Sunday Night Church
Series: Matters of the Heart · Talk No. 4
Being married
Sunday, 02 April 2006
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Introduction
Given all that we have been saying about relationships over the past couple of weeks, you may be wondering what is in store for you tonight.
We’ve spent the last two weeks in 1 Corinthians 7 reading about how Paul appears to be down on marriage. We’ve thought about his strong encouragement to people to remain single for the sake of the Kingdom of God, so they can focus more completely on Christian ministry and serving the gospel.
Marriage, says Paul is full of problems, difficulties and distractions, and it comes across as almost a grudging acknowledgment that it’s no sin to marry. So we’ve become pretty familiar with Paul’s logic on this, and there is no doubt it’s admirable stand, and one that focuses on putting the gospel first.
So does that mean that if we do marry, that we are somehow settling for second best? That we are putting the gospel second?
Well, it might do, but that’s not Paul’s intention. How do we know that? Because we know that Paul knew his OT very well, and we know what he wrote elsewhere – for example, his letter to the Ephesians. As in so many other ways, relationships according to the Bible are not always straightforward!
But let me first say that this is a good thing for all of us to consider.
Every one here is either married, single – for some that is by choice, for others it may not be.
And for those who are single there is a high chance that your state will change at some point. In Christian communities like ours, most people end up married at some point in their lives. And that means that virtually all of us need to make wise choices about getting married, being married or simply considering if we should stay in the state of relationship that we are currently in.
We’ve already acknowledged several times that seeking to live out our relationships in a biblical manner will put us seriously at odds with the world around us, and that will be hard. So it’s good for us all to consider these issues and to go on to encourage each other in living out what we learn from the Bible.
As we do that, we will, I hope, get a picture of what marriage is and along the way also discover some of the things that it isn’t.
First off:
1. Marriage is God’s invention
While it’s never laid out nice and neat, the purposes of marriage as we read
of them in Scripture are:
i) Procreation – that is, making children,
ii) Companionship - it’s not good for man to be alone
iii) The gift of giving yourself - the opportunity and ability to give yourself
to someone else – and have someone give themselves to you.
They are not necessarily in the order of priority, and it’s also helpful to
remember at this point that, while marriage is often thought of as a long-term,
hopefully a life-long state, it’s actually a temporary institution in the light
of eternity. Jesus makes that clear in Luke 20.
And when you think about it, it makes sense. In heaven there will be no need
to have more children, so procreation is not necessary.
In heaven, our relationships will be perfect, and so companionship and self-giving
are superseded.
So marriage is a temporary arrangement, it’s part of this world, and it’s partly
because we live in a sinful, fallen world that we actually need marriage. And
someone asked just this week: “If marriage is a temporary institution, why bother
with it? Why wrestle with marriage when there is none at the resurrection?”
It’s a good question, and it has a good answer! :
In a fallen world like ours marriage provides an essential structure for several
purposes:
a) For children, so they will be cared for properly in this world.
b) One that encourages and protects relationships that are deep and profound,
and that discourages our built in tendency to selfish behaviour that see us
drifting from one relationship to another as we feel like it.
c) One that encourages a giving approach to the relationship, where our tendency
is for a taking lifestyle.
So marriage while being a challenge, has some big pay-offs in this life.
The second we can say that marriage is :
2. Marriage is reinforced and supported by Jesus
In Matthew 19 Jesus is asked about divorce, and straight away, he starts talking
about marriage. In v4 he takes the Pharisees straight back to Genesis “Haven’t
you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and
female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and
be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?” (NIV)
In doing that, it’s interesting in the current climate, to note that Jesus is
reinforcing that marriage is strictly heterosexual.
This week the Chief Minister of the ACT will introduce legislation to recognise
same-sex civil marriages – the first in Australia. The world is very keen on
the idea that homosexual relationships should have the same status as heterosexual
unions, and the supporters of such moves even within churches, often point out
that Jesus never taught against homosexuality. But they’re wrong.
He did - in the sense that he declares that a relationship that is to be exclusive,
permanent and sexual is to be a heterosexual one. A man will leave his father
and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. There is
no place in biblical thinking for gay marriages or even gay ‘unions’. Are we
being homophobic? Well, I can’t speak for you, but I’m not. Are we being judgemental
against homosexuals? Perhaps. But I would always want to separate judging the
act or the lifestyle from judging the person.
The third thing we can say about marriage is that:
3. Marriage is dangerous… and wonderful
Getting married is easy. Perhaps too easy – I am happy to confess now that
when I married at a month shy of my 22nd birthday, I was pretty insecure
and immature in many ways. There wasn’t much good bible teaching on the subject
where I was and numerous people tried to talk us into waiting. But God was very
gracious, and gave me a wife who was not only a firm Christian, but who has
stuck by me all this time, some 27 years, 9 weeks and 3 days later. It’s been
and continues to be a wonderful thing, and I’m very grateful to God for every
moment of that time.
But marriage is also dangerous. In that it is very easy for Christians to slip
into marrying like the world does. That is, it’s is easy for us Christians to
look to the worlds values when we approach marriage.
What does the world look for? Well according a ‘relationships blog’ on the SMH
site called “Sam and the city” that attracts hundreds of comments each day,
women of the world today are attracted by men who have:
1. Means - wealth, possessions, etc.
2. Power - including influence, leadership ability, etc.
3. Fame
4. Looks
5. Exclusivity, - ie how hard a guy is to obtain. Eg royalty, already married,
or just someone you know you SHOULDN'T be with.
6. Personality – ie: humour, creativity, intelligence and mystique.
Mind you, that was written by a guy!
