Selected Scripture
There was a popular TV series that lasted from 1971 to 1979. The title of the series was “All In The Family.” There were four main characters:
- Archie Bunker...father, gruff, bull-headed, bigoted, a chauvenist
- Edith Bunker...mother, humble, meek, naive, obedient, peacemaking
- Gloria...daughter, opinionated, feminist, stubborn like her father
- Mike…(called “Meathead” by Archie) son-in-law, “do-less” type, the antithesis of Archie
Do you remember that show? Maybe your family is a confusing mix of people like those in “All In The Family” and it makes you wonder if you’ll ever make it all work. Maybe you’re just looking for a way out of the mess of confusion in your marriage so as to alleviate your pain. You’ve begun to wonder if your life and marriage is ever going to turn around.
There’s a funny story about a man and his wife who owned a country grocery store. While delivering orders one day in his station wagon, the grocer accidentally injured an old lady. The lady sued and was awarded a large sum of money that forced him out of business.
After a few difficult years he managed to accumulate enough money to open another grocery store. But, a few months after opening, one of his delivery trucks struck an older gentleman. The man sued and collected a big settlement, enough to put the grocer out of business a second time.
One day, on a peaceful Sunday afternoon the grocer was sitting in his living room when his little boy entered and cried out, “Dad, Dad, Mom’s been run over by a great big bus.”
The grocer’s eyes filled with tears, and in a trembling voice he said, “Thank the Lord, my luck’s changed at last.”
Well, I hope your marriage isn’t that bad or that you’d fail to mourn your wife being run over by a “big bus.” But whatever shape your marriage is in, I think the subject matter of this series will be helpful to us all. This isn’t going to be an exhaustive study of all things related to family life, but we will deal with some foundational issues that can help strengthen your marriages.
The scripture is clear that…
“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” (Psalm 127:1 ESV)
We need the Lord’s grace and wisdom to build strong families that impact our communities, schools, churches, world, etc.
What we’ll talk about today has to do with what a Christian marriage looks like. And, perhaps we should begin with a simple definition: “A Christian marriage is one where there is a mutual commitment of both husband and wife to Christ and His truth for life.”
If we break down this definition of a Christian marriage, it looks something like this:
A Christian marriage is one where both husband and wife…
1. Receive Christ
- For those of you who are not yet married, God commands that your future marriage only be to another believer that is growing in Christ. When Christ is the center of your home then you share a (spiritual) dimension in marriage that unbelievers simply cannot experience or even understand. There is an inner conviction and power to love more completely the one God has given to you in marriage. To marry outside of Christ is to circumvent the blessings God desires you to know in marriage. Can you imagine loving someone your whole life knowing that he/she is going to be separated from God forever? Can you think of spending a lifetime together only to realize that when one or the other dies, it is a goodbye forever?
“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14)
“A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 7:39)
One young lady was heard to pray on her wedding day…
“Dear God, I can hardly believe that this is my wedding day. I know I haven’t been able to spend much time with you lately, with all the rush of getting ready for today, and I’m truly sorry. I guess, too, that I feel a little guilty when I try to pray about all this, since Larry still isn’t a Christian. But, oh, Father, I love him so much, what else can I do? I just couldn’t give him up. Oh, You must save him, somehow, someway.
“You know how much I’ve prayed for him, and the way we’ve discussed the Gospel together. I’ve tried not to appear too religious, I know, but that’s because I didn’t want to scare him off. Yet he isn’t antagonistic and I can’t understand why he hasn’t responded. Oh, if he only were a Christian.
“Dear Father, please bless our marriage. I don’t want to disobey You, but I do love him and I want to be his wife, so please be with us and please don’t spoil our wedding day.”
Though that prayer sounds sincere and earnest, when stripped of it’s pious language, it really says something like this:
“Dear Father, I don’t want to disobey You, but I must have my own way at all costs. For I love what You do not love, and I want what You do not want. So please be a good God and deny Yourself, and move off Your throne, and let me take over. If You don’t like this, then all I ask is that You bite Your tongue and say or do nothing that will spoil my plans, but let me enjoy myself.”
- For those of you that are already married and your spouse isn’t yet a believer, then your daily prayer and greatest desire ought to be that God would use you to reach your spouse with the Gospel. You can’t hide your faith or fail to show him/her what it truly means to follow Christ and how that changes a person’s entire outlook on life and the life after. Through quiet obedience and a testimony of faith you must be asking God to convict and draw your spouse to Himself.