So there’s the danger that we look for the physically attractive partner, the
one with a healthy bank balance, or with the personality that we think is wonderful,
and all the other things that people in the world tick off as being the important
things in a marriage relationship.
In doing that, we have forgotten the qualities that the Bible tells us are most
important when it comes to making decisions about who to marry. We mentioned
some of these last week:
Is the person a believer?
Are they a keen believer, enthusiastic for the things of God?
Will they encourage me?
Will they help me model the gospel?
Will they help me seek first Gods’ Kingdom? - this really is the biggy, because
there are stacks of Christian couples who are only too happy seeking first the
world, Churches full of couples doing exactly what the world does.
Another major question to consider: will the person I want to marry help me
to create a home and environment which will be good to bring children up in?
A praying home, a bible-reading home, a trusting, obeying, repenting, forgiving
environment. A huge question.
The answers to all those questions should make it absolutely clear the foolishness
of getting into relationships with unbelievers.
Unless you have experienced it, you will have no idea of the suffering when
a serious Christian marries an unbeliever.
When that happens you have a relationship with two people, but each on a different
ship, steaming in different directions. One ship is sailing under the flag of
Christ, the other under the flag of self, and they’re heading to two different
destinations.
You have to be on the same ship, saluting the same flag.
But when we get those kinds of issues sorted, marriage becomes just the most
wonderful thing! When we are of one mind and one heart with our spouse, there
are few things better in this world.
But it is a most dangerous institution when we marry like pagans, for all the
wrong reasons.
The fourth thing we can say that marriage is:
4. Marriage is equal but different
The best known passage about marriage is perhaps in Ephesians chapter 5, and
it sheds a great deal of light on what a Christian marriage looks like. It’s
the passage that was read earlier, Ephesians 5:15-33.
It’s built around the idea of submission. That we are to be submissive to one
another, and we do that because we have already submitted to Christ (v21), then
Paul continues with words to wives submitting to their husbands – some of the
most misunderstood words in Scripture today. Taken in some marriage ceremonies
as being the same as ‘Wives obey your husbands’, but in fact, these words means
nothing like that.
These words are hard to nail down to a clear ‘do this, don’t do that’ situation,
but what is clear is that Christian wives are to be facilitators of their husbands’
leadership. The counter balance to this is in v25: “Husbands, love your wives,
just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (NIV)
It’s a mistake to assume that submission is the opposite of equality in a relationship.
The bible makes clear that God has made marriage to be an equal partnership.
For male and female, husband and wife have equal worth, equal dignity before
God.
In marriage, the sense of oneness of man and woman, the sense of partnership,
of equality should be strengthened. And the wife submitting to the husband doesn't
mean she's inferior.
It doesn't mean she is less able. It doesn't mean her wishes can be ignored.
But it does recognise that in any partnership there must be order, that people
have different roles. That someone must be ultimately responsible for making
decisions, for taking a lead.
God has given that responsibility to guide, direct, encourage, to lead, to the
husband. But note, the husband is never told that he has ‘authority’ here, rather
he is told to be a ‘lover’ – of course, not simply in the sexual sense, rather
he is told to exercise his leadership by setting up an environment in which
his wife will grow in every way, and he is to live in such a way that he is
a pleasure to follow.
We husbands have to think very hard about how we are to live and conduct ourselves
that will cause our wives to blossom and flourish.
And wives, in turn, are called to respect that by submitting.
And they are called to do so positively and eagerly - not grudgingly. In fact
they are to submit to their husbands in the same way as Christians willingly
submit to Christ as Lord -
Now that may sound tough and somewhat one-sided. But what should make it easier is knowing that she submits to someone who loves her. And if the husband is doing his part, his love for his wife will also be quite radical in it’s nature – as radical as Christ’s love for us, his church.
And guys, we will be held accountable before God for our headship and leadership in these matters.
The issue of who wears the pants in a marriage is a dangerous one, but it’s a spiral issue. If a husband gives godly leadership, a wife is more secure, and she enables him to lead well, and in turn he enables her to grow well, and there is a spiralling upwards.
But if the husband leads badly, or the wife insists on seizing that leadership role, spiritually, there is a spiral downwards. He is always wrestling for the leadership, she is always grabbing for the leadership, and the struggle goes downwards.
To wind up, a few practical thoughts on being married:
- It’s not the goal of life. Never was, never will be.
- Choose a godly person, and shun the world’s standards of ‘good looking’, well off, good career, etc.
- If your future partner is pushing you for sex before marriage you either have a compromiser or a baby Christian. And if that’s the case they are not the mature believer that you should probably be seeking. We spoke last week about the goal of all of us being living as godly a life as possible, and that goes for these relationships as much as anything else.
- Work on building the bond of your marriage, on strengthening the relationship with each other. Apart form the pleasure you will gain from that, you will strengthened for the next point:
- When trials and difficulties hit in your marriage (and they will) seek to push on through those times with growth in mind. Romans 5:2-5 says: “…And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (NIV). Seeing troubles as opportunities for God to work in us, may sound difficult, but it’s a lot better than chucking the marriage in at the first sign of difficult times.
- Spend time in ministry together. Keep talking, praying and thinking with your partner about how you can have the most biblical home and ministry together. Don’t get sucked into the world’s habits of asking ‘how much can we make?’, can we afford a bigger/better house? When’s our next overseas trip?, etc, etc. Rather ask: “How can we seek first the Kingdom?”, “how can we have the most fruitful marriage?”
Before I invite your questions and comments, during the week I canvassed some questions on this topic. Some have been addressed, but here are some that haven’t:
- How do you focus on the marriage to come when the wedding is such a big deal?
- How do you cope with being so close to a person long-term?
- How do Christians balance being involved in ministry and spending time with their spouse?