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…” (John 1:12)
“For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” (Romans 10:13)
A Christian marriage is one where both husband and wife…
2. Adore Christ
“And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” (Matthew 22:37)
A Christian marriage is one where husband and wife love Christ above anyone or anything else in life. The hardest thing for some people to understand is how loving God more than loving your spouse helps you love your spouse more...but it does! You are able to love them with a love you did not have apart from Christ and He is able to love them through you. One of the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE! It is the God of love in you that helps you to love like He loves.
“And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.” (Romans 5:5 NLT)
Think of it this way, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.” --Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The qualities of love that are found in 1 Corinthians 13 are perfectly demonstrated in Christ. Now that Christ lives in us as His children we have the ability to love more fully and deeply than ever before.
A Christian marriage is one where both husband and wife…
3. Obey Christ
A Christian marriage is one where God’s Word governs every aspect of the couple’s lives together: relationships, activities, ambitions, decisions, attitudes, etc. The greatest desire of a Christian is to obey Christ from the heart. If there isn’t the desire to submit to Christ and follow His Word, there is something terribly wrong spiritually in your life.
Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
Jesus gave a powerful analogy about those who claim to love Him, but don’t obey Him. Listen to His words in a modern translation of Luke 6:46-49.
“So why do you keep calling me ‘Lord, Lord!’ when you don’t do what I say? I will show you what it’s like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then follows it. It is like a person building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against that house, it stands firm because it is well built. But anyone who hears and doesn’t obey is like a person who builds a house without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house, it will collapse into a heap of ruins.” (Luke 6:46-49 NLT)
Strong Christian marriages (the kind that stand the test of time and storms) are built on obedience to the scripture and its truth!!
A Christian marriage is one where both husband and wife…
4. Worship Christ
There used to be a phrase that said, “The family that worships together, stays together.” Sure, we can all point to some couples that worshipped together on Sunday’s whose marriage didn’t make it, but the percentages of successful marriages increases significantly when husband and wife are both worshipping the Lord together.
Too many couples leave the church in pursuit of things that don’t draw them closer to Christ (careers, amusement, travel, pleasure, etc.). And, too often, these things prove not to be stepping stones, but stumbling blocks to their spiritual lives and marriages.
“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
Jim worked and live in a small town that had hardly changed over the years of his life. He, his wife, and their three children were the prize family in their church. But, no one was surprised when they learned that Jim had been offered a job in a large, distant city. SHortly before they left for their new home, their little church gave him and his family a going away party and sent them off with prayers and good wishes. You can imagine the surprise a few months later when Jim and his family returned to the little town he had known most of his life and found a job doing what he had done before he left. Someone asked him about his return to which he responded: “We couldn’t find a good church or Sunday school in the area where we lived. People there were too busy making money, gambling, and drinking to even need the church.” He said, “Our kids cried for Sunday school and church back home. I couldn’t raise my children that way and my wife felt that way, too.”
It probably won’t surprise you to know that several months after returning home that Jim received a new position with the company, But, even if he hadn’t, he knew his priorities and he lived by them.
Be reminded of the clear teaching of scripture about the gathering of believers: “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:25 NLT)
A Christian marriage is one where both husband and wife…
5. Model Christ
A Christian marriage is one where both husband and wife model Christian living before others (especially their children) and are not ashamed to be identified with Christ. It doesn't bother them to bow their heads in public for prayer, to display conduct that identifies them as followers of Jesus, to stand for what is morally and biblically right, and to be known as Christians in their community.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16)
A Christian marriage is one where both husband and wife…
6. Instill Christ
If God has chosen to give a couple children, a Christian marriage is one where husband and wife together raise their children for the glory of God. They agree that their primary calling is to disciple their children and hand off the faith to each of them. Their greatest desire isn’t for their children to win scholarships, earn scholastic recognition, have a trophy case full of hardware they’ve won, graduate with a college degree, get into an Ivy League school, etc. Their highest goal is to bring their children to Christ and train them how to follow Jesus for themselves.
“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)
…and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:15)
Closing:
One of my favorite biographies is about the life of Peter Marshall who was twice elected as the Chaplain of the United States Senate. Dr. Marshall gave these words of wisdom about a Christian marriage:
“We are souls living in bodies. Therefore when we really fall in love, it isn’t just physical attraction. If it is just that, it won’t last. Ideally, it’s also spiritual attraction. God has opened our eyes and let us see into someone’s soul. We have fallen in love with the inner person, the person who is going to live forever. That’s why God is the greatest asset to romance. He thought it up in the first place. Include Him in every part of your marriage, and He will lift it above the level of the mundane to something rare and beautiful and lasting.”
